Here’s Why Glitter, Microplastics & Microbeads Are Ruining Oysters And How We Can Stop It

As we finish up celebrating another spectacular Mardi Gras season, (some are still going) what better thing to talk about than glitter?

It’s everywhere in Sydney at the moment and you can bet your bottom dollar that the asphalt of Oxford St will still have traces of the stuff because have you tried to clean glitter en masse? That shit is not going anywhere. Still, glitter’s a fun thing. It’s sparkly and shiny and makes you feel like a unicorn wrapped in glitzy jewels. Some people put it in their hair; others on their costumes and some people even make a small living off covering other people with the stuff at festivals and events. There’s even a ‘send glitter to your enemies‘ service.

But not everything that shimmers is sure to fade. Glitter is one of the many forms of microplastic that is wreaking havoc on our environment, ocean ecosystems, and in turn, our foods. Microplastics are pieces of plastic lesser than 5mm in size, and come into existence through rubbish that has found its way into the ocean and begun to fall apart.

Microplastics and microbeads are small pieces of actual plastic used in a whole range of cosmetics. From exfoliating scrubs to toothpaste, and that festive, fun, virus-of-the-craft-world we know and love — glitter — all of it is filtering into the ocean, to the point where it’s estimated that there are close to FIVE TRILLION PIECES floating around in the big blue.

The way microplastics are harming the world and life around us is a lot to do with the oceanic food chain. It finds its way into the ocean — through being washed down drains and being too small to be captured by filtration systems — and eaten by fish mistaking these tiny bits of hell as delicious morsels of food.

As plastic doesn’t really degrade all that spectacularly, research has discovered that the average person who consumes an average amount of seafood will end up with about 11,000 pieces of microplastics in their stomach each year.

Sadly, it’s not only fish that are gobbling up these tiny bits of plastic, a whole multitude of other aquatic life are absorbing up these manmade particles, and they’re suffering because of it.

Oysters have been having an absolute feast on these tiny bits of plastic. A new study in the United States has shown that the species could possibly be endangered through microplastics messing up their reproductive cycles.

In a study conducted recently, a tank of pacific oysters were given their regular diet of phytoplankton, and half were exposed to microplastics. From the chemicals that seep out of these little manmade plastic nightmares, the oysters were having trouble producing reproductive cells, and whatever larvae were born were much slower to grow, and much smaller than their non-plastic-ingesting partners. This stinks! You know it does. But all hope for the boogers of the marine world are not lost — it’s noted that this study is a cautionary tale for what dreaded things are to come for the water world around us if we don’t act quickly.

You can do things to help! You can! As it stands, only the United States have wholly banned microplastics in cosmetics and personal products as of July 2017. Australia has no such blanket ban just yet, but recently supermarket kings Coles and Woolworths have taken action and refused to stock any cosmetics products with these itty-bitty monsters in them. You can also be conscious and aware of how much plastic you’re consuming and throwing away. Do you really love the scrub that microbeads give to your skin in that facewash? Well, there are eco-friendly alternatives like salt, sugar, ground nut shells, coffee grounds, sand, seeds, and all sorts of things. Companies like Aesop, Sukin, L’Occitane, The Body Shop, and Aveda are among some of the good guys who refuse to use microplastics — both microbeads and plastic-based glitters and glimmers — in their products.

As for our best craft, costume, and general life friend, glitter; rejoice! Companies are beginning to develop biodegradable glitters that you can buy in bulk (!!!) and mineral-based glitters can be found in cosmetics products — like half of the bath bombs from Lush Cosmetics. Companies have realised that people just bloody love sparkly things, but still want to be able to help the world around us to not be a glittering mess for the rest of mankind and beyond.

And so, mineral-based glitter was born. Think synthetic mica, titanium dioxide, iron, and even seaweed. There are many things out there that sparkle as much as plastic-based glitter, as long as you look hard enough.

Never fear, you can make a difference, but we’ve got to act fast, and smart. If we want to help save our beloved oysters from facing extinction, as well as protect the entire marine ecosystem, we need to re-think how we consume all kinds of plastic, especially the tiny, insidious particle types that sneak through our defence mechanisms and fool our adorable dancing oysters.

This was originally published at The Vocal by Courtney Fry