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A WORLDWIDE BAN OF microbeads in cosmetics should be enforced as soon as possible, a group of British MPs said yesterday.
Microbeads are tiny balls of plastic – smaller than 5mm but usually between 0.0004-1.24 mm wide – which are most common in soaps, shower gels and facial scrubs, used to exfoliate your skin. They are also found in some toothpastes and abrasive cleaners.
The chair of Britain’s Environmental Audit Committee, Mary Creagh, told the BBC:
“Trillions of tiny pieces of plastic are accumulating in the world’s oceans, lakes and estuaries, harming marine life and entering the food chain. A single shower can result in 100,000 plastic particles entering the ocean.
Cosmetic companies’ voluntary approach to phasing out plastic microbeads simply won’t wash. We need a full legal ban.
Microbeads are non-biodegradable, which is what makes them so harmful to all forms of wildlife and ecosystems.
So are there plans, policies or legislation about to be enacted by government and the scattered Environment portfolio to ban plastic microbeads?
It doesn’t look like it.
Although the Department for Housing, Planning and Local Government says that Ireland supports “the principle of banning of microbeads”, they say a timeframe is needed before a blanket ban is introduced so that the “industry has time to adapt”.
According to the Department:
It is important that any such proposal should be clearly limited to cosmetics and detergents at this time. There are legitimate medical and veterinary uses for micro-plastics in pharmaceuticals, for example, so we need to avoid any unintended consequences of such a ban.
Are there any alternatives to micro-plastics?
The Department says that it would “support the development of natural or biodegradable alternatives. A wide range of these are already being used by cosmetic firms”.
The Department did warn, however, that a “short enough timeframe” would need to be put in place to research safe alternatives to micro-plastic beads:
Naturally occurring alternatives could potentially impact upon the active ingredients of medicines, or hypoallergenic alternatives may not have been identified.
How we compare internationally
The US and Canada have already banned the use of microbeads last year.
In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Microbead-Free Waters Act, which ”prohibits the manufacture and introduction into interstate commerce of rinse-off cosmetics containing intentionally-added plastic microbeads.”
The Canadian government officially added microbeads to Canada’s list of toxic substances in June of this year. The manufacture and import of cosmetics with microbeads will be phased out by the end of 2017 and by the end of 2018 there will be a total ban on selling those products.
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Thanks for the kind comments. The “deals” business has become very… murky lately. We didnt want to get into that sort of business but its very hard to compete with underhand practices so we chose to wind up that part of the business the same way we have operated, cleanly and with no one getting hurt. As a director, I’m proud of the executive team and what they accomplished, its just time for us to bow out of the business before the whole industry gets… messy.
All the affected staff are being snapped up by other companies in the Distilled group and needless to say we wish them the very best.
?? That’s a strange comment! I know the owner of a deals website that is doing very well and he is totally above board, I’ve also been on the opposite end of offering deals through a website. The fact that some websites insisted on 50%, non negotiable, made the deal impossible offer, hence the lack of variety in some of the sites. It’s not so much a murky industry but one that needs to realise getting rich quick these days in this country isn’t going to happen. As they say look after the customer and the money will look after itself, such a shane another business is gone!
I strongly disagree with the shady comment.
It’s well known that BD were operating on commission percentages between 15 & 25%
If you have a deal selling for €40 & you sell 100 of them, with a 20% commission your take is less than €800 for the day.
BD tried (badly) to monitize an existing subscriber base & as pointed out above, ended up burning some goodwill.
It was a badly executed exercise. Having said that at least they had the balls to pull out before it dragged down the entire DM group
Shady comment? Oh please! The deals business is a great business and I hope it stays. I know for a fact that there is a lot of price fixing amongst certain businesses so the more competition the better. The fact is when the recession hit people were looking for great deals, rightly so and the deals business blossomed. They hit companies with rediculas percentages that were unsustainable. Prices in general came down and now there is better value in general therefore deals companies needed to move along with that trend. Some didn’t, that’s their downfall. Unfortunately just like during the boom, businesses didn’t realise it wouldn’t last and like the initial downfall some companies took advantage of that, not realising that that first initial drop wouldn’t last either and burnt bridges. It’s unfortunates but the deals business is still going strong, thank god for the consumer, as for some businesses? Lesson learnt!
Sad to hear as It was a great site and if you ever had a problem they were second to none in sorting it out. The deals market has been severely diluted by the sheer amount of sites operating tot the detriment of both the customer and the business involved.
Have to agree, the other frustrating thing about deals websites is the vast vast majority of deals appear to be just beauty treatments and nights in hotels, these get old very fast and the beauty items are generally just aimed at women.
Awful shame men appear to be ignored so much
The other thing that I’ve found is that they’re quite deceitful. The deal could be €60 for one night B&B in a 3 star in Lahinch with a glass of vino but when you log on to Roomex or hotels.com, you can get the same deal except in a 4 star & for another €20 throw in a dinner.
They’d one recently for dinner for two people that was worth €90 but yours just €40 (roughly). Anyways, I went on the restaurants site & their price list was up- unless you were planning on ordering two fillet steaks, there’s no way it would come anywhere close to their alleged RRP. Cowboys Ted.
Is that the IT guy on the far left?
Stereotype much?:) That’s Dav. Boards community manager. @Shiminay
hahah, I used to work as a Sys Admin and a Software Engineer, my nerd heritage will always be with me :p
I’m not sure it’s the quality of the deals that are killing these enterprises. I think people have awoken to the fact that they’re not actually saving any money (unless they get a deal on something they were planning to buy, or really need).
If you weren’t going to spend it in the first place, then that’s not saving money.
Any enterprise that bases it’s model on impulse buying will generally have a short shelf life, as the consumer soon cottons onto it.
Pity, they were by far the best run of those splurge of sites.
Great way to bow out, call time on the industry and a shot across competitors. Nothing to do of course with a woeful brand name and gradually deteriorating selection of offers. Stay classy!
Agreed mark. Classy indeed……. Let’s remember guys that just because boards deals doesn’t like the daily deals space doesn’t mean it is doomed. Far from it I would say. It will evolve and change and definitely deal quality will be a must. As a consumer I love deals. U just gotta sift through them. I read somewhere that the market is something like 8 million each month in Dublin alone :-O And let’s not forget the jobs that this sector is creating both within itself and in associated businesses.
In fairness, it’s not as if boards deals didn’t have its small share of badly handled deals either. They also managed to squander almost all of their boards.ie good will at various points.
It is a shame though, as conceived boards deals had fantastic potential to become a community oriented deals site that offered customers more than just €40 Off a hair colouring or spa treatment.
They’re right about the shelf life of this type of web site. Best of luck to all involved in the site. A great bunch of folks!
I agree-han ^
Crowded marketplace… No room for a ‘me too’ service. The 1/4 of those websites that survive will be the ones who establish a record of quality offerings now.
Hence the banner ads on Boards.ie?
A lot of companies are using Facebook. I presume it costs them nothing. I see a couple of hotels with deals on it lately and you can see how many people took up the offer.
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