Photo credit: PopKey.com @pJYAv
According to thefestivals.uk, over 60 festivals so far have banned the use of glitter, along with single-use plastics like straws and bottles. I’m surprised as you are. Until now, I wasn’t aware that a lot of glitter products are not biodegradable. What I do know is that once you get glitter on something, it is incredibly hard to get it off.
Like many people, I like to don myself with as much glitter as I can. I mean, have you seen Rihanna’s body glitter from her Fenty line??
Glitter and music festivals pretty much go hand in hand. Heck, just go down to Levels on a Saturday night and you’ll catch plenty of college girls with glitter nails, eye shadow, lipstick, and glitter body spray.
Many glitter products, like craft glitter, are microplastics. So, when they are washed off in your laundry or your shower, it makes its way into the ocean where small fish eat it, which is not good. Many festival sites are left with glitter on the ground that doesn’t go away for years unless it’s eaten by livestock or wild animals. Also not good.
So what are the venues across the Atlantic doing about it? They’re banning it. But it doesn’t seem like many people in the UK are upset about it. Perhaps it’s because they can now turn to eco-friendly glitter products that are biodegradable. I don’t know about you, but putting biodegradable glitter instead of microplastics on my face just sounds a lot better.
So are concerts and festival venues in the United States doing the same? We might slowly be headed that way, as some states have banned the manufacturing and selling of microbeads. Microbeads are what we find in hand soaps, toothpastes, and shampoo. Fun fact, Illinois is the first state to ban them. Illinois passed a law in 2014 that sought to ban the making of microbead products by the end of 2018, and the sale of them by the end of 2019, as they found they were polluting the Great Lakes. Pretty cool, huh?
But glitter? It doesn’t seem so. Scientists are definitely pushing to get rid of the herpes of arts and crafts – I mean, glitter. But it seems that concert venues, festival sites, and kindergarten classrooms are still allowing the use of it.
So should we follow the UK in an effort to keep the planet less sparkly and polluted by pushing for more eco friendly glitter? Or should we keep blowing that fairy dust everywhere and say nah? Let us know what you think.
