This week a group of daycare centers in the south of England announced their plans to ban glitter from all of their nurseries.
While I can understand the disappointment that the kids won't be making sparkly holiday cards anymore, I have to say that I'm kind of on the daycare's side here.
Cheryl Hadland, the managing director of Tops Day Nurseries, explained that she made the decision after realizing glitter is a microplastic.
Microplastics have been in the news a lot in the last few years after it was discovered that the microbeads in our personal hygiene products were ending up in our water systems.
The issue is so bad that both Canada and the United States have banned the use of microbeads.
But environmental groups have started pointing out that microbeads are not the only culprit when it comes to microplastics in our environment.
So they've turned their attention to glitter, which is made of tiny bits of plastic and metal.
There is a reason glitter is often compared to a contagious disease: it gets everywhere and is seemingly impossible to get rid of.
I once wore a sparkly red dress to a Christmas party three years ago and I swear I'm still finding red glitter in strange places.
Hadland told Sky News, "You can see when the children are taking their bits of craft home and there's glitter on the cardboard, it blows off and into the air and on to the road, and it's only a tiny little bit, but we've got 3,000 children and they're all doing Christmas craft at the moment, so we've got glitter everywhere."
Hadland added that she loves glitter, but the environment is more important than a little sparkle.
"There are 22,000 nurseries in the country, so if we're all getting through kilos and kilos of glitter, we're doing terrible damage, and these children, the world is for them."
While banning glitter in 19 daycares may not save the environment on its own, the act could cause other nurseries around the world to follow suit, and just maybe glitter manufacturers might start looking for sustainable, eco-friendly ways to make our holiday cards sparkle.
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