More than 60 British music festivals have made the commitment to ban single-use plastic from their sites by 2021, including long-time festival favourite glitter.
The Drastic on Plastic initiative, which is led by the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), was primarily focused on the removal of plastic drinks bottles, plastic straws, plastic food trays, cable ties and toiletry bottles from festival sites, but as it is made of tiny pieces of plastic, glitter also falls under the guidelines.
The 61 independent music festivals include some big names, including End of the Road, Bestival, Boardmasters and Kendal Calling (see a full list here), which will raise awareness among hundreds of thousands of festival-goers.
Shindig and Shambala festivals have explicitly asked festival-goers not to bring glitter onto their sites, while WEAREFSTVL specifically state in their supplier contracts that all traders using glitter must use biodegradable glitter.
Although the UK government banned the use of microbeads in toiletries and cosmetics, glitter has – somewhat controversially – remained legal.
In November 2018 several nursery schools banned the use of glitter in craft sessions, while a study later revealed that one in four want to ban glitter from classrooms in the future.
