Around graduation time at East Carolina University, many students throw confetti during photo-shoots or celebrations. Despite the few signs discouraging the use of confetti, many people choose to ignore them. However, this act is very destructive to the campus grounds and surrounding ecosystems in Greenville.

Confetti is made of a plastic called Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) which is not biodegradable and will not break down for thousands of years, and can sometimes contain glitter, which is usually the same material. This means it will find its way into nearby ecosystems as well as the nearby Tar River, eventually going into the ocean, polluting and affecting the ocean life. It can also be accidentally ingested by animals confusing it for food due to the shiny appearance. 

Over the course of a piece of confetti’s lifetime, it can also shed microplastics, which are very tiny pieces of plastic. These can get into the bodies of organisms, some of which we eat. The health effects of these are still being researched, and some have even been found to have passed through the blood-brain barrier. In fact, the average human consumes 44 pounds of microplastics throughout their lives. 

Despite the environmental effects, confetti is often left on the ground and litters the campus. It is extremely difficult to clean up confetti by hand so usually nothing can be done. This contributes to a less clean campus and negatively impacts it’s image. This can also result in injuries caused by slipping, as many students have observed that steps to many frequently used buildings become dangerously slippery when confetti is thrown on them.

East Carolina University directly encourages the use of confetti by refusing to enforce bans on confetti on campus, as well as selling it directly to students in their student stores. We demand that ECU places a campus-wide ban on plastic based confetti and ends the sale in their stores. These actions are paramount in ending one of ECU’s sources of pollution. Please sign if you agree that ECU should stop selling and ban confetti on it’s campus.