To think that Halloween is proof that Cop26 is pointless and will achieve nothing?

[AngelicaElizaAndPeggy]

Sorry this is quite depressing.

I'm just looking at the 4 nice pumpkins that are sitting in my kitchen. They have been grown, probs using quite heavy-duty pest control and fertilizer chemicals and then transported to the massive Tesco's superstore where I bought them. You could also buy loads of plastic imported Halloween tat like masks, face paints, novelty pumpkin carving kits and big banners with things like 'Enter if you dare grrr' written in blood.
On Sunday night, my kids dressed up in their flammable fancy dress outfits and set off round our street where there were big mounted voldemorts hanging from doorways, ghost fairy lights and even a light projector that beamed skulls onto the side of a house making spooky sounds.

AIBU to panic about the massive tide of pointless ruff we buy in places like superstores, b&m, the range and home bargains? And others, those are just the first ones I think of? Unless we stop importing and buying all this pointless stuff, we are going to completely choke the planet with carbon, plastic and toxins. I'm as guilty of it as anyone and it makes me feel sick at just the sheer enormity and inertia of it. Unless we address our addiction to buying mass produced, imported stuff, everything the bigwigs in Glasgow decide to do will be pointless. But, if we do stop buying plastic tat, then our service based consumer economy will collapse. So I just feel utterly hopeless about the whole thing.

Sorry this is a massive rant.

You don’t have to buy all the plastic shite though.

YABU because you bought into the whole buying pointless shite thing, knowing it was bad for the planet!

I concede that there will have to be a massive economic reset if/when everyone really gets serious about the environment and global warming, but personally I think that's better than the alternative, with vast swathes of the world becoming uninhabitable because of desertification or flooding, and huge displacement of populations.

I agree, I just can't see how we come back from this huge hole we've dug for ourselves

YANBU. But it's not just plastic tat from China.
In the run up to Brexit one of the arguments against Brexit was how much we move stuff between places during manufacturing -
www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/03/brexit-uk-car-industry-mini-britain-eu
Whatever the rights and wrongs of Brexit the fact that it's somehow cheaper to keep transporting this stuff all over the place with no thought to the consumption and emission means we have very little hope of making the real progress we need.

We keep all our Halloween decorations and reuse them each year.

It’s not as good as just not bothering but it’s a reasonable compromise. I think we need to change our throwaway culture.

Efforts made to minimise and repair the damage we are doing to the planet are never pointless. YABU OP.

We can do it and it doesn’t mean going back to full on make do and mend. It means electrifying everything - and providing that energy through renewables.

Why buy it?

But that’s the thing, you don’t need to.

Pumpkin and butternut squash are really easy to grow ourselves either in England at more sites or in own garden.
We tried this year, and with 1 year old I have done very little gardening, still had 12 butternut squash and 8 pumpkins this year.

Christmas decor is things like pine cones or bought decor that is bought and lasts forever, not annual new ones

You keep the plastic tat and decs to use again, you donate the cheap costumes to a charity shop, you blitz up the inside of the pumpkins for soup or toast the seeds (you don’t need four though and it’s too late now!)

You're right. People say they're concerned about pollution and climate change and demand that something is done about it, it's just that they don't see any connection between the decisions they make and the damage we are collectively causing.

Leaders and their entourages jet in from all over the globe to a climate change meeting. Protestors travel from all over the country and from abroad to make their point. Travel is one of the biggest causes of pollution and climate change.

People block roads causing huge delays. Idling cars, cars that have to brake suddenly, kill their momentum then (eventually) move off again causes climate change.

People complain about prices going up, people want things as cheaply as possible. Locally grown food is more expensive.

Children are the most vocal about climate change, they've been manipulated into being FURIOUS about it, yet they demand the latest games consoles, want the latest mobile phones, expect the latest toys. Mostly manufactured in China using coal power, then shipped thousands of miles.

Greta Thunberg, the mouthiest protestor, demands politicians act now. Yet she declines to run for politics herself now that she is of age, she choses not to put herself in a position where she has the power to actually do something.

You don’t have to buy all the plastic shite though.
People still buy it though.

so your complaining because you wasted pumpkins??

I don’t think copies pointless it we do need to try and buy less plastic stuff that’s not needed

Hard to change

Small things like the cost on plastic bags changed behaviour

Listening to radio this am we should ban wet wipes with plastic, it’s tiny in the scheme of things but 1000s clogged

We reuse our Halloween decorations, feed the pumpkins to animals and use second hand costumes.

And as someone said above, it’s not so much buying some things, it’s more the throw away culture. If your buying a few Christmas tree decorations each year to build up a collection that you use every year, that’s very different from buying new every year to change colour theme and getting rid of the old ones. If you can try and buy non plastic more the better

And at xmas it's the same waste of money and resources. People spending money they often don't have buying shite for people that don't need it.

Why did you buy it? When did you realise this overproduced tat is our downfall? YANBU to think this all now but instead of cow towing to social pressures and then pointlessly ranting on MN about it, you and everybody partaking in this nonsense need to change their mindset and do their bit for the planet.

Why did you buy all that shit? We can’t control what others are doing to combat climate change but you can control what you do.

I have four kids - they wore outfits they’ve been wearing for the past five years or stuff adapted from the jumble sale bag, had their faces painted and we used the decorations we’ve been using for many years that live in a bag in the loft. Can’t be arsed with pumpkins tbh.

Just do your own bit and don’t worry about what anyone else is doing (and chop the pumpkins up and compost them)

I bought plastic Halloween tat years ago and just drag it out every year.

There have been plenty of pictures on local FB, of cars, windows and pathways that have been egged. What a pointless waste.

I agree with pp that you can be part of it too rather than just buying the stuff

@Samcro yes I am. I mean, we made soup from all the insides of the pumpkins and we are saving the seeds to plant next year. So I felt initially virtuous. But then felt awful when I considered all the polluting processes that went into producing and transporting the pumpkins in the first place. And it's just made me even more conscious of how trained and brainwashed I am as a consumer.

I was thinking this the other day.
My nans generation did not have all this tat. They had 2 wars, no foreign holidays, ate fresh food, cooked from scratch. Then came my mums generation, fast food, plastic packaging, tat, I could go on....
Then my generation have made it even worse.
I have children in their 20s and this is normal to them now.
We have managed to cause all this in just 2 generations.
We need to make it right.

Don’t buy it then! You can reuse decorations and costumes though and buy eating pumpkins (are some not food grade)?

Local garden centre 1/2 mile from my house grew a huge field of pumpkins so no need to buy from supermarket which will have transported them from miles away . But I agree about all the plastic tat. So much of it on every 'occasion' that is totally unnecessary. Halloween when I was a child consisted of stringing up apples from the kitchen cupboard or putting them in a washing up bowl of water and trying to grab one with your mouth. So much more eco friendly (and healthier than all those sweets!).
However the problem with supermarkets is much bigger. A family member has recently started a temporary job in a supermarket. He has been astounded by the amount of plastic packaging that gets thrown in a skip whilst we are all busy reusing our bags for life! And the amount of fizzy drinks in plastic bottles he restocks on a daily basis - OK some of it will get recycled by the consumer but surely it would be better not to buy it in the first place - both from an eco and health point of view.

I certainty won't be buying plastic tat or indeed unnecessary decorations this Christmas. My artificial tree is over 25 years old but still in good condition so will come out of the loft again this year along with the years old decorations. Any new decorations will be wooden and hand made. Have been on Pinterest for a few ideas.