• Question: in a glowstick people use at parties whats the most damageing chemical to the enviroment and are they any substitues to it

    Asked by mikecartoon to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 17 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Glow sticks are pretty fun 🙂

      As far as I know they’re quite safe, however if you burst a glow stick, you will end up with dye and a chemical called hydrogen peroxide on your hands and you should be careful not to get this in your eyes.

      The tube of a glowstick is made of plastic – Nicolas studies plastic in the environment so he may be able to tell you more about this!

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Zara has pretty much explained what happens!

      There are some more details here:
      http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/a/howlightsticks.htm

      While the chemicals are in the glowstick they aren’t doing much harm but if you break it or cut it open they can be quite nasty – hydrogen peroxide is quite a harsh bleach and you don’t want to mess around with it!
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_peroxide

Comments

  • Photo: mikecartoon

    mikecartoon commented on :

    thank you but ia there a subsyitute to hydrogen proxide

    • Photo: Edd

      Edd commented on :

      I don’t know!

      I think the reason hydrogen peroxide is used is because it is very common – it is used a lot to bleach paper for books and newspapers. Because such a lot of it is produced it is probably quite cheap compared to other similar chemicals. I am not sure what you could use instead – there are probably chemicals that would give a similar reaction but they may be much more expensive to use in a glowstick.

    • Photo: Zara

      Zara commented on :

      Sorry, I don’t know if there’s a substitute either!

      Did you know that hydrogen peroxide can be used to dye your hair? I know a girl who uses it a lot, her hair is really blonde! If it can stain hair, then it can probably stain your clothes too… so again, be careful if you burst a glow stick!

      Glow sticks have actually been used in science before 🙂 When I was in Trinidad, we used to do surveys of frogs in the rainforest (we would walk up a hill and count how many frogs we could hear along the way). We would start the surveys in the afternoon when it was light… as we walked up the hill, we would leave a glow stick on the ground. By the time we got to the top of the hill and finished the survey, it would be dark (it gets dark at about 6 pm there). We then used the glowsticks to find our way back to our start point! They were great for making sure we didn’t get lost in the forest!! 🙂