All that glitters is not gold

Traditional glitter is made with small layers of plastic (Plastic Polyethylene Terephthalate ‘PET’). When these tiny microplastic pieces end up in the environment - either directly from things like glitter bombs at festivals, or indirectly when cosmetic glitter is washed off down a drain - they have damaging effects to marine life. Did you know that nearly one million tonnes of microplastic enters the ocean every year?

Companies are aware that traditional glitter is harmful to the environment, so there are now an increasing number of biodegradable options available – but what does ‘biodegradable’ actually mean?

Although there currently isn’t much research around the impacts of biodegradable glitter, evidence suggests that biodegradable microplastics may still cause similar ecological effects as traditional microplastics. 

One study found that glitters dubbed as ‘eco-friendly’ alternatives still had negative environmental impacts. The researchers concluded that “interestingly, the biodegradable glitters used in this study elicited stronger effects than the non-biodegradable PET glitter overall.”

Another important point about items claiming to be biodegradable is that often, testing is only carried out on a portion of the product, rather than the final item. Scientifically, they cannot say an item is biodegradable as the final product hasn’t been tested.