So today we had our first serious family chat about a sacrifice we were willing to make on our netzero journey.
We talked about glitter!
I know this may not seem the most high profile lifestyle change to get started on, but roll with me. I have a 10 year old daughter, She loves chocolate and shiny things - a girl after my own heart.
Glitter IS microplastics. Getting into our waterways and being eaten up by small sea life and maybe even being then eaten by us.
So for today's 'my good' we had a chat about microplastics, what they do to our environment and why we might want to give it up. To be fair I've never been a buyer of plain old glitter (the mess!!), but its in my daughter's slime collection, on birthday cards, embedded in plastic toys and more.
EB was up for the challenge, Miss E wanted to know if she would also have to give up earrings with glitter in them (apparently the most devastating of choices) but she stayed resolute and we confirmed our first of many FAMILY COMMITMENTS to better choices.
E wanted to share a video about it too.
Our beautiful friend Sin suggested we go out and look for the real sparkle in nature as we commence our giving up glitter journey. So we'll be looking for dew on the grass and the sparkle of the sun on a spider's web, the twinkle in trees in the evening and shine off the water if we need out glitter fix. xxx
The impact: Glitter is a microplastic, but unlike other microplastics that develop from the breakdown of plastics from their original form glitter is sold in an already hazardous state.
We know microplastics are hazardous to animals and humans, getting into waterways and being consumed by marine life.
A 2020 issue of Science estimates "eleven billion metric tons of plastic are projected to accumulate in the environment by 2025".
Whats truly scary is that microplastics can become airborne and rain down on protected areas or cover extremely large distances, and humans are estimated to be ingesting about a credit card's worth of it every day! The CSIRO have found that 9.25m to 15.87m tons of microplastics are embedded in the sea floor. Eeek!
OK so glitter itself is a tiny component of microplastics, but lets make this our start somewhere project of the week and avoid glitter, glitter glue and anything embedded with or decorated in glitter.
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