Leading beauty companies reject MPs’ call for microbead hearing

Some of the UK’s largest beauty brands have refused to answer questions about the environmental effects of plastic microbeads in their products before the parliamentary environmental audit committee. The committee will today hear evidence from cosmetics trade bodies about the polluting impact on the oceans of such microbeads. However, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal, Proctor & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser and Unilever have refused to attend the hearing. A recent poll indicated that two-thirds of the UK public supports a ban on the microbeads, 550m of which are believed to enter UK waters each day. The US has already instituted such a ban. Earlier today London and Whipsnade zoos said that they would cease to stock single use plastic water bottles in an attempt to limit plastic pollution.

Reducing plastic at visitor attractions

Plastic pollution is a significant and ever-growing threat to rivers and oceans. Approximately 13 million tonnes of plastic currently enter the ocean each year with devastating effects on marine wildlife. UK consumers alone get through 13 billion disposable plastic bottles per year – equivalent to 200 per person – and only half of these are currently recycled, with the remainder usually ending up in landfill.

As part of the #OneLess campaigns, we want to see not only Zoo visitors, but all Londoners ditching single-use plastic water bottles, and instead drinking from refillable bottles.

ZSL’s Head of Commercial Kathryn England said: “We welcome more than one million visitors a year to London Zoo, and that’s one million people we can inspire to help protect the world’s oceans.

“By removing single-use plastic water bottles from our shelves, we’re not only reducing our own impact on the oceans, but opening our visitors’ eyes to the problem and showing them how easy it can be to adopt more sustainable alternatives.”

Sustainability at Tiny giants