On December 24th, the Thai Ministry of Public Health announced Thailand will ban the import, production and sale of beauty products containing plastic microbeads,effective from January 1, 2020. In an announcement published in the Royal Gazette, the ministry said plastic microbeads, which are used in rinse-off products such as face scrubs.
Because of their tiny size, the spherical beads are then washed down the drain, often slip through waste water treatment system and end up in the sea.
However, those microbeads do not degrade over time in water or in the environment.