At the end of 2015, President Obama signed "The Microbead-Free Waters Act" which was a bill that wound ban the selling of commodities containing microbeads. Microbeads are the tiny plastic spheres that are popularly found in products such as face washes, soaps, and toothpastes. The purpose of microbeads is to act as an exfoliant and be easily washed down the drain. Unfortunately, microbeads have now become a major pollutant in waterways, which has resulted in a myriad of negative affects on the environment. I am interested in pursuing research on this topic because I feel as though not many people know the harms of microbeads or that they are being banned nationally. When I was coming into college I thought that I wanted to be a marine biologist and I hoped to one day save the sea turtles. I mention this because a big reason why sea turtles are endangered is because they eat plastic thinking its food. Microbeads are one of the plastic waste products they, as well as other marine animals, consume thinking it is food. While I definitely value President Obama's recent ban, it is too exclusive to make any large impacts on the already devastation microbead pollution; more efforts must be made in order to end microplastic pollution. 

My first source is an article from CNN entitled "Microbead Ban Signed by President Obama." This informational article was written just after Obama signed the bipartisan bill at the end of 2015. The author, Jareen Imam, explains that microbeads have become popular in recent years because of their ability to exfoliate and then be easily washed down the drain. She goes into discuss how microbeads have become a harmful pollutant in our waterways, which is why Obama signed the "Microbead-Free Waters Act." The main reason for this article is to provide a basic awareness to the general public in the United States about microbeads as well as their prohibition. This article is factual and a bias can be found in the facts that the author has chosen to include and those she has chosen to leave out. Overall, I feel as though this source is credible because of CNN's reputation of being a reliable provider of information. 

A year and a half prior to President Obama's ban on microbeads, NPR published the article "Why Those Tiny Microbeads In Soap May Pose Problem For Great Lakes." This article addresses how microbeads have become a prevalent pollutant in the Great Lakes and caught the attention of lawmakers in states surrounding the Great Lakes such as New York and Illinois. Due to the fact that there are so many microbeads contaminating the Great Lakes, fish have begun mistaking them for food. This had made the fish sick and brought up concerns of how these microbeads have found their way from beauty products, to waterways and into the food chain. Similar to CNN, NPR is a very reputable source so I trust that they are providing credible information. However, this article was definitely more geared to the Great Lakes and failed to mention other waterways being affected. 

The final source I found, "Microbeads Could Be Harming the Environment, Scientists Say" was published by CBS in 2014 and it discusses a multitude of issues surrounding the use of microbeads from cosmetic products. This source talks about how microbeads have become a danger to fish who are eating the eating the plastic, which is toxic. The article also suggests some alternatives that companies could use in their products. Finally, the article argues how ineffective water treatment plants have been at keeping waterways microbead free. This article makes references to the state legislations that have banned products containing microbeads, such as that in states around the Great Lakes. One thing I that I realized while reading this article is how water treatment plants are big stakeholders in the problem of microbead and overall microplastic pollution. It is their responsibility to make sure that uncontaminated water is being replenished into waterways. Unfortunately, some facilities cannot handle the small size of microbeads. I found this article to be very informative, however, the majority of the research provided was from only one scientist, which is a source of bias. The bias could have been reduced by comparing and contrasting different findings. The scientist CBS interviewed for the article was Marcus Eriksen who has a PhD in science education and works for the 5Gyres organization, he has a lot of background regarding plastic pollution and is a well renowned scientist in his field.

I intend to argue that even though the "Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015" is legislation that will benefit the environment; however, more work must be done in the fight against the greater issue microplastic pollution. These sources have added to my knowledge of microbeads and enforced my perspective on the matter at hand. All three of my current sources follow along my same thought that microbeads do more harm than good by being in household products. However, as I go on with my research it will be vital to find more information on other forms of microplastic pollution. When looking for sources it will be important to differentiate between microbead and microplastic pollution. Just as a square is a rectangle but not all rectangles are square, microbeads are microplastics but not all microplastics are microbeads. As I move forward with research it will be important to differentiate between microplastics and the subdivision of microbeads and to compare and contrast their affects on the environment. 

