There are two kinds of people: those who love the sparkle of glitter, and those who have to clean it up. Sure, glitter provides plenty of shine to crafts and makeup and nail polish and so, so many other things, but cleaning it up is a chore and a half. Glitter never really goes all the way away.
As scientists are reminding us, even when it's cleaned up in the home, glitter brings its stubbornness to the environment.
It's not uncommon to find tiny flecks of it weeks after you thought you had cleaned it all up, and as scientists say, it's the same in nature. Glitter is made from minuscule pieces of plastic, all about a millimeter in width or less, and as good as it is for adding flair, it's also good for polluting the environment.
"I think all glitter should be banned, because it's microplastic," Dr Trisia Farrelly of Massey University in New Zealand told The Independent.
Professor Richard Thompson of the University of Plymouth is a leading expert on marine litter, even coining the term microplastics, and one of his studies found plastics in a third of all fish caught in Great Britain.
Everything from whales to plankton have been observed eating plastic, often causing death — and those microplastics are in the fish we eat, too.
Dr Farrelly's research showed how the plastic in glitter, called PET — better known as Mylar — breaks down to release hormone-disrupting and cancer-causing chemicals. She cautions that although it's good for consumers to be aware of what they're buying, change has to come from producers, too.
"I'm sick and tired of consumers being held responsible for trying to avoid this stuff," she said. "I mean, it's literally impossible to. Producers need to be responsible. They need to use safer, non-toxic, durable alternatives."
There are a few companies, such as EcoStardust, EcoSparkles, and Eco Glitter Fun, who make glitter that sparkles and shines like we expect it to, but is made from plants.
It will biodegrade rather than sticking around forever, slowly choking out sea life.
However, many smaller entities are aware of the impact and are doing their part to lessen it.
"There are 22,000 nurseries in the country, so if we're all getting through kilos and kilos of glitter, we're doing terrible damage," Cheryl Hadland, the director of Tops Day Nurseries in Britain, told the BBC after that chain banned glitter.
And in 2018, 61 British music festivals banned attendees from wearing glitter, and Lush brand cosmetics has replaced the glitter in its products with biodegradeable glitter.
h/t: The Independent
