Warning: Don’t just pour them down the sink

YOU may have vowed never again to buy any products containing microbeads — but how do you get rid of the half-used bottles of shower gel or scrub already lining your bathroom shelves?

Don’t pour them down the sink or flush them down the lavatory. As most microbeads are too tiny to be filtered out by sewage plants — the majority are between 0.001mm and 1mm in size — they’ll just flow into our rivers and seas, fuelling the crisis. Instead, campaign group Beat The Microbead recommends that you post the product back to the manufacturer, with a letter telling them why you’re doing this and explaining that you won’t purchase any other products from them until they’ve guaranteed that their products are microbead-free.

A sample letter is available to download and print at beatthemicrobead.org.

Alternatively, experts suggest that the safest way to get rid of the product is to tighten its lid and simply put it in the rubbish bin. Microbeads cannot be recycled, and although this does mean the product will end up in a landfill site, the microbeads are unlikely to escape into the environment where they can cause far greater damage.

The most vital thing is to ensure they don’t go down the drain, into our oceans — and ultimately into our food chain.