uBeauty Products Sold In California To Be Microbead-Free By 2020r

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• While a bill that would have prohibited the use of tiny microbeads in face wash and other personal products nationwide died in Congress last year, California didn’t give up its fight to keep the microscopic plastic spheres from entering its waterways and turning up inside the stomach of consumers’ seafood, passing legislation that bans the use of the products in the state by 2020. 

  The Associated Press reports that California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Thursday that would phase out the use of microscopic exfoliating beards in personal care products sold in the state.

  The bill, known as AB888, seeks to restrict all use of the non-biodegradable beads that can contain various toxins, said Assemblyman Richard Bloom, who introduced the legislation earlier this year.

  “AB888 was carefully crafted to avoid any loopholes that would allow for use of potentially harmful substitutes,” Bloom said in a statement to the AP on Thursday. “This legislation ensures that personal care products will be formulated with environmentally safe alternatives to protect our waterways and oceans.”

  California lawmakers previously attempted to ban the use of the beads, but those measures fell short, in part because of opposition from personal-care product companies.

  The newly signed law was successful after several amendments promoted business critics to drop their opposition, the AP reports.

  The small bits of plastic, often found in face washes, soaps and toothpaste, have become a hot topic for lawmakers and environmentalists in recent years, with many states acting to end the use of microbeads.

  Last year, Illinois became the first state to pass an ordinance that would gradually fade out the use of microbeads beginning in 2017 and ending in 2019.

  The state bill even had the cooperation of product manufacturers. An official with the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois said at the time that the quick deal resulted from unique circumstances, and the availability of substitute ingredients, such as oatmeal and sea salt.

  New York has often been in the forefront of the fight to ban microbeads for commonly used products. Officials with the state estimate that 19 tons of the tiny beads enter the states waterways each year.

  Last year, a report issued by the New York Environmental Protection Bureau outlined just how unsafe the small plastic pieces can be.

  According to the report, after microbeads are washed from our bathrooms, they easily travel through wastewater treatment plants and enter our waterways. The tiny beads then act as sponges for toxic chemical pollutants and become an attractive snack for marine wildlife. And because we humans often like to eat seafood, that means there’s a pretty good chance the shperes could end up in your stomach.

  Despite the findings, legislation to phase out the use of microbeads state-wide has passed the New York Assembly twice in the last two years, but has stalled in the Senate both times.

  The issue hasn’t just been on the minds of activists, either. Several major manufacturers, such as Proctor & Gamble, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive, have pledged to phase out use of plastic microbeads.

  In February 2014, L’Oréal said it would begin phasing out the materials this year in their Biotherm products and continue with Body Shop products in 2015. All of the company’s products are expected to be microbead-free by 2017.

  California to phase out microbeads used in soaps, toothpaste [The Associated Press]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uReport Claims Mercedes, Honda, Mazda Diesels Also Have Questionable Emissionsr

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  Volkswagen may not be the only carmaker with diesel engines that pass emissions tests in the garage but would fail if tested on the open road. A new report claims that several other manufacturers have diesel vehicles that test well until you put them in real world driving situations.

  This is according to The Guardian, which reports that cars from Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda, and Mitsubishi emit many more toxins on the road than they do in the test garage — though there is no evidence at this time that these vehicles use “defeat device” software to fool tests.

  These are all vehicles that passed official emissions tests in Europe, but when they get out into real-use situations, some of these cars are spewing upwards of 20 times the allowable limits of toxins like nitrogen oxides (NOx).

  A rep for Mercedes, whose cars tested anywhere from 2.2 to 5 times the legal emissions limits in the EU, tells the Guardian that, “Since real-world driving conditions do not generally reflect those in the laboratory, the consumption figures may differ from the standardized figures.”

  Even though one Honda vehicle tested at 20 times the EU limits, and the company’s cars emitted between 2.6 and 6 times the allowable standard, the company maintains that it “tests vehicles in accordance with European legislation.”

  The EU has been trying to rein in NOx pollution through tougher standards but the Guardian notes that pollution has continued to be a problem because carmakers are designing vehicles to pass the very specific emissions tests — not to protect the environment when those cars get out on the road.

  “The VW issue in the US was purely the trigger which threw light on a slightly different problem in the EU – widespread legal over-emissions,” explains Nick Molden of Emission Analytics, the company that did the testing cited in the Guardian report.

  “These new test results [from Emissions Analytics] prove that the Volkswagen scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. What we are seeing here is a dieselgate that covers many brands and many different car models,” said Greg Archer, an emissions expert at Transport & Environment tells the Guardian. “The only solution is a strict new test that takes place on the road and verified by an authority not paid by the car industry.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uPittsburgh Mayor: Verizon Broke Agreement To Provide FiOS To Entire Cityr

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  Earlier this week, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto was one of a dozen city leaders who signed on to a letter demanding that Verizon finish building out the FiOS TV/Internet/phone network it promised. And Mayor Peduto is continuing to speak out about his city’s particular gripe with Big V.

  “We have an agreement with Verizon that, over the course of several years, the entire city would be provided with FiOS,” Peduto recently told WTAE-TV, “and it was the agreement that allowed them to start putting their lines in the public right of way. They have now broken that agreement.”

  While FiOS service is available in Pittsburgh, Peduto contends that, “They do not have the city finished, so now we need to seek the damages that were agreed to through the contract. At this point, I’d have to talk with our law department.”

  Verizon maintains that it is “in compliance with the terms of the franchise agreement and that with certain exceptions allowed under the franchise, there are no residential areas of the city where Verizon does not offer cable service.”

  Peduto’s statements are similar to gripes heard in New York City and much of the state of New Jersey — both areas where some community leaders contend that Verizon has failed to live up to its contractual obligations to provide service.

