The World is Full of Glitter
The headline below pleases me a lot.
"Morrisons and Waitrose ditch glitter for Christmas"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54545428
Not because I'm a joyless miserable Scrooge-like old git who'd love to take all the fun out of Christmas and ban the whole thing given half a chance. Although now I say it ... No, no! Let's not go there! I love Christmas!
That said glitter does annoy me. Just as the glitter from the last Christmas has finally disappeared from the house - to where, who knows - then Christmas is here again!
How does it get onto my face so quickly? And onto the kids, cats and dogs? And into every nook and cranny all around the house? Weeks later, just as I think it has all finally gone, there it is, a little fleck on my forehead glittering back at me in the mirror as I clean my teeth.
What happens in our houses - glitter spreading everywhere and hanging around indefinitely - is a microcosm of what is happening with plastic pollution globally. As plastic enters the ecosystem it eventually breaks down into glitter-sized pieces, spreads everywhere and lasts for decades. The globe is now covered in "glitter", we just don't see it.
Imagine for a minute that every single glitter-sized piece of plastic pollution shimmers and shines like glitter. Picture our oceans, beaches, deserts, forests, mountain ranges, green spaces, parks, cities, towns and villages. Imagine walking around and seeing it on every living person, creature and plant you come across.
It would look incredible! And very very wrong.
Imagine it shines so brightly you can even see it inside things. You can see how it has found its way into every corner of every living thing - even into the internal organs of your family and friends, and the flora and fauna in the oceans, on land and in the sky.
So please, let's give thanks to glitter for the lesson it teaches us. And let's give thanks to the companies that are phasing it out and, more importantly, taking a stand against plastic waste generally. And let's encourage them to do much much more, with our voices and our wallets.