Time to phase out glitter

[some seeing eye]

I worked on a beach plastics cleanup. Once you look on the beach, you will see it's everywhere. But the tiniest stuff you cannot even see. That includes microbeads: plastic particles in body soaps as an exfoliant and it includes glitter.

I know glitter is a burner and raver addiction, but it is time to phase it out.

Ocean plastics develop a thin layer of algae, the fish smell it, then they eat it. While the Black Rock Playa collects burner garbage into the lakebed and doesn't flow to the sea, Burners are out and about with their glitter in places which do get into the environment.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... vironment/

https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/con ... -pollution

[Token]

I’m wondering how high in BLM’s shit list we find glitter.

Don’t mean to harsh your keyboard activism, but in the grand scheme of things, I don’t see glitter as a root cause kind of issue.

Of all the things I can figure that could lead to the event shutdown, glitter ain’t one of them.

JOTS abuse, sanitation and quite ripe environment for an illness outbreak, fire risk in shanty-town, the lunatic factor ... way more serious.

And let’s not even start down the culture aspect of the “Glitterati” and bucket-list tourism.

Overall, glitter falls somewhere between thigh chafe and playa boogers on my list of Playa contaminants.

YMMV

[some seeing eye]

Mr Token, completely agree that the event will end in a liability cluster-f*ck, death, injury, wildfire, communicable disease or rain stranding! The glitter comment is an appeal to individual year-round behavior. Our use of plastic is a Faustian bargain.

[torrey.smith]

This will be hard for me!

[Sammalamma]

Non plastic glitter (bio degredable) is out there but is just hard to find and very expensive with limits in colours. I'll keep looking for a good source tho.

[BBadger]

Glitter is probably good to avoid, but aren't a major source of microplastics. Tires, clothing, cosmetics and other such things are a much greater source of plastic pollution. Glitter is far more visible though.

It's kind of like ending the BM event to save the world from air pollution. It just doesn't make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things.

[Token]

Mr Token, completely agree that the event will end in a liability cluster-f*ck, death, injury, wildfire, communicable disease or rain stranding! The glitter comment is an appeal to individual year-round behavior. Our use of plastic is a Faustian bargain.

Bingo! Exactly why I go to the butcher and get my meats wrapped in butcher paper.

it’s quite entertaining that 40 years ago we didn’t have all the plastic everywhere and we did just fine.

[Chowski]

Who uses glitter at Burning Man? Loose glitter is clearly on the "no" list. I've run a camp for close to a decade now, and we don't see any glitter ever. Perhaps it is the Rave Zombies with whom I do not associate? If that is the case, all we need to do is convince BMORG to stop giving premium placement to the EDM Commodification camps. That, and shut down the airport. Stop making it easy for non-contributors to arrive. Problem solved.

[FlyingMonkey]

This year I saw people sprayed head-to-toe with some kind of glitter paint. It looked more like a prismatic color shifting auto paint from a distance. Kind of a green gold shift. They said some camp was painting people & it wasn't supposed to be moopy. I can't speak to that but it looked pretty awesome.

I'm wondering if anyone knows what camp was doing it & if they know what paint was used?(PM me to avoid commodification)

I would consider using it if it is in fact Playa friendly & safe for humans.

[BBadger]

From what I heard, that less MOOPy kind of glitter is the camp's "trade secret."

[Dr. Pyro]

Well, I guess this settles the argument. If North Korea doesn't kill us all, glitter will.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5026639/g ... mals-fish/