Natural Alternatives

“One plastic bottle eventually disintegrates into many tiny pieces that can be eaten by anything,” explained an experienced biological oceanographer, Jennifer Brandon. “The real problem in the ocean is happening at a very small scale.” Marine plastic the size of a dime is 90 percent of the problem found from sea ice in Antarctica to the North Shore of Hawaii. The tiny glitter should be the biggest concern as it interacts with the food chain the most. There is no away. Just because people do not see the things they are throwing away piled high in there day to day life that doesn’t mean it’s gone. It is filling up the pacific garbage patch, a polluted smog soup accumulated from man made trash spreading thousands of miles in the ocean.

The glitter industry poses many environmental and ethical downfalls. The plastic pieces underneath the shine would be nothing but plastic if it wasn’t for mica. Mica is a natural rock mineral that it then made into thin sparkling sheets. Plastic and mica are the ultimate partners in crime. Over twenty-thousand ten-year-old-children hammer flakes of mica off the side of a mountain in the hillside backwoods of Jharkhand, India to produce glitter. At the same time, twelve-year-old girls stumble carrying up to fifty pounds worth of the shimmering rocks to the top of the mountain to be sorted. They have it easy compared to their siblings working in the mines the size of a rat hole, coming out after a thirteen-hour workday coughing profusely with sparkles sticking to their cheeks. Ninety percent of what is being done there is illegal, although 25 percent of the world’s production still comes from this region. Large, multinational retailers, L’Oréal and Estée Lauder, continue to supply their glimmering beauty products with mica sourced from this impoverished area employing child labor. “One girl had to crawl into a dangerous mine with an axe to dig out the sparkles for another girl half way around the world.” (Slavery Footprint)

Suffering asks to be relieved by bright and shining things. Glitter is the band-aid used through bleak and turbulent periods. Psychologically, glitter continues to be a trend because, 'Sparkles helps us rise above the mundane and bring us into the realms of dreams,' Susan Miller, a popular astrologist discloses. Individuals surround themselves with glitter to forget about their dark problems and gloomy fears; thus, consumption is influenced by feelings of anxiety, depression, economic turmoil, and political unrest. Dr. Pinar Yoldas voices, “Society needs to begin viewing plastic as “dirty,” a source of carbon emissions and ocean pollution, as opposed to an invisible convenience.”

People can create sparkle from natural alternatives such as glass, metal, salt, sugar, sunlight, or even crushed-up dung beetles, Cleopatra’s personal favorite. Walk along any beach on a sunny day and you are bound to notice the small specks of bronze glimmering between your toes in the sand. Even though it looks like someone had an arts and craft explosion on the shore, it is sparkling an optical illusion. The chemical constituents in salt water are identical to the plasma in human blood. A mixture of water, salt, and protein creates a balanced mixture of minerals. That iron washes up from the waves into the sands, heating up from the sun to give off a sparkling pattern.

Getting rid of glitter completely is not the solution; instead we have to continue learning about the alternatives to plastic glitter-based products, whether it be giving back by buying from sustainable and ethical brands or even making your glitter at home. People need to voice their values to companies, and the types of environmentally-friendly products they want to see. Glitter still innocently flickers in thousands of beauty, fashion, and craft products. But if people understand that glitter is hurting the environment and the supply chain it employs, we can elicit effective action to change the massive plastic pollution problem and bring back the earth’s sparkle.

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