This page is referenced by:

• 1 2016-02-09T10:23:28-08:00 From Statements to Debates: An Overview of the Microbead Controversy 51 plain 2016-04-03T13:43:24-07:00 My exploration into the controversy surrounding microbeads began when I discovered the environmental group called The Story of Stuff. This group produced a short 2-minute video outlining the negative impacts of microbeads in cosmetic products. After watching the video, I visited the organization's website to learn more about the issue; I found that a law had recently been passed in the state of California to ban the sale of cosmetic products containing microbeads. 
  
  
  The claim that caught my attention in this clip was:

  The biggest problem with microbeads is that they're designed to go down the drain. They're so small, most water treatment plants can't capture them so billions are ending up in our waterways everyday. And even worse, these tiny bits of plastic act like sponges soaking up the toxics around them so a single microbead can end up being a million times more toxic than the water around it. Once in our waterways, they get eaten by fish and other animals and could make their way right back to your sushi! 

  This video from The Story of Stuff claims that microbead harm does not end with animals in the ocean, the toxic damage can extend to humans as we ingest seafood from affected oceans and waterways. From this statement, I pulled four key terms: microbeads, toxicity, bioavailability, and sewage treatment.

  Microbeads: "Plastic pieces or fibres measuring less than 5mm" (Beat the Bead)
  
  Toxicity: "The degree to which a substance can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a substructure of the organism, such as a cell ( cytotoxicity) or an organ such as the liver (hepatotoxicity)." (Wikipedia)​
  
  Bioavailability: "The proportion of a drug or other substance that enters the circulation when introduced into the body and so is able to have an active effect." (Google)
  
  Sewage Treatment: "The process of removing contaminants from wastewater, primarily from household sewage. It includes physical, chemical, and biological processes to remove these contaminants and produce environmentally safe, treated wastewater (or treated effluent)." (Wikipedia)

  To gather more information on the current state of the microbead debate, I used the search engine Google and advanced searched “microbead”, "toxicity", "bioavailability" and "sewage treatment"; these key words produced a multitude of results (over 500,000). When I limited my search to news stories, and then looked at the first two pages of Google results, I was presented with articles that advocated against the use of microbeads in cosmetic products – there were no articles that supported the use of these tiny plastic beads. Some articles outlined the facts about microbeads (what they are, their environmental impacts, products that contain them, etc.), some were reaching out for support on the ban of microbeads, and others were factual articles examining laws and bills (either passed or in progress) to ban microbead sales. What’s more, some news stories even used their “microbead-free” products as a selling point – this reiterated to me the relevancy of this issue. Below are the top searches in google connected to the term "Microbeads" - as one can see many of the top searches are pertaining to microbeads in toothpastes which can be considered a cosmetic, personal use product. I believe this outlines some of the growing concerns from the general public surrounding microbeads and the adverse effects they may have on our environment.
  
  
  
  Next, I focused my research of this controversy to a specific debate. I once again used the advanced search option in Google to combine key terms "microbeads" and "California". I opted to focus on California as it is highlighted as a recent "victory" by The Story of Stuff. It is important to note that California is where The Story of Stuff operates. I believe that investigating the recent implimintation of law AB 888 in California will give insight to the processes involved in getting such powerful piece of legislature passed. 
  
  The results of this search lead to the controversy surrounding the implementation of law AB 888. This law states that starting on January 1, 2020 the sale of microbead products will be banned in the state of California. A person found guilty of breaking this new law could be subject to a civil penalty of up to $2,500 per day for each violation. In the state of California, the law must pass through a series of senates as a bill, receiving a majority vote at each level, until it reaches the final level - the assembly floor. If the bill then receives a majority vote at the assembly floor level it can then become a law. During this process there will be some senators for the ban of microbeads and some against - thus creating a controversy. The later aspects of this story map will explore the various players - from activist, to scientists, to senators - in this controversy and their stand point on the microbead debate.
  
  After getting an introduction into the microbead controversy through Google and the media, my next step was to dive into the debate amongst the so-called experts: the scientists. I conducted a search in the academic search engine Scopus. I searched the key term "microbeads" with a focus on article titles, abstracts and keywords. This search yielded over 4,000 results. As one can imagine this is an overwhelming amount of scholarly information to sift through - so i used a tool called ScienceScape​ to aid in visualizing and understanding the keywords, authors, and subject areas where microbeads were appearing. Below are some graphs that I extracted from Scopus to better depict how microbeads have been appearing in academia and the 'who, what, when, where, and how' of the scholarly history of the debate on microbeads.
  
  On the next page I have provided visual representation of my academic search on microbeads. I was interested to find just which countries, which areas of study, which universities, and even which authors were putting the greatest deal of effort into researching this topic. As depicted in the above graphics, biochemistry is a field of study that includes the greatest proportion of published microbead research, closely followed by other areas of science like engineering and material science. In the adjacent graph, one can see the ten most published authors on microbeads - some with over 45 published articles. I have provided a graphic that outlines documents published according to their university affiliation - the top university with over 90 published documents. Lastly, I was most interested to see which countries have documented the most research on the microbead topic. The United States appears to be at the forefront of legally banning microbead sales, so with little surprise, the United States ranked number one in published microbead documents.