Taiwan to Officially Ban Microbeads in Cosmetics

Takehome:

On Jun 19, 2018, Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan released an announcement banning microbeads in six kinds of products from Jul 1, 2018.

Products include:

Guidance for enterprises:

According to Taiwan EPA, these products have been banned from manufacture and import since Jan 1, 2018, and will be subject to a complete sales ban starting from Jul 1, 2018. Retailors should check with upstream manufacturers to see whether their product contain microbeads. Illegal retail will be subject to a fine of NT$ 1200 to NT$ 6000. Enterprises shall remove, recall or return products containing microbeads.

Taiwan EPA released "Qualitative Screening Method for Plastic Microbeads in Personal Care and Cosmetics Product" on Nov 14, 2017, this method serves as the gold standard reference for administrative inspection and product testing. Chemlinked uploaded the original document of "Qualitative Screening Method for Plastic Microbeads in Personal Care and Cosmetics Products" to the database, stakeholders that require details of the testing method can refer to it.