The dangerous truth about sequins

I’d never thought much about sequins before, other than thinking, oooh shiny!
And wondering if it would be over the top to have some on my swimming cozzie? Or whether it would be weird if they were on my duvet? And, I wish they were edible, so I could have some on my birthday cake.

Then I went to The Design Indaba and heard Elissa Brunato speaking.
Elissa has a Masters in ‘Material Future’.

She says humans may have an attraction to anything shiny or shimmery because of our innate caveman need for water.

But the manufacture of sequins is problematic. It’s basically a bajillion pieces of completely non-biodegradable micro-plastic. Plus, the damage the colours do when they seep out of the factory and into nearby water sources is apocalyptic. Greta would not approve!

But wait, maybe it will all be okay. Thanks to the big brains on Brunato, I might not have to ditch my sequinned toothbrush yet.

First they looked closely at the carapaces of shimmery beetles.

Which are obviously totally biodegradable, so nature must know something about this that we don’t.

They’ve since been experimenting with a renewable celluloid plant matter, that’s 100% organic and could potentially replace sequins.

A bio-luminescent sequin

So that’s the latest new shiny thing.