McCoy signs microbead ban into law

Microbeads, like those seen here, are plastic pellets that are now banned for sale in cosmetic products in Albany County.

ALBANY COUNTY — Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy signed a microbead ban into law last Friday, less than a month after the county legislature voted to ban the plastic pellets from cosmetics sold in the county.

“This is an important issue for environmental and health reasons,” said Albany County Legislator Bryan Clenahan, who represents Guilderland and wrote the bill, in an earlier interview.

McCoy signed Local Law L, which prohibits the sales of personal cosmetic products containing microbeads. Albany County is now the fifth county in the state to ban microbeads.

“It’s something we need to do,” McCoy told The Enterprise. “It’s about the health of the residents, and the health of the environment and the waterways.”

Clenahan said that 19 tons of microbeads are released into New York waters each year. The plastic beads, used in face creams and toothpastes, are too small to be filtered at wastewater plants and, once released into a water source, absorb pollutants like PCBs. The microbeads are then ingested by small creatures and enter the food chain, he said.

In June, the New York State Senate failed to pass the Microbead-Free Waters Act, which had passed in the State Assembly by a vote of 139-1; the bill died in the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee despite being co-sponsored by nearly 60 percent of all senators, according to a press release issued by Clenahan and his supporters.

“I’m hoping this wakes up the federal government and the state to do something about this,” McCoy said. “It’s a county issue, but it’s not. It truly needs to be addressed, debated, and taken care of.”

McCoy said that passing the microbead ban would increase awareness of the issue, and influence enough other counties to pass similar bans to the point that the state would take note.

The law will go into effect in six months, giving stores time to tell their distributors about the ban and changes in inventory. The county will impose penalties on stores that sell products with microbeads.

Clenahan previously said that enforcement of the law would be performed by the county’s Department of Weights and Measures, which handles similar issues.

“We expect to have a lot of citizen compliance,” Clenahan said. “We should be able to enforce this very well.”

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