  A recent audit in by NYC’s Department of Information Technology and Communications found that a large number of city residents were unable to obtain FiOS service and that the company was not even responding to thousands of requests for service. All this in spite of promising in 2008 that all NYC residents would have the option of switching to FiOS by July 2014.

  [via DSLreports]

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uLyft Partners With Hertz To Recruit Drivers Who May Not Own A Carr

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  Don’t have a car, but want to make a few extra dollars picking up strangers and taking them point A to point B? A new partnership between Lyft and Hertz car rentals aims to let you do just that — and get free gas, kind of. 

  Lyft announced a string of new perks for drivers on Thursday in an attempt to build up its driver fleet to compete with other ride-hailing companies like Uber.

  Through the partnership with Hertz, Lyft says it will allow drivers on its service to rent SUVs daily, weekly or monthly at a discounted rate. For now, the perk is only available in Las Vegas.

  The aim of the new partnership is to get more drivers on the road, even those who don’t own a car. Lyft estimates there are more than 60 million Americans over the age of 24 who don’t own a car, and hopes some of those will be drawn to drive for the company, the Wall Street Journal Reports.

  Under the program, Hertz will rent Lyft drivers a standard SUV for $25 a day, $150 a week or $540 a month, or a premium SUV rents for $65 a day, $390 a week and $1,400 a month.

  While the rental discounts are about 35% to 40% below normal rates, drivers would have to do quite a bit of picking up and dropping off to actually make money after the rental expense.

  In addition to teaming up with Hertz, Lyft unveiled a partnership with Shell gas stations that will provide drivers discounts – ranging from $0.03 off per gallon to free tanks – based on the number of rides they give in a week.

  The company says it will pilot the program in several markets in the coming months and expects to rollout the service to all 12,500 Shell stations in the U.S. sometime in 2016.

  “The partner ecosystem we’ve extended today is a big step forward in bringing people and communities together through better transportation,” Lyft said in a blog post on the partnerships.

  [via Wall Street Journal]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uUniversity Of Phoenix Barred From Military Bases, Using New Tuition Assistance Fundsr

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• For-profit college chains like the University of Phoenix spend a lot of time and money recruiting active-duty military personnel. But the school has come under fire in recent months for allegedly crossing some legal lines in its efforts to attract students from the armed forces. Yesterday, Phoenix’s parent company revealed that the school is currently barred from recruiting on U.S. military installations, and that Department of Defense tuition assitance funds can not be used to pay for classes for new students.

  Apollo Education Group, which operates the University of Phoenix and a handful of other for-profit schools, announced in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Phoenix has been placed on probation by the Department of Defense, meaning its participation in the DoD Tuition Assistance Program for active duty military personnel is on hold.

  Additionally, the school revealed that the government is considering the possibility of axing Phoenix’s involvement in the program altogether.

  The probation does not change the eligibility of students currently enrolled at U. of Phoenix. These students will be able to continue using money from the tuition assistance program. Newly enrolled students and those that transfer in from other schools will not be deemed eligible while the school is out of the program.

  Conditions of the probation bar the schools from recruiting on bases, which includes job fairs and other events.

  In July, the Center for Investigate Reporting revealed a number of Phoenix’s questionable recruiting practices, like sponsoring concerts, dances, festivals, Super Bowl parties and other events in an effort to sidestep an executive order that bans “inducements, including any gratuity, favor, discount, (or) entertainment” for the “purpose of securing enrollments of Service members.”

  The school was also accused of deliberately misleading servicemembers into believing that Phoenix was sanctioned and recommended by the DoD. It went so far as to create and hand out custom engraved coins to servicemembers. The coins featured the school’s logo on one side and the emblems of all military branches on the other, and was similar to a “challenge coin” given to military personnel by officers to mark major accomplishments.

  This report kicked off investigations by federal and state regulators who believed the school may have been violating laws against deceptive advertising and against the misuse of military insignias.

  In its SEC filing, the school claims that it “immediately discontinued the use of challenge coins when the matter was raised by the DoD in July 2015, although use of these tokens, which have no value, is widespread in the military and other universities.”

  Apollo claims that it has been in discussions with the military regarding the “manner in which approvals will be obtained for future sponsored events at military installations” in accordance with regulations.

  It maintains that Phoenix didn’t know it was violating the rules with previous events because they had all “been approved by base officials and were conducted pursuant to written agreements.”

  The DoD has given Phoenix two weeks to respond to its probation notice. After that, it will decide whether to reinstate the school or terminate Phoenix’s participation in the tuition assistance program.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uStarbucks, KFC, Chili’s, And Delta Start Accepting Apple Pay For Almost No One To User

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• Mobile wallets still aren’t catching on with Americans, even a year after the introduction of Apple Pay and a month after the introduction of Android Pay. There are hundreds of millions of capable phones in consumers’ purses and pockets, so it’s not due to technical restraints. Maybe the answer is to make the system available in more stores? Yesterday, an Apple executive announced that three more large chains will accept their payment system.

  All of the new places where iPhone users can wave their phones at cash registers are places to eat: Starbucks will start a pilot program at some point before the end of this year. Apple Pay was already part of the company’s iOS app: customers could use it to reload their stored-value accounts. Chili’s and KFC plan to start accepting Apple Pay sometime in 2016.

  Delta has added Apple Pay to its iOS app, allowing passengers booking tickets from their smartphones to pay using their Apple wallets as well.

  Restaurants and stores haven’t really been keen to adopt the payment method, though the lack of places to actually use mobile payments is part of the reason why consumers aren’t especially interested in using them, either.

  Apple Pay to expand to Starbucks, Chili’s, KFC [Reuters]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uConsumerist Friday Flickr Findsr

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• Here are eight of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist