You might not realise that there is a connection between the glitter on your cheeks and the microbeads you so assiduously avoid. It’s there, though. In fact, there’s no real difference between that sparkly, shiny glitter in your makeup and those hated microbeads, and they’re both threats to our planet.
How Are Microbeads and Glitter the Same?
Take a piece of glitter and strip away the shiny surface. What are you left with? A tiny piece of plastic. Now, compare that to a microbead and what do you see? Two pieces of plastic (tiny, tiny pieces). Again, glitter and microbeads are the same thing – they’re plastic, and they do the same thing in the environment.
Not sure how microbeads and plastic glitter affect the environment? Let’s take a moment to explore this.
Why have so many cosmetic companies moved away from using microbeads in their products? It’s due to the consumer backlash against them when the public learned that microbeads were so small that they couldn’t be filtered out within water treatment plants, but ended up being pumped away, eventually ending up in the ocean. Now, given the fact that a piece of plastic glitter is the same size as a microbead, what do you think happens when you wash that glittery makeup off your face, or that glitter-laden hairspray out of your hair?
Plastic glitter, like microbeads, are too small to be caught in water treatment plants, and also ends up in the ocean. There, it adds to the plastic soup that is destroying the marine environment.
Once in the ocean, microplastics (glitter, microbeads and broken down plastic pieces) form a soup-like consistency that’s almost undetectable by the naked eye. However, it’s there. What’s more, those tiny pieces are just about the same size as the food that makes up the diet of many marine animals. So, it gets eaten. Plastic cannot be digested, though, and it is too large to pass through the digestive system on its own. So, it hangs around.
Studies have found fish, birds and other marine animals with dozens and dozens of pieces of plastic in their stomachs. In some cases, there was so much plastic that the animal wasn’t able to eat and died of starvation. In others, the plastic leached toxins into the animal’s body. In quite a few cases, the plastic in the animal’s body came not from directly eating the material, but from eating prey that had consumed plastic. From there, it just moves up the food chain to us.
Currently, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (a large area of plastic soup) is the size of Russia. And that’s just one area – there are three patches in the Pacific, and several in every other ocean on the planet. Now, understand that every piece of plastic glitter that ends up in the ocean just adds to the problem. You’re wondering if you can ever put a bit of sparkle on your skin ever again, aren’t you?
Actually, BODYFX’s bio glitter is the answer to your problem. It’s made from 100% biodegradable material, and is just as shiny as the plastic variety. Get in touch with us to learn more.
