I'm sorry Rarity, and I'm sorry Pinkie, but I have to do this.

Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Glitter.  Not just glitter, but also all disposable party decorations of any kind.  Streamers, balloons, etc.  Glitter's particularly annoying because it just makes a horrendous mess.  Glitter's also more of an arts and crafts materiel than a decoration, but I lump these things together because glitter always makes a mess and most of it gets thrown away.  I mean, if someone uses glitter on an art project that they plan to keep, I guess that's one thing, but I tend to think that most things that glitter are used for get thrown away pretty quickly.  It's just so much unnecessary plastic waste, and there's just no way to contain it.  You could probably scoop up a handful of mud from a swamp in the jungles of Sumatra and find glitter.  But even if it's defensible to use glitter on something permanent, the fact is that disposable decorations are just an irresponsible, atrocious scourge at this point.  It is completely indefensible to create or use disposable, one-time use decorations for anything anymore.  Balloons and streamers and similar things need to go away for good.  I'm sorry, Pinkie.  I know I just broke your heart, but it's true.  There's no getting away from it.  I'm not saying we can't have fun decorations, but any decoration, for any purpose, should be something that gets saved and reused.  If you buy a decoration for any occasion with the intent to throw it away at the end of the event, then you need to rethink it.  Will this make some occasions look a bit drab?  Sure.  But that's a sacrifice we have to make if we want a future.

So, if anyone is wondering where this is coming from all of a sudden, this post is coming off the heels of the John Oliver Last Week Tonight special on plastic which details how dire the situation is regarding plastic pollution, much of which I already knew, but some of which was new and startling.  One fact I had already heard was that it's estimated that by the year 2050, the world's oceans will have, by weight, more plastic in them than fish.  Let that sink in.    Even more horrific is this new problem of microplastics in fish.  You heard about this?  So, basically, there's tons and tons of microscopic bits of plastic in the ocean, and the fish eat it, and then there's plastic in the fish that we eat.  There's plastic in our water, too.  It's estimated that most people consume an amount of plastic equal to one credit card each week.  We're killing ourselves and our planet with plastic.  And we're producing more of it exponentially.  I believe the special said that half of all plastic that's ever been made in all of human history has been made after 2015.  That's f*cked up.  We need to decrease our plastic production, especially our plastic waste, and the simplest place to start is to just stop making and buying completely unnecessary plastic that we fully intend to throw away at the end of the day.  Disposable party decorations are a f*cking abomination and their use needs to be heavily stigmatized.  Producing plastic just for aesthetics that we intend to throw away is something that never should have been done to begin with, but it's something that we absolutely cannot afford to do anymore.

Yeah, I know, I know.  Sequins are fine, okay?  Those are more permanent and don't get f*cking everywhere and make a huge mess.  You can make do without the glitter, darling.

Oh, but you know what the f*cking worst of all is?  CONFETTI.  I mean, that's just straight up f*cking trash that we produce just to see some colors.  We shoot it, we throw it around, then just sweep it up and into the trash it goes to pollute the planet.  F*CK CONFETTI.

Yeah, I know, I know.  I'm not saying you can't have parties, okay?  Just use reusable decorations.  It will still be fun, I promise.  I know balloons and confetti are lots of fun, but you know what's even more fun?  Not having plastic in your food and water.

This isn't as much of an issue for recyclable decorations, if one actually recycles them, but it's still not ideal to use one-time use decorations.  Recycling still takes time and resources and human-power.  We need to run the recycling plants  It doesn't happen by magic.  It's more effective to just not make the unnecessary things to begin with.  Decorating is fine, but it should be things you plan to keep.  We need to start thinking about everything we're throwing away and asking ourselves if it's really necessary in the first place.

And when I say we need to rethink everything, I mean everything.  We need to think about everything we're producing and turning into garbage and ask ourselves why.  Another example is wrapping paper.  I think we should eliminate it altogether.  Stop wrapping gifts.  If you want to keep them a surprise, put a towel or sheet over them.  Less fun and pretty?  Yeah.  But better than living in ruin because we destroyed the planet?  Again, yeah.  Here's another suggestion: if you still get a newspaper, save the comics all year and use them to wrap holiday presents, them recycle it all.  And definitely eliminate bows and strings for gift wrapping.  We can't afford to keep creating garbage like this.  Look, once again, I'm not saying that we stop decorating and making things look nice, only that we stop creating and buying stuff that's only used briefly for an event and then discarded.

So, this ended up being much more about disposable plastics than glitter, per se, but I thought glitter made a snappier title.