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Slime: Can it be environmentally friendly?

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WATCH: Is your slime eco-friendly? Alex has been looking into it

Slime - it can be squishy, stretchy, jiggly or putty.

It's fun to play with and it's fun to make.

But some of the ingredients in slime can be harmful to the environment when it's thrown away.

However, there are ways of making slime and still looking after the planet.

If you're making slime using glue, it's basically like making a big lump of plastic.

Glitter is also a problem because it is made up up of really tiny bits of plastic.

Plastic can take many years to breakdown because it doesn't rot like food or natural materials such as paper.

Also the materials needed to make glue aren't renewable, which means that one day they will run out.

Media caption,

WATCH: Find out how to make eco-friendly slime at home

Chemistry teacher Kristy Turner says there are ways slime can be eco-friendly.

But you'll need to change your recipe to include food-based products like flour, marshmallows and icing sugar.

Using food means the slime will be kinder to the planet because it will rot much quicker.

Image source, TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/Getty Images

If you do have a glue-based or plastic slime, the advice is to cut it up in to smaller pieces when you throw it away so it will break down quicker.

You can also try to make your homemade slime last longer so you don't need to throw as much away.

You can do this by keeping it in an airtight container.

Have you tried making eco-friendly slime? Comment below if you have!