How much are whiter teeth and smoother skin worth to you? Are they worth the water and fish in the Great Lakes? The cormorants that nest along the shore? The coral reefs that provide refuge and habitat for so much ocean life? Are they worth the oceans that give us half the oxygen we breathe, or the myriad other creatures the seas support?
If you use personal-care products such as exfoliators, body scrubs and toothpastes containing microbeads, those are the costs you could be paying. The tiny bits of plastic—less than five millimetres in diameter, and usually from one-third to one millimetre—are used as scrubbing agents. Now they’re turning up everywhere, especially in oceans, lakes, and along shorelines. They aren’t biodegradable.
