As Old Spanish Days quickly approaches, the City of Santa Barbara reminds the community that confetti is litter.
The use of confetti at Santa Barbara parades and festivals is growing, in both the number of events where confetti is used and the volume of confetti tossed. While confetti eggs or cascarones have long been a tradition at Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days, we are now seeing large bags of confetti being sold and dumped on our sidewalks, streets, and parks.
In addition to paper confetti, the volume of shiny metallic confetti, sequins, glitter, and silly string used at community events is increasing. These are all made of plastic and are often mistaken for food and consumed by birds and other animals. Confetti can easily wash or blow into our storm drains, creeks, and ocean, where it poses a threat to aquatic life and pollutes our environment.
While you’re celebrating in the City, we encourage you to choose paper confetti and use it sparingly!
- Storm drains lead to our creeks and ocean untreated, polluting our creeks, beaches, and
- Confetti can be mistaken for food by birds, fish, and other wildlife.
- Shiny metallic confetti, sequins, and glitter are all made of plastic, which is not biodegradable.
- Throwing confetti and leaving it behind is littering!
Are you a vendor making cascarones to sell?
Please only use paper confetti (or leaves!), and do not add plastic or foam decorations on the outside of the eggs.
View information on Selling Cascarones (La venta cascarones).
Want to help spread the word about confetti litter?
Download and share confetti outreach materials.
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Why not ban confetti altogether? Last time my s.o. and I were on State St. during Fiesta we couldn’t believe the amount of mylar and other plastic junk the cascarone vendors were peddling. Time to get real about protecting our ocean wildlife and terrestrial wildlife. Ban confetti.
Environmentally safe confettis can be found. They are made with cornstarch and food dyes. They still end up in the ocean, but are much less toxic. The trick would be how to make sure people use those instead of plastic and paper products.
Such a joke every year
No kidding. Why does “environmentally aware” SB even ALLOW this crap? It’s just silly, expensive to clean up, and very bad for the ocean. We all know this by now.