Insert Recurring Witty Title Here

My friend Elizabeth suggested that I have a regular section on consumer products that are either really good or really bad for the environment. While I'm still working on what to call this section (Product Watch? Green or Mean? If you have any clever ideas, leave them below), I love the idea, and will start with a particularly disturbing product recently featured on Slate.

I'm not going to lie. I have a fondness for face washes, including exfoliating face washes. Now that I know that the truth about them though, I'm going to have to part ways with my current face wash forever.

Why? Apparently the exfoliating beads are made of plastic, and when the soaps and face washes that contain them wash down the drain, the tiny plastic beads don't get removed by wastewater treatment plants, and so they end up in rivers and streams and oceans, where the plastic makes its way into marine life. Because plastic doesn't break down quickly, it pretty much just stays in the bodies of marine critters. Researchers don't know the effects of lots of plastic in the stomachs and tissues of marine organisms, but I'm going to bet its not anything good.

The good news, however, is that lots of alternatives exist. Burt's Bees has an exfoliating facewash made out of jojoba beads. St. Ives face wash uses apricot kernals. Or, you could just rub your face on a salt lick.