Microbeads: what shoud we do as responsible consumers?

by Javier

The article" Eight trillion microbeads pollute aquatic habitats every day" tell us about the environmental problem that is being caused by products that use microbeads. Microbeads, small plastic particles that are used mostly in personal care products, are severly polluting aquatics habitats.

In order to face this  environmental problem that the article describes, the best choice to make as an individual consumer is to stop buying products that are conflicting with your higher moral values. Thus, if you consider that harming marine wildlife is morally wrong and that these products do not help to protect more important values, you should stop using them. According to the article, the use of products containing microbeads causes that, daily, 8 trillion microbeads enter aquatic habitats in the U.S. Furthermore, that number only represents 1 percent of the total number that is being dumped daily; the other 99% normally end up, one way or another, polluting waterways as well. That proves that using that products with microbeads are dangerous to marine wildlife. Do these products help or are important to protect higher values? It seems not to be the case. Most of these products are cosmetics, or personal care products, that are not essential for human life and that can be replaced or made with different and less harmful elements. As a consequence, it seems clear that we need to stop buying these products. The reason we need to make that choice is because it is the morally right thing to do. Protecting marine wildlife, in this case, is more important that using cosmetic products that can be replaced by other less harmful. The choice would be totally different, if, for example, the products we were referring to were important medicines that save many patients' lives.

There is an importat distinction that has to be made. The claim that it is morally correct to stop buying the product is very different than the claim that the product should be banned. It is the the difference between the moral aspect and the legal aspect, that should be analyzed with different theories. A product should be banned only if it is harmful to other individual's rights, and the article does not prove that.

The morally right thing you should do as a consumer is stop buying these products. One can think that one consumer's decision has an insignificant impact on choices that corporation make, but this is not true. If everybody thought that way, change would be more difficult to make in society. If many consumers decide not to buy a product, that would send an important message to the manufacturer, and, in order to keep the business profitable, they may begin to care more about environmental issues.