Glitter has lost its shine – but scientists may have found a safer substitute | Environment

Even before Taylor Swift donned “glitter freckles”, the sparkly stuff was prolific – sold in tiny vials at craft shops, and sprinkled on to a variety of products from clothing to Christmas decorations, cards and makeup.

Glitter ends up everywhere: in the environment as well as the carpet.

While some scientists have called for an outright ban, new Australian-led research has found a shimmery cellulose substitute that could be safer for soil.

University of Melbourne researchers tested the effects of conventional and cellulose-based glitters at different concentrations – 10, 100 and 1,000 mg glitter/kg of soil – on the health of tiny soil animals called springtails.

The paper, published in Chemosphere, found that when conventional glitter made from plastic and metal was present in soil at 1,000 mg/kg, springtails produced 61% fewer offspring compared to a control soil sample after 28 days.

There were no toxic effects on springtail reproduction at any concentration of the cellulose glitter.

The co-author and University of Melbourne ecotoxicologist, associate prof Suzie Reichman, said the results highlighted the potential risks microplastics like glitter posed for soil health.

“We all know that plastic is a big issue in our oceans,” she said. “But what a lot of people aren’t as aware of is that there’s actually more plastic pollution in our soil, and it’s potentially having just as big an impact.”

Springtails are tiny organisms that crawl around in the soil and help maintain its health by eating decaying materials and fungi, she explained. If, as the experiment showed, plastic glitter affects their health and reproduction (and that of other soil-dwelling organisms), that could in turn affect the growth of healthy plants.

The non-plastic glitter made from cellulose nanocrystals was developed by researchers from the UK’s University of Cambridge. The lustrous dust was produced from very thin films of cellulose, a type of sugar found naturally in cotton and wood, which were then broken up into tiny crystal structures.

Based on the results, Reichman said the cellulose glitter was likely to be safer, noting that further research was under way into its effects on the aquatic environment.

Dr Cassandra Rauert, who researches human and environmental exposure to microplastics at the University of Queensland and was not involved in the glitter paper, said microplastics such as glitter are “ubiquitous”.

“They’re in the soil, they’re in the water, they’re in the air,” she said.

Microplastics and the chemicals they contain raise health concerns, as they could break into much smaller pieces and cross biological barriers in our bodies – though the implications are still unknown.

“For instance, if we eat them, they can then get through our stomach into our blood. Or if we inhale them, they might be able to get through the pathways and the lungs into the blood and then circulate through the body.”

Because glitter is a significant source of microplastics, Rauert said: “If there’s an alternative we should be using it.”