Our first ‘I’ve got an Idea’ Fund award of 2025 is to Cassie Quinn for her lab experiments into creating reflective sparkles using biopolymers. Intriguingly, the idea was born from a mistake made in an experiment of Cassie’s while producing wastewater-cleaning sequins. Her project will now investigate this phenomenon (see image) and how to reproduce it. Her goal is to retain biodegradability in sequin and embellishments and creating gemstones like amber and opal using non-extractive methods.

Why does this matter? For a start, it’s reported that British women purchase 33 million sequinned garments every festive season, with 1.7 million ending up in landfill after only 5 years and 35% of microplastics being released into the world’s oceans. These conventional sequins are made of polyester film or vinyl, which involve toxic and carcinogenic chemicals that cause significant environmental and health risks.

You could argue, why don’t we ‘simply’ ban sequins if they generate such toxic waste. But our use of and attraction to glittering objects like sequins is certainly no trivial modern whim. Their construction and decorative use reach back in time for at least 12,000 years and across many diverse civilisations. It is only in recent times that we have switched from first shells and later metal coins to toxic micro plastics for sequin construction. And why is sparkle important to us? Certainly, our fellow, non-human creatures have evolved bright, eye catching colours and display to attract others – while we have done the same through articles we wear or carry or by directly painting our faces and bodies. Some research in evolutionary aesthetics also suggests that humans prefer shiny objects because glossiness connotes water which has always been vital for life.

So, we wish Cassie luck in exploring ways to give us sparkling sequins without microplastics, dyes and their toxic waste effects.