A homeowner took to Reddit to complain after a neighbor's party resulted in a plastic mess pushed into their side of a shared driveway.
Posting the image of the litter on the community r/Anticonsumption, which has 617k followers, the Redditor wrote, "my crappy neighbor had a graduation party and used his leaf blower to clean his drive, relocating these to leaf litter (which is on my side of our shared driveway)."
The image displayed some plastic confetti, which the neighbor had apparently used a lot of during a graduation party.
In the modern world, single-use items have become a problem, particularly single-use plastic.
In the U.S. alone, about 40 million tons of plastic are thrown out each year. Only about 5% of this gets recycled, while 85% ends up in landfills.
Much of the plastic we produce and quickly discard also ends up in the oceans. There are at least 24.4 trillion microplastics floating in our oceans today, making up around 80% of all marine pollution.
Studies have shown that over 700 species of sea animals — including whales, dolphins, and sea turtles — are known to ingest plastic, and a single piece of it can kill an animal.
Another issue is its longevity, as plastic can remain in the ecosystem for up to 1,000 years.
Although the term longevity usually comes with a positive connotation, we don't want to see plastic lasting so long, and with so much now in our environment, it's no surprise we humans are also ingesting it, which has researchers concerned.
Single-use plastics for parties, like confetti, are among the most useless forms of plastic. The good news is there are some biodegradable options that can be made at home.
Either way, parties can still be just as fulfilling and fun even without single-use party plastic. Unfortunately, though, conventional confetti is still a popular option.
"You're not kidding," one commenter wrote. "My wife and I pick up trash in the forest preserve near our home on weekends. People throw parties there and use mountains of this stuff. It makes me ill."
Another added a relevant point, writing, "I don't see the point in any of it. Why do we need to use anything of that nature? We can make a cake or cookies and eat them to celebrate!"
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