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Some scientists want to ban glitter, a microplastic that can contribute to contamination of the world's oceans:
It's sparkly, it's festive and some scientists want to see it swept from the face of the Earth.
Glitter should be banned, researcher Trisia Farrelly, a senior lecturer in environment and planning at Massey University in New Zealand, told CBS. The reason? Glitter is made of microplastic, a piece of plastic less than 0.19 inches (5 millimeters) in length. Specifically, glitter is made up of bits of a polymer called polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which goes by the trade name Mylar. And though it comes in all sizes, glitter is typically just a millimeter or so across, Live Science previously reported.
Microplastics make up a major proportion of ocean pollution. A 2014 study in the open-access journal PLOS ONE estimated that there are about 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic weighing a total of 268,940 tons (243,978 metric tons) floating in the world's seas. Microplastics made up 92.4 percent of the total count.
NOAA and Plymouth University pages on microplastics.
Also at NYT and National Geographic.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday December 03 2017, @10:55PM (1 child)
That's probably exactly what they do want. "Ban glitter" just makes for a snappier headline that will give the story more exposure.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @01:31AM
Sure, just "ban" glitter. Just like some dictatorships try to "ban" the internet. The manufacturers don't care, plenty markets exist to offload anything even a large subset of nations might refuse to import. As for New Zealand - sure, ban glitter, right after you stop dropping 1080 all over the "100% pure clean green natural areas". Anything coming out of a NZ "uni" should be taken with a sack of salt.