{"id":461,"date":"2023-06-12T12:28:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-12T06:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/?p=461"},"modified":"2024-04-03T07:15:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T01:45:37","slug":"q-why-is-there-a-great-concern-about-the-microbeads-that-are-released-into-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/upsc\/q-why-is-there-a-great-concern-about-the-microbeads-that-are-released-into-environment","title":{"rendered":"Q. Why is there a great concern about the \u2018microbeads\u2019 that are released into environment?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"mcq wp-block-list\">\n<li>They are considered harmful to marine ecosystems.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They are considered to cause skin cancer in children.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They are small enough to be absorbed by crop plants in irrigated fields.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They are often found to be used as food adulterants.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Answer: (a) They are considered harmful to marine ecosystems.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Notes:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Microbeads<\/strong>&nbsp;are&nbsp;<strong>manufactured solid plastic particles<\/strong>&nbsp;of&nbsp;<strong>less than one millimeter<\/strong>&nbsp;in their largest dimension.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They are most frequently&nbsp;<strong>made of polyethylene<\/strong>&nbsp;but can be of&nbsp;<strong>other petrochemical plastics&nbsp;<\/strong>such as&nbsp;<strong>polypropylene and polystyrene.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They are&nbsp;<strong>used in exfoliating personal care products, toothpastes<\/strong>&nbsp;and in&nbsp;<strong>biomedical<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>health-science research<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Microbeads can&nbsp;<strong>cause plastic particle water pollution<\/strong>&nbsp;and pose an&nbsp;<strong>environmental hazard for aquatic animals<\/strong>&nbsp;in freshwater and ocean water.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the US, the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 phases out microbeads in rinse off cosmetics by July 2017. The&nbsp;<strong>Netherlands was the first country to ban cosmetic microbeads in 2014.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Microbeads are washed down the drain, can pass unfiltered through the sewage treatment plants and make their way into rivers and canals, resulting in&nbsp;<strong>plastic particle water pollution.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>A variety of wildlife, from small fish, amphibians and turtles to birds and larger mammals, mistake microbeads for their food source.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This ingestion of plastics introduces the potential for toxicity not only to these animals but to other species higher in the food chain.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Greenpeace refers to it as a \u201ctoxic time bomb\u201d.<\/strong>&nbsp;Once in the marine environment microplastics can both release and absorb toxins, which can then move throughout the foodchain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Microbead-1024x517.jpg\" alt=\"Microbeads\" class=\"wp-image-33141\" width=\"781\" height=\"394\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-_81d2a2-b2 .kt-block-spacer{height:40px;}.wp-block-kadence-spacer.kt-block-spacer-_81d2a2-b2 .kt-divider{border-top-width:2px;border-top-color:#eee;width:100%;border-top-style:solid;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_81d2a2-b2\"><div class=\"kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center\"><hr class=\"kt-divider\"\/><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Answer: (a) They are considered harmful to marine ecosystems. Notes:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[36],"years":[54],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-upsc","category-prelims","tag-environment","years-54"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":1,"label":"UPSC"},{"value":3,"label":"Prelims"}],"post_tag":[{"value":36,"label":"Environment"}],"years":[{"value":54,"label":"2019"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"LotusArise","author_link":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/author\/team-lotusarise"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":1,"name":"UPSC","slug":"upsc","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1269,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1,"category_count":1269,"category_description":"","cat_name":"UPSC","category_nicename":"upsc","category_parent":0},{"term_id":3,"name":"Prelims","slug":"prelims","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":1,"count":1251,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":1251,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Prelims","category_nicename":"prelims","category_parent":1}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":36,"name":"Environment","slug":"environment","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":36,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":193,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"years","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/years?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}