I've heard of this before, oddly I've never heard a reason for them being added in the first place. Who WANTED tiny bits of plastic in their toothpaste?

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by kulpims.

I'm guessing it's a cheap abrasive to scratch those teeth clean.

These beads are apparently contributing to pollution as well since they obviously don't biodegrade and are small enough to be consumed by organisms/animals.

Perhaps it's rather just cheaper to reduce the amount of actual toothpaste you put in a tube? I wonder what the going rate is on shredded recycled plastic compared to the same volume of crest toothpaste? It's like watering down alcohol, but you probably can't water down toothpaste. So you plump it out with a bunch of cheap plastic.

So these micro beads are basically like mixing saw dust into meat?

It's more like mixing diamond dust into a polishing compound.

Is anyone out there dumb enough to still be using toothpaste from a soulless corporation like P&G (Crest)? There are alternatives if you look for them.

I haven't used toothpaste in over five years. Sometimes baking soda. Sometimes activated charcoal. Sometimes just salt. Sometimes just water. I mix it up.

Micro bead plastics are way bad. In make-up and other products. Once in the water, they look like eggs of other animals and are consumed and sent up the food chain.