Mandurah researcher's microbead plea

The microbeads are made of non biodegradable plastics and can be found in rinse-off personal care products such as face exfoliants, body scrubs and toothpaste.

On December 15 last year the federal government said it would negotiate with companies to voluntarily remove all plastic microbeads from their products by no later than July 2018 with a legislative ban to come in after that date.

Researcher Cherrie Ann Fauntleroy said she wanted people to know what the beads looked like and how the big brands were ripping them off and also harming the community.

“I was oblivious to how harmful my products were until I read something on Facebook last year,” she said.

“Since then I have begun my campaign to educate the public on microbead-free alternatives.”

She said companies used the beads as cheap filler and nearly a quarter of the product could be plastic.

“According to my research the plastics are washed down our drains, moved through the wastewater treatment plants with a large percentage released directly into our waterways and sediments contributing to what has been dubbed the 'plastic soup',” Ms Fauntleroy said.

”Unfortunately, no waste water treatment plant in the world is equipped with filters fine enough to prevent this type of littering.”

Ms Fauntleroy said she grew up in Mandurah, with the waterways the most “beautiful and ideal place” which she wanted to help protect. 

“Coles, Woolworths and ALDI have recently recognised the environmental impact and agreed to remove these products from their shelves some time in 2017,” she said.  

“This still allows over two years for these plastics to be littered into our oceans unless we create awareness and make a change.

“We have no way of removing these plastics once they are in the environment.”

Non-biodegradable plastics can be identified on product labels as:

* Polyethylene (PE)

* Polypropylene (PP)

* Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)

* Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)