EU ban on microplastics in cosmetics: too slow and too limited
Cosmetics companies selling personal care products without microplastics are calling for the swift introduction of a total ban in an open letter.
Submitted letter in The Times from Plastic Soup Foundation and A Plastic Planet
22 April 2020
Polluting the environment with even more plastic is not the right answer to the corona crisis. In recent weeks, the plastics industry worldwide has lobbied heavily to get measures against the use of disposable plastic off the table. Without any scientific evidence, it is suggested that plastic is the safest material in times of crisis.
More than twenty scientists, politicians, and campaigners warn governments in an open letter published today in The Times not to listen to the plastics industry. The Plastic Health Coalition coordinated the letter.
Listen to science
Plastic Soup Foundation is one of the initiators. Director Maria Westerbos: ‘We have to listen to science. The evidence that plastic and its additives are harmful to our health is piling up’. Sian Sutherland of A Plastic Planet, the other initiator: ‘Now more than ever before world leaders must employ the same cool hard logic when it comes to protecting the environment from some of the worst excesses of big business.’
Prominent advocates
Prominent scientists, including Dr. Susan Shaw, founder, and director of the Shaw Institute, Professor Sascha Hooker of the University of St. Andrews, and Professor Julia Stegemann of University College London signed the letter. Politicians who signed the letter include Baroness Lister of Burtersett, Lord Hayward, Baroness Jolly, and Lord Loomba CBE. The famous English BBC presenter science Liz Bonnin is also one of the signatories.
Heavy lobby of the plastics industry
In America last month, the Plastics Industry Association wrote a letter to the US Department of Health and Social Affairs asking them to emphasize the safety of plastic because of the corona. Furthermore, this lobbying organization asked the ministry to speak out against the ban on single-use plastic products publicly.
The European trade association European Plastics Converters recently asked the European Commission to postpone the Single-Use Plastics (SUP) Directive for at least one year.
In the United Kingdom, the lobby was successful, where the ban on plastic straws and cotton swabs has been postponed by six months, according to a report in the Evening Standard.
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