International beauty and spa therapy standard-setter CIDESCO is calling on its global membership to replace skincare products containing microbeads with safer alternatives.

Plastic microbeads are used in products including scrubs, exfoliators, cleansers and soaps. There are concerns that these tiny exfoliators pollute our waters, and that fish mistake microbeads for food and ingest them. The Netherlands has banned the use of microbeads across the country, and the state of California in the US has passed a bill banning them as well.

“Plastic pollution has become a man-made global catastrophe,” said Anna-Cari Gund, president of CIDESCO. “As a worldwide organisation, we know that together our members can make a difference in helping to prevent this situation getting worse. We have therefore issued an appeal to all our members to review the products they are using and, where necessary, swap the products containing microbeads with safe alternatives.

Malkin, CEO of Planet First, a specialist in sustainable business practice, explained the issue. “You cannot remove microbeads from the environment as they are too small to catch in water treatment, and they don’t degrade,” he said. “The danger is that they will sit in our oceans and lakes forever to be ingested by fish and molluscs, damaging our ecosystems and entering our food chain.”