Governor signs bill making Illinois first state to ban microbeads
Source: Chicago Tribune
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation Sunday banning the manufacture and sale of personal care products containing synthetic plastic microbeads.
“Banning microbeads will help ensure clean waters across Illinois and set an example for our nation to follow,” Quinn said. “Lake Michigan and the many rivers and lakes across our state are among our most important natural resources. We must do everything necessary to safeguard them.”
The new law bans the manufacture of personal care products containing microbeads by the end of 2017, the sale of personal care products and the manufacture of over the counter drugs by the end of 2018, and the sale of over the counter drugs by the end of 2019.
Environmentalists have said the non-biodegradable plastic particles used as exfoliants in many facial cleansers and soaps slip through sewage system filters and pile up in waterways, where they suck up toxins and harm wildlife. Preliminary studies in Lake Michigan have found millions of microbeads.
Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-governor-signs-bill-making-illinois-first-state-to-ban-microbeads-20140608,0,2136529.story
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The shelf life of plastics may be a lot longer than originally believed. It survives Arctic ice entrapment and having tons of weight on it in landfills. Now, on Hawaii’s shores, plastic is being found in rock form. The components of a new type of rock include sand, seashells, volcanic rock, coral and plastic.
A geologist at London, Canada’s University of Western Ontario, Patricia Corcoran and the captain of Alguita, an oceanographic research ship, Charles Moore, made their discovery on a Big Island beach. They are calling these rocks “plastiglomerates.” In GSA Today this month, they published a report regarding their findings. The two scientists believe that the rocks are formed when humans melt plastic in their campfires.
The scientists do point out, however, that wherever a hot enough heat source is present in the same place as large amounts of plastic waste, the potentiality is there for plastiglomerates to form. Lava flows and forest fires would be ideal. Still hot, melted plastic works as a sort of glue, binding together whatever else is in the vicinity. In the right circumstances, the melted plastic can pour into the crevices and cracks in large rocks.
http://guardianlv.com/2014/06/a-new-rock-in-hawaii-is-made-of-plastic/
