Does my facial scrub contain microplastics?

Question

I was wondering if my facial scrub contains any microplastics. In particular, the tiny beads that are inside the soap, are they made of plastic? Are they polluting the waste water or they just decompose?

Find below the ingredients list: aqua (water), polysorbate 20, cellulose, cocamidopropylamine oxide, methylpropanediol, sodium lauroyl sarcosinate, carbomer, jojoba esters, ethylhexylglycerin, caprylyl glycol, butylene glycol, PEG-60 almond glycerides, nordihydroguaiaretic acid, oleanolic acid, polyquaternium-7, sodium hydroxide, phenylpropanol, mentha arvensis leaf oil, juniperus communis fruit oil, glycerin, CI 77007 (ultramarines).

Here is a link to the product: https://www.bionike.it/it_en/cleansing-gel-4406.html

Answer 1

Ingredients

I used beatthemicrobead.org to check the ingredients which gave the following:

The following ingredients are considered microplastics:

• carbomer: environmental impact article
• polyquaternium-7 (this seems to have sources saying it is & it isn't)

The following are considered "sceptical" microplastics, meaning synthetic polymers for which there is not enough information available

• polysorbate 20
• PEG-60 almond glycerides

BioNike Products

From the BioNike site here

As of the year 2017, we have replaced microplastic polyethylene granules in scrub products with microbeads made of cellulose, jojoba wax or the mineral perlite.

As of the year 2020, we have totally excluded the use of potential microplastics in our product development processes.

By 2023, approximately 95% of our rinse-off products will not contain ingredients potentially classifiable as microplastics.

By 2024, BioNike aims to eliminate ingredients potentially classifiable as microplastics from all its rinse-off products.

So it looks the company will eventually have their products microplastic free, but at the moment it appears that is does have microplastics in it

Further Reading On Microplastics

• This article Microplastics in cosmetics: what do you need to know? is quite a nice, concise read for environmental impact of products with microplastics. Hopefully this answers the part of your question about polluting waste water & the environment in general