Should glitter be banned?

[LongTomH]

From LiveScience: No Shimmer: Why Scientists Want to Ban Glitter:

Glitter should be banned, researcher Trisia Farrelly, a senior lecturer in environment and planning at Massey University in New Zealand, told CBS. The reason? Glitter is made of microplastic, a piece of plastic less than 0.19 inches (5 millimeters) in length. Specifically, glitter is made up of bits of a polymer called polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which goes by the trade name Mylar. And though it comes in all sizes, glitter is typically just a millimeter or so across, Live Science previously reported.

Microplastics make up a major proportion of ocean pollution. A 2014 study in the open-access journal PLOS ONE estimated that there are about 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic weighing a total of 268,940 tons (243,978 metric tons) floating in the world's seas. Microplastics made up 92.4 percent of the total count.

Most of those microplastics were flakes that had sloughed off plastic items that were originally larger, like water bottles, fishing gear or plastic shopping bags, that study found.

Microplastics are a problem because marine life mistakes the floating particles for food. Eurasian perch larvae, for example, often choose to eat plastic over its regular diet, according to a 2016 study in the journal Science. Unsurprisingly, that study found, a plastic-based diet was not great for the fish's long-term health and survival. Even zooplankton, the base of the ocean food chain, have been observed eating plastics.

[unblock]

1. there are two types of people: people who love glitter and people who have to clean it up.

[ffr]

2. Every piece of plastic ever made is still here if it wasn't recycled

Once made, it just stays here, where it will inevitably run out to the ocean and enter the food supply.

I'm all for banning it. But good luck. We humans are lazy and hate inconvenience.

[underpants]

3. Glitter is the herpes of the craft world. It never goes away.

As told to me on Facebook

[sue4e3]

4. if only there was a like button

[defacto7]

5. One would think it would be relatively easy

to make glitter out of a very biodegradable material. It's not as if it needs to last more than days, weeks, months... not centuries.

[KT2000]

6. glitter is a total pain

the movie Frozen made it impossible to buy any piece of fabric without glitter on it at the fabric store.
Then when I actually made a Frozen dress, glitter was stuck on everything. Environmentally speaking, I went through most of a roll of sticky sheets to remove it. Good luck getting it out of fleece. Big waste.

[DBoon]

7. David Bowie is dead

No reason to have glitter around anymore

[pscot]

8. I'll miss it terribly

but yeah.