Microbeads - Mega problem

Sometimes I wonder if there isn't any length we as humans won't go to in order to destroy ourselves and all around us.  For a people so obsessed with self-preservation I'm simply amazed at our myopic ignorance of the oncoming, self-created doom.  I heard someone refer to this as a "death urge".  Whether we are speaking about war, slavery, oppression, animal abuse or the environment it matters little.  It all comes from the same source.  Death urge, sin nature, shallow end of the gene pool, call it what you will.  It is mind numbing to think about and even more horrific to watch.

The latest that has come across my path is microbeads.  Tiny bits of plastic put in our cleaning supplies, including shampoos and toothpaste, to help in the cleaning process.  They are so tiny, in fact, that water treatment plants can't filter them out and they wind up in our waterways by the ton.   There they cause any number of problems.  The best part is they last a loooong time (aka, forever) and cannot be cleaned up. They are now a permanent part of our ecosystem. You can read about it here where there is a whole campaign to stop this menace:

http://beatthemicrobead.org/en/

The thing I wonder about is how much companies, including government oversight agencies, knew about this?  My guess is they knew all about it.  But I can come up with at least three possible scenarios.

1.  They knew about it but ignored the problem (idiocy).
2.  They didn't know about it and proceeded in blissful ignorance (stupidity).
3.  Some or all of the various groups involved knew about the problem but assumed somebody else would figure out how to solve it (SEP).

Right now there isn't any way to tell what scenario to choose, and even after the air has cleared of the poop that hit the fan, all parties involved will have added their own personalized spin to the story so we may never know.  Needless to say, this is just one more example of humanity at its best and we all get to pay the price while the big bosses have made their millions.  Just eat the green stuff.  It isn't really human.  That's just a myth.