With such a push against single use plastic and mirco plastics etc. Why is glitter left untouched? surely it has to be one of the worse plastic pollutants. Currently getting our Christmas shop ready, and its on everything and gets everywhere!

  • Io Sapsai 🌱@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    54
    ·
    1 year ago

    Seeing the comments here and people don’t even realise how widespread glitter is. It’s in everything and used in a variety of industries. From pharmaceuticals to construction, to transport, vehicles, military… in fact the one of the biggest consumers of glitter is kept secret so who knows, could be the military. It won’t surprise me. We really need to find an alternative.

    • funkajunk@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Damn, dude. I never even thought of synthetic fabrics as a source. Plastic is one of the worst things we could have ever made.

      • Ben Hur Horse Race@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        It’s also one of the most useful things we’ve ever made. Medical devices alone. The problem is mismanagement and overuse for profit by bad actors who lied to the world and said not to worry cause it’s all being reused again and again in this closed feedback loop called recycling

  • Big P@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’d be surprised if there isn’t a company making biodegradable glitter

  • zeppo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    1 year ago

    The biggest culprits are probably polyester and acrylic fabrics, plus tires… and there isn’t likely to be a will to do anything about those. But yeah, glitter is annoying.

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Glitter is a novelty in every use case, though.

      Polyester is too, but it’s a substantial and noticeable difference and improvement (a milestone even) as a life comfort. Glitter is just nice to look at.

  • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Overall, there is just not a lot of plastic in glitter. It’s incredible thin. It’s like aluminium foil, while we use a lot of meters of foil as households, the kg used is quite little given the surface. And glitter is the same. Getting everyone to buy one less plastic chair is more than they’ll use up in glitter over their entire life, basically.

    • drekly@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Ah so it’s just tiny tiny little harmless microplastics. That shouldn’t be of any concern… 😑

    • danhakimi@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      The concern is that glitter is smaller and harder to dispose of responsibly. It’s likely to end up polluting the ground or the water, as opposed to something like a chair, which, having less surface area, and being disposed of as a whole piece after some decades, is not actually going to bleed that much.

    • Big P@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      I love how this comment is exactly the opposite of the one above it

  • StarkillerX42@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Glitter is not a major micro plastic source, and people who buy glitter are probably not people who are worried about micro plastics anyways. Car tires are so much more of a micro plastics source that it’s almost not worth worrying about other sources until we figure that one out.

    • matcherock@feddit.ukOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      unfortunately not.

      from wiki: Modern glitter is usually manufactured from the combination of aluminum and plastic which is rarely recycled and finds its way into the aquatic habitats eventually becoming ingested by animals, leading some scientists to call for bans on plastic glitter.[8][9][10][11]

      • shapesandstuff@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        around here

        Was the key word

        I know what glitter is but there’s both edible and biodegradable glitter.

        The latter is what I was referring to.

  • flakeshake@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Not all kinds of glitter is made of plastic ? AFAIK one of the oldest and most popular sources of glitter is mica, which is a mineral (or rather a group of minerals) ?

  • Kalash@feddit.ch
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    12
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’ve never seen glitter used outside the context of 7 year old girls or pride parades.