The House of Representatives recently approved a bill that would phase out use of microbeads in soaps and other personal care products. The bill had been backed by a bipartisan committee and will now go to the Senate for approval.

If approved, the Microbead Free Water Act would start to phase out the tiny pieces of plastic beginning July 1, 2017. This would prevent microbeads from flowing into rivers and lakes where they are consumed by fish, leading to the spread of pollutants throughout the food chain.

Microbeads are typically smaller than a pinhead but are causing significant problems in the Great Lakes, say reports from The Guardian. Research conducted in 2013 by the State University of New York found that the lakes were riddled with microbeads, with Lake Ontario containing an estimated 1.1m plastic particles per square kilometer.

Ohio, which has most of the Lake Erie shoreline, is considering microbead legislation, as is Michigan. Illinois became the first state to ban the sale of such products in 2014, with California recently finalizing a bill to phase out microbeads by 2020.

Research by Oregon State University found that a stunning 8tn microbeads a day were being emitted into bodies of water in the US. This plastic adds to the vast quantity floating throughout the world’s oceans, with a recent study finding that up to 90 percent of the planet’s seabirds have pieces of plastic in their guts.