Stiv Wilson is not much of an exfoliator.
Mr. Wilson, a 42-year-old environmental advocate, lives on a sailboat, wears flip-flops and doesn’t care much for personal care products like fancy creams and moisturizers. But to the companies that make those products, some of the largest corporations in the world, Mr. Wilson tends to be more abrasive than the scrubs they sell.
For more than two years, Mr. Wilson, director of campaigns at the nonprofit group The Story of Stuff Project, has helped lead the fight against microbeads, tiny plastic balls used in face washes, moisturizers and toothpaste, which activists say wind up in the nation’s lakes and rivers. On Friday, the California State Assembly approved a measure to outlaw the use of the particles in what could become the strictest ban in the country.
Microbeads look like tiny, colorful dots suspended in cleansers and other personal care items. Manufacturers like Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble advertise their exfoliating power, offering consumers a little luxury in the form of a D.I.Y. mini-facial.
But when the beads are rinsed off, they flow through pipes and drains and into the water. By the billions.
The effect is similar to grinding up plastic water bottles, other products of concern to environmentalists, and pumping them into oceans and lakes. But because microbeads are small enough to be ingested by fish and other marine life, they can carry other pollutants into the food chain.
“Kind of like the Trojan horse effect,” said Dave Andrews, a senior scientist with the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. “You’re increasing the quantity that’s ending up in the lower organisms, and then they could make their way up the food chain.”
Water treatment plants cannot process the nearly 19 tons of microbeads that may be washing into New York’s wastewater every year, according to a recent report from the office of the state’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman. The State Assembly has approved a proposal from Mr. Schneiderman’s office to ban microbeads, but the bill has stalled in the State Senate.
Four states — Illinois, Maine, New Jersey and Colorado — have enacted legislation to restrict the use of microbeads, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, while bills are pending in others, including Michigan, Minnesota, Washington and Oregon. If the California bill becomes law, the state would ban not only synthetic particles but the biodegradable ones that many companies have been developing as alternatives.
Environmentalists like Mr. Wilson say many of those bills do not go far enough, because they allow companies to come up with biodegradable, but insufficiently tested, alternatives. There is not enough evidence to show that these new microbeads dissolve in the natural marine ecosystem, they say.
One such alternative, polylactic acid, can degrade faster than other plastics, but only under extreme heat and other conditions not typically found in marine environments, environmental advocates say.
“Everything on earth is biodegradable on a geological time scale,” Mr. Wilson said. “It’s not biodegradable in a meaningful time frame.”
Lisa Powers, a spokeswoman for the Personal Care Products Council, an industry trade group, said in an email, “There is considerable global, cutting-edge research efforts focused on developing biodegradable plastics in accordance with internationally accepted standards.”
The trade group removed its objections to the California proposal and has a “neutral” stance, Ms. Powers said.
The bill is Mr. Wilson’s second chance to win the war against microbeads in California. An earlier attempt passed the State Assembly but failed by one vote in the State Senate last year. The bill that passed in the Assembly this week contained concessions that supporters hope will improve its chances in the State Senate.
In March, Representatives Fred Upton, a Republican from Michigan, and Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, introduced federal legislation to ban synthetic plastic microbeads effective in January 2018.
But environmental advocates may get their way even if only a few large states enact such bans. Consumer product companies cannot afford to make multiple versions of the same product and could decide to manufacture the version that will pass muster under the strictest state standard.
“The only way that federal legislation is going to pass is if the environmentalists, wastewater and industry all agree on a policy, and we haven’t gotten there yet,” said Mr. Wilson, who has helped draft similar legislation in a number of states. “You don’t need a federal solution to this on a global scale.”
Consumers have more outlets than ever to voice concerns about products, particularly online, where a whisper of danger can turn into a roar. Seeing the effect on their sales, manufacturers have increasingly faced pressure to respond to those concerns.
But reformulating products to remove objectionable ingredients can be time-consuming and expensive. And companies say they do not want microbead legislation that limits them further.
“We believe the current bill in California is overly restrictive, inhibits innovation and does not allow for current and future advancements in biodegradable exfoliate alternatives,” said Carol Goodrich, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson, in an email. In 2013, Johnson & Johnson pledged to remove polyethylene microbeads, the most common type of microbeads, from its personal care products by 2017.
Procter & Gamble, another global consumer products giant, has made a similar pledge. Unilever, the multinational consumer goods company, phased out the use of plastic microbeads from its Dove soaps and other products at the beginning of the year.
More than 3,000 products now contain polyethylene, according to the Environmental Working Group’s online database.
Mango Materials, a start-up based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is developing what it hopes is a promising, environmentally friendly microbead alternative. The new ingredient would be polyhydroxyalkanoate, or PHA, a naturally occurring plastic produced by mushrooms.
The PHAs could dissolve in many marine ecosystems within a month, said Molly Morse, chief executive and co-founder of Mango Materials.
But while she supports initiatives to make California safer, she is concerned that the proposed bill might ban her product, too.
“The wording of the bill makes me nervous,” Ms. Morse said in a phone interview. “I’m a small business with employees, and we love this application and we’re thoroughly motivated by the positive effects our product can have on the environment.”
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