The Daily Mail has claimed a second major environmental campaign victory as the Government launched a consultation on banning microbeads which are used in cosmetics.
It warned that: “Microbeads are flushed into rivers and seas by the trillion where they attract toxins, threaten marine life and can reach the human food chain.”
The Government is planning to bring in legislation by October 2017 which will see microbeads banned in the UK.
In 2008 the Daily Mail launched its Banish The Bags campaign and last year a 5p charge was imposed on supermarket plastic bags which saw a drastic cut in their usage.
The Mail and journalist Sean Poulter were highly-commended in the British Journalism Awards for “Ban the Beads”.
The judges said: “This was a revelatory campaign because no-one knew about these dreadful pollutants. The Daily Mail has put this issue at the top of the news agenda making a powerful case for micro beads to be banned.”
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