Monday morning, most, if not all, Greek students at Bucknell reported glitter remains littered across campus and themselves. “I found glitter in my water bottle… How did it get in my water bottle?” one student was heard remarking to another. Seventh Street, once quaint, grey colored pavement, is now paved with gold, allowing downtown residents to channel their inner Dorothy as they make their way towards campus.
Despite our innate attraction to glitter and all things shiny and pretty, the disruptive qualities that glitter has towards the environment ought to be mentioned. Glitter is made from non-biodegradable materials such as aluminum foil, iron oxides, bismuth oxychloride, copolymer plastics, and titanium dioxide. Basically, tiny bits of plastic and metal that will last forever. It’s small enough to be ingested by other organisms, which can be problematic for smaller organisms that aren’t able to digest the hard-edged particle. Glitter on the pavement makes its way into sewer systems and in the long run, bodies of water. Because glitter is heavier than water, it will sink to the bottom and become a part of toxic sludge. Smaller glitter is considered particulate matter that can cause and aggravate respiratory ailments such as asthma.
Lush, a bath product company, recently discontinued use of plastic glitter in their bath bombs because of customer concerns about the growing issue of micro-plastics in our seas and oceans. Micro-plastics pose as a major threat to marine biodiversity and food chains by concentrating toxic pollutants such as DDT and PCBs up to one million times background levels. The toxins transfer to the organisms that ingest them – worms, mussels, fish, and plankton - who reside at the bottom of the food chain. This inevitably leads to negative impacts on the food chain.
In this case, all that glitters may not exactly be gold.
The accumulation of micro glitters in our environment presents an issue for the current and future generation to solve. The memories of Welcome night will remain in our minds, lungs, and earth forever.
