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Title: 5 Facts Why people need to more concern about Personal care products and cosmetics
Author: natural green
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1)     What are personal care products and cosmetics? Personal care products are applied externally to the body for the following purp...

1)    What are personal care products and cosmetics?
Personal care products are applied externally to the body for the following purposes.
·        Enhancing beauty
·        Cleaning the skin
·        Protecting the skin against the suns UV radiation
·        Prevention the aging the skin
·        Cleaning hair
Some ingredients used in these products are found as toxic to the health of humans as well as animals. Coal tar, 1,4- dioxins, formaldehyde, lead, Toluene, mercury, and microplastics are examples of the toxic compounds found in these products.
 So, the use of such toxic substances in the production of personal care products and cosmetics is banned, or allowable amounts are prescribed. But, some of these products may contain elevated levels of toxic chemicals due to the low cost of the ingredients or to give instant results.

2)    How do personal care products and cosmetics contaminate the environment?
 1. Disposal of plastic containers
Even though these containers are produced with recyclable plastic materials, they are directly thrown away into the environment as the manufacturers do not have procedures for the recollection of the empty containers. In the environment, plastics degrade into microplastics.
2. Use of sachet packets
Rather than purchasing expensive, high volume bottles, single-use, sachet packets make affordable the smallest quantity of some personal care products such as hair jells, shampoos, and conditioners for the low-income communities. Sachet packets are stored in a thin layer of polythene and aluminum foil. Due to their low cost, people tend to buy sachet packets daily, and they are not properly disposed of in the environment. As a result, a large number of sachet packets accumulate in the environment.
3. Use of labels printed with toxic inks
Petroleum-based inks are used for printing labels in the manufacturing industry. These inks contain trash amounts of heavy metals like Pb and Hg.
4. Removal of personal care products and cosmetics during cleaning
A significant fraction of applied personal care products and cosmetics are washed away from the body during bathing, washing, and swimming to sewage treatment plants.

5. Residual in the containers and package after the usage
After usage, containers the personal care products and cosmetics are disposed of without cleaning the residuals. Once they enter into aquatic bodies or contact with soil, their remaining may release and contaminate the environment.
                    
3)    Environmental effects:
Frequent floods: Irregular disposal of Plastic containers and Sachets packets cause clogging in the drains. It results in flash floods during rains with light rainfall intensity.
Heavy metals: Coloring agents that are added for producing colors in cosmetics contain heavy metals, although they are artificially synthesized or produced from natural resources like clay. Because clay is contaminated during the mining process by heavy metals. These heavy metals are released into the environment during the washing of the body. Even only trash amount of heavy metals can be toxic to soil organisms as well as aquatic organisms.

Effects of Microplastics: When the plastic containers of personal care products or cosmetics are degraded, they are not fully degraded into carbon dioxide and water. They partially break down into tiny pieces called microplastics. And also, artificially produced microplastic bead is added as ingredients in skincare products. Toxic substances like dioxin, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and Polychlorinated biphenyl are added as their ingredients into Microplastics or absorbed by the microplastics in the environment.

As the particle size of microplastics is too small, current filtration methods in the wastewater treatment plants are also not sufficient to remove the Microplastics and released them with treated water into the environment. When these microplastics are ended up in the marine environment, they tend to spread throughout the food webs and bioaccumulate in marine organisms. Marine organisms mistakenly take microplastic as their food sources. As microplastics are not digested in their body, they interrupt the digestion and block the digestive tract. And eventually, the intake of a large number of nonnutritious microplastics results in malnutrition in marine organisms.
Coral bleaching: Tourists tend to apply sunscreen on their skin to protect against the sun’s harmful radiation. Ultraviolet filers like oxybenzone dissolve out from sunscreen tend to interrupt the reproduction and growth of corals.

4)    Human health effects
Endocrine disruptors: Some chemicals in personal care products and cosmetics behave like hormones of humans. They interfere with the functioning of the endocrine system and cause problems in reproduction, growth and development, and immunity. Dioxin and Diethanolamine, which are commonly found in foaming products like shampoo, body washes, and shaving creams, act as endocrine disruptors.

Carcinogens: Chemical compounds like dioxins, Formaldehydes, talc, and Toluene are found as carcinogens to human health. Toluene is added as a solvent in nail polishes and hair dyes. Formaldehydes are added as an ingredient, or it results from the degradation of other compounds in the products. It is found as a preservative or disinfectant agent in deodorants, shampoo, shaving creams, bathing soap, and nail polish. These chemicals lead to the development of uncontrolled growth of cell masses called tumors and eventually cause cancers in the body.
Heavy metals: Heavy metal are added to cosmetics as a color additive agent. Even though they are added as prescribed amounts in the production, chronic exposure for trash amounts of heavy metals may cause an increase in the development of cancers and other health issues associated with heavy metals.
Microplastics: People tend to show serious health conditions after they consume contaminated seafood and salts by microplastics.

5)    Solutions:
Sachet packets: As they are contaminated with the stored products, sachet packets are not possible to send for recycling. So, the only viable solution for the sachet packets is throwing away after usage. As a result, the volume of municipal waste has increased throughout the world.  As they take hundreds of years to degrade and residuals resulting from the degradation can contaminate soil, groundwater, and surface water sources, they have to be disposed of in a sanitary landfill.
Refiling: Refilling facilities for personal care products like shampoo can be provided. So, people tend to shift from purchasing products, again and again, to refill with old containers.
Products with less toxic compounds: As people, more concern about the ingredients of the products they daily apply onto their bodies and their side effects, manufacturing companies of personal care products and cosmetics tend to products with less toxic substances. Costumers have to make wise decisions when then purchase products for hygiene and enhancing beauty.
Production of a small quantity of personal care products in refillable containers: Rather than selling small quantities of products as sachet packets, they can be provided with small containers at a reasonable price.

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