Warm welcome for earlier than expected plan to ban microbeads

New Zealand will ban the sale and manufacture of wash-off products containing plastic microbeads earlier than previously expected, Associate Environment Minister Scott Simpson says.

The ban will take effect six months after World Trade Organisation notification, which will take place when the regulations are gazetted in November. Microbeads will be fully banned in New Zealand by May 2018.

Environment Minister Nick Smith had earlier indicated the ban would not come into force until July next year.

About 100 personal care products in New Zealand contain the tiny plastic beads. It is estimated about 10,000 tonnes a year of plastic microbeads are used globally. They are usually used for exfoliation or polishing.

There are concerns about their impact on the marine environment, because they get through filtration systems and are ingested by marine life.

‘‘Microbeads pose a high risk to our aquatic and marine environments. They are too small to retrieve or recycle, do not biodegrade, and are mistaken by marine life for food, causing longterm damage to marine animals,’’ Simpson said.

Retailers have already taken steps to take microbeads off shop shelves.

New World, Pak’n Save and Four Square stores stopped selling all microbead products on July 1.

Foodstuffs and Countdown had already removed the beads from their own brand products.

Trisia Farrelly, a lecturer at Massey University and co-founder of the New Zealand Product Stewardship Council, welcomed the move. She has been vocal in her criticism of the harm caused by single-use plastics such as microbeads.

The seafood industry also welcomed the decision to widen the scope of the ban from just beauty products to all car, cleaning and household products using microbeads.