The Beat the Microbead app is your guide to cosmetics and personal care items that do not contain plastic.
Do you worry about the plastic in your makeup and other personal care items? The Beat the Microbead app is here to help! It's a quick and easy way to find out if your goods contain microplastics, which are small pieces of plastic that are bad for the environment and could be dangerous to your health.
With this app, you can scan the ingredients in your goods and get a grade right away based on how many microplastics are in them. You can also find names that have been confirmed to be free of microplastics by the Plastic Soup Foundation, an Amsterdam-based non-profit.
How does the app work?
The Beat the Microbead app scans the list of chemicals on your goods using cutting-edge text recognition technology. You only need to do these four easy things:
Step 1: Find the ingredients list on your product.
Step 2: Position the full list within your camera frame.
Step 3: Make sure the ingredients are clear to read.
Step 4: Take a picture to scan!
Once you have scanned the ingredients, the app will give you a rating based on a traffic light system:
RED: Products that contain microplastics.
ORANGE: Products that contain "sceptical" microplastics, which are synthetic polymers for which there is not enough information available.
GREEN: Products that do not contain microplastics.
Help us enrich our database!
When you add a product to our database, you help us build a case against microplastics. By giving information about products, we can build proof and persuade officials that plastic ingredients are used a lot. By reading the barcode on your goods and adding it to our database, you can help us fight against microplastics.
By adding goods to our database, you can also find goods that are certified to be free of microplastics. All of the goods sold under these names are made without any known microplastics.
Why is it important?
Plastic in makeup is a global problem! Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that are bad for the earth and could be dangerous to your health. These things don't break down, so they just go down the drain and into the sewer system. Once they get into the marine environment, it's hard to get rid of them.
Microplastics get into the bodies of sea animals or are eaten by them. They then move up the marine food chain. Since people are at the top of this food chain, it is possible that we also eat microplastics.
Using body washes or makeup with microplastics can be bad for the ocean, us, and our kids. With the Beat the Microbead app, you can make choices that are good for the earth and take into account what you know.
Who is behind this app?
The Plastic Soup Foundation, a non-profit group based in Amsterdam, and other groups worked together to make the Beat the Microbead app. The Plastic Soup Foundation started the international effort "Beat the Microbead," which aims to get rid of plastic in our water and bodies.
Features:
- Instantly scans ingredients for microplastics.
- A traffic light rating system to help you make informed choices.
- Easy four-step process for scanning ingredients.
- Helps build a case against microplastics by adding products to the database.
- Discover certified microplastic-free brands.
- Helps raise awareness about the harmful effects of microplastics.
- Collaborative effort by the Plastic Soup Foundation and other partners.
