The crusade to get tiny plastic beads out of healthcare products and cosmetics, in large part sparked by research at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, is quickly spreading across the U.S. this winter.

Lawmakers in more than a dozen states, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, are taking action to ban the beads that are showing up in waterways.

Bills introduced in the Minnesota Legislature, and which already have received hearings at the Wisconsin capitol, would ban tiny plastic beads from soaps, scrubs and even toothpaste from being sold in the states.

Supporters hope to follow Illinois and New York in banning microbeads after scientists started finding them in recent years in lakes and rivers, including all of the Great Lakes, sometimes in alarming numbers.

“This is one of those things where it’s so obvious. The beads aren’t needed. There are other options that don’t cause harm. And the potential for harm to the environment is so bad … I don’t think we’re going to have a problem getting this passed,” said state Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, chairman of the Minnesota Senate Environment and Energy Committee. “I’m just amazed how quickly this has caught on all across the country. Maybe this is one time we don’t have to argue about something for 20 years before we fix it.”

The beads, generally designed to exfoliate skin or help in the cleaning process, are so small they wash down the drain and pass through sewage treatment plants. Because they are plastic, they never truly break down in the environment.

The microbeads are about the size of a grain of sand. Scientists believe that fish and birds are seeing them as food, possibly mistaking them for fish eggs that are about the same size and shape.

Scientists also worry that the beads may act as tiny sponges that soak up toxins and pass them on to whatever eats them, including fish that humans might eat.

The beads first made headlines in 2013 after scientists, including Lorena Rios- Mendoza, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Superior’s Lake Superior Research Institute, dragged super-fine mesh across the Great Lakes and caught vast amounts of the plastic beads — 1.7 million of them in their Lake Erie nets alone.

Scientists believe Lake Erie has the most microbeads among the Great Lakes because it’s downstream, and many of the beads float. But scientists also found the beads in Lake Superior sediment, meaning they aren’t just floating away.

“It’s great to see this moving as quickly as it is … to have science and industry and legislators on top of this,” Tyson Cook, director of science and research for Clean Wisconsin, a state environmental group, said. “We’ve known about the problem of ocean plastics for quite a while. … The fact we are now finding these tiny particles in the Great Lakes, and that they are intentionally manufactured that small, I think that helped spur action quicker.”

There’s been little research on what impact the beads are having on the environment or human health. But in a rare display of cooperation, scientists, environmental activists, lawmakers and even industry officials are working fast — although some say not fast enough — to stop the flow of beads into the environment.

This week the Indiana House moved to ban the beads while Maine lawmakers heard hearings on a ban-the-bead bill during which industry trade groups — the Personal Care Products Council and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association — testified in support of the bill.

In Wisconsin, the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy heard testimony Thursday from environmental and wildlife groups speaking in favor of a bill to impose such a ban. The committee is expected to pass the proposal later this month.

In Minnesota, lawmakers introduced HF 541 and SF 507 this week that set Dec. 31, 2017, as the deadline to remove plastic from personal care products; Dec. 31, 2018 for over-the-counter drug manufacturing; and Dec. 31, 2019 for the sale of any over-the-counter drugs or any other products with beads. The bill calls for penalties of up to $2,500 for violations.

“Our committee is going to have a hearing on the bill Tuesday. I’m not expecting much opposition, although the industry does have couple issues with it,” Marty said, noting he has bipartisan support for the bill.

Marty said some industry officials want to make an exception for “biodegradable” plastic beads. But he’s not sure such a thing exists. Lawmakers in the Washington state Legislature are dealing with the same issue.

“We’re willing to work with them if they can prove their product is truly biodegradable. But we aren’t going to allow anything plastic to get through,” Marty said. “If it just degrades into toxic dust, that isn’t much better. Or if it takes 10 years in a warm environment to degrade, that’s not going to help Lake Superior any. … We want to have a real ban here.”

Several healthcare and cosmetics companies already have vowed to take microbeads out of their products. Some are replacing them with products that will biodegrade in the environment, unlike plastic.

Unilever — the maker of Dove, Ponds, Vaseline and Lifebuoy products, among many others – announced they have stopped using plastic beads in any products as of Jan. 1.

“We decided to phase-out plastic scrub beads from personal care products because we believed we could provide consumers with products that deliver a similar exfoliating performance without the need to use plastics,” the company reports on its web page.

Johnson & Johnson says it will eliminate the use of polyethylene beads by the end of 2017. Procter & Gamble, the maker of Crest toothpaste, said its dental products won’t use microbeads after March 2016. L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, has said it no longer will use polyethylene microbeads in its scrubs by 2017.

Rios-Mendoza, the UWS researcher, currently is conducting research on how much and what toxins the beads may hold.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency suggests that consumers check labels for the ingredients polyethylene or polypropylene, which are plastics, although some products contain plastics with other names.

The International Campaign Against Microbeads in Cosmetics has produced an app that allows consumers to scan a product’s barcode with a smartphone to determine whether it contains microbeads. The app will read the barcode and indicate whether microbeads are present in the product.