As global attention sharpens on environmental safety, the cosmetics and personal care industries, long overshadowed by their higher-volume counterparts, are entering the spotlight and facing public scrutiny. With that attention comes a growing responsibility to demonstrate environmental stewardship, transparency, and a commitment to sustainable practices. This shift is critical, especially as the global cosmetics and personal care market is projected to surpass $800 billion by 2030.

Unlike the more established laundry and cleaning products sector, the cosmetics and personal care industries are relatively new to systematically assessing environmental safety, including classification and labeling. One key reason lies in differences in product use and treatment requirements. Laundry and cleaning products are used in high volumes and often require wastewater treatment to reduce concentrations to safe environmental levels. This has driven decades of investment from companies and trade associations to generate the necessary safety data.

In contrast, cosmetics and personal care products are typically used in smaller volumes, and have historically received less attention from industry bodies. However, the category is far broader, spanning color cosmetics, hair care (shampoos, conditioners, styling products, dyes), oral care (cleansers, abrasives, whiteners), and skin care (moisturizers, sunscreens, cleansers, and hair removal products). This breadth means a much greater number of ingredients are used, even if in lower quantities, creating complex safety considerations.

While it’s understandable that laundry products once took priority, growing concerns, such as the environmental concerns regarding microplastics and UV filters in sunscreens, have brought cosmetics and personal care products under closer scrutiny. In response, many companies and trade associations have begun investing in environmental data collection to evaluate safety and help guide future testing needs.

Assessing the environmental safety for most cosmetics and personal care product ingredients is a multi-stage approach that begins with... 

>> Read the full article

The American Midwest’s rich farmland, diverse natural habitats, and strong rural communities have earned it the nickname of the nation’s heartland. But beneath the familiar image of golden fields and winding rivers lies a region increasingly shaped by extremes. Thanks to climate change, extreme weather—once seasonal and predictable—has become more frequent, intense, and disruptive. From heat waves and floods to winter storms and wind events, climate variability is now a defining feature of the landscape.

This shifting baseline has real consequences for those conducting environmental fieldwork. For more than 30 years, Waterborne’s scientists have operated field studies programs throughout the Midwest and beyond, collecting data critical to understanding environmental safety and ecosystem health. Today, our scientists collecting long-term data have had to channel their inner MacGyvers to continue working through weather conditions that are not just inconvenient, but at times transformational to their studies.

Environmental monitoring programs that depend on seasonal consistency, such as runoff sampling during spring planting or post-storm assessments, can suffer from scheduling challenges. With rain arriving earlier or in shorter, more intense bursts, conducting our studies at times feels like a moving target. These days, it’s hard to predict what weather is around the corner: droughts in some years are followed by record rainfall in others. For field teams tasked with collecting reliable, site-based data, flexibility has become a necessity.

Extreme weather events affect not only how science is conducted, but also what it observes...

>> Read the full article

Top UN court says treaties compel wealthy nations to curb global warming: The United Nations' highest court on July 23rd told wealthy countries they must comply with their international commitments to curb pollution or risk having to pay compensation to nations hard hit by climate change.

World risks up to $39 trillion in economic losses from vanishing wetlands, report says: The global destruction of wetlands, which support fisheries, agriculture and flood control, may mean the loss of $39 trillion in economic benefits by 2050, according to a report by the Convention on Wetlands.