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.

Our local wildlife park accepts pumpkins for the animals.
We have bought plastic decorations, but they get reused every year for our small family Halloween party.
DD's Halloween costume will be passed onto friends or given to charity.

Your consumption on days like Halloween is entirely what you make of it. No one forces you to have multiple pumpkins, or lots of plastic tat decorations

I agree with you in principle op but why buy 4 pumpkins when one does the job? I have a lovely ceramic one that i put out every year, and i use the same decorations year after year. Lots of people are very wasteful, but you don't have to be one of them. We can all do our bit.

You don't need to buy anything though? It's not compulsory. They didn't need costumes to be purchased - could you not dress them in black and chalk bones on the black clothes? Did you need to trick or treat at all? Did you think about any of this before doing it and then feeling guilty afterwards? Because thinking about it first and making a sensible choice is what's going to make the difference. Not everyone is the same and some of us make different choices.

Yeah the squirrels in the local park get the pumpkins that I do with the kids I nanny for.

It’s not just plastic tat. We want asparagus in December, cheap green beans, quinoa, avocados, cut flowers, cheap meat, basically cheap everything, hence the success of the store’s mentioned up thread.

Cheap and/or aspirational consumer culture is the root cause, Halloween tat is just a symptom.

As the saying goes , ‘We’re all going to hell in a handbag but at least mine’s a Gucci’ ….

A sad indictment of our society.

We are just catching up with the way that its done in the USA. There is a lot more to follow.

We lurch from one retail opportunity to the next. We are being coerced into believing celebrations and festivals require us to buy 'stuff' or we're not doing it properly. You see it on here all the time 'I've only bought little Johnny 45 Christmas presents - is that enough?'

Social media doesn't help with influencers shilling stuff at their followers.

I know referring back to Ye Good Olde Days is frowned on, but I look back on Christmases Past, see how little we actually had, how excited and happy we were and feel incredibly sad it's come to this.

Every year people are looking for bigger, better, more luxurious. Where does it stop? Probably when the planet implodes.

It's good you noticed. The more people like you do the more it helps those of us who never buy the plastic tat resist our kids wanting it! It gets dull being the only one in a worthy home-made costume. I would only buy house decorations if I was going to reuse them every year.

Plastic tat shouls be banned as too many people don't see the problem and need decisions made for them.

YANBU. Until we ban all the useless plastic tat etc people will just keep buying it, every year it gets more excessive. I hate to think of the waste and pollution generated by all this stuff.

The planet won't implode. It just won't be able to support human life anymore. We are poisoning the air, water and earth for humans and many other species.

OP - look up minimalism and Joshua Becker. Has made me feel a lot calmer and I don't feel like Im missing out on anything.

Given Hallowe'en is as old as the hills, possibly rooted in pagan times it doesn't need to be all plastic tat, and pumpkins.

Although they are a heck of a lot easier to carve than a turnip (swede yellow flesh).

Outfits were what you could dream up, an old shirt, cardboard box, tin foil and bin bags were the starting point for many outfits.

I admit we do need to stop the plastic junk we all consume but my belief is the only way it will change is when oil production for fuel is slowed down, and sellers are forced to take back and recycle non-perachable goods.

Not everyone celebrates Halloween though, so I think the worst offenders in terms of climate change are the “themed Christmas tree” brigade - often buying a real tree or a new fake one every year, decorating it with new, colour coordinated tat and then throwing the whole lot away after Christmas. Real trees cut off from the roots is IMO more unsustainable than a pumpkin crop, which takes one year to grow and is also consumable, either by yourself or by wildlife.
We have a Halloween decorations box and a Christmas decorations box, and re-use these decorations every year (one DC has a birthday near Halloween), only replacing stuff that breaks. Our fake Christmas tree is >15 years old, and we grow our own pumpkins for carving. Each decoration, both Halloween and Christmas, holds a memory, and only goes to landfill if it breaks irreparably, so I think you are judging everyone by your own perception, rather than looking at what might actually be happening...

@Plantstrees

Plastic tat shouls be banned as too many people don't see the problem and need decisions made for them.

I agree. I think I posted on another thread about all the Halloween and Christmas tat at my local garden centre.

And then you get the prats who get to school 45 minutes early for pick up and sit with their engine idling...

and the litterbugs

I voted YABU because you spent your hard earned money to buy all that shite!

It's good the penny has dropped though.

I always try not to be wasteful with one day events like Halloween, I’ve got some paper decorations which I reuse each year, our pumpkins come from a local farm and this year my daughter used her tutu dress and I just added accessories and face paints that we already have to make it spooky, I don’t think we have any wastage this year. I think we should all try and be a bit more conscious of how much throw away crap we buy throughout the year as it gets ridiculous at times.

Don't buy Halloween crap, the kids will get over it.

We grew our pumpkins (wee tip if you're doing it next year,.when the pumpkins start to grow, sit each of them on a ceramic tile so they're not sitting on the ground. Stops them rotting/turning to mush against the wet ground).

My kids both wore costumes we already owned. I know that doesnt really reduce the impact these costumes have. We've always had a large fees up box so I buy loadsor costumes in larger sizes and they've had them for a long time. We're just getting to the end of the ones we have as they're growing too tall now but we've had them for a couple years. I'll have them into the school when I do pack them up.

I mean, yes you should obviously not buy plastic Halloween tat. It’s ugly and it will end up sitting in landfill for centuries, and that’s 2 good reasons to ditch it.

But also, COP is about government targets and the regulation of vast industrial pollution, which is overwhelmingly responsible for climate change.

Individual action is important and good, but something like 10 companies worldwide are responsible for 90% of c02 emissions. That’s what COP needs to address. In the grand scheme of things, your 4 pumpkins are not the issue here.

I agree. I thought this when I was in the supermarket on the 30th October, all the halloween tat had been moved to make space for the Christmas tat. I tend not to get too sucked into it all and reuse the same things for years. I have a halloween box just as I do Christmas box in the loft that come out every year.

It's about delayed gratification. Because people can't see an immediate change due to their 'sacrifices', they don't make them. People will keep on buying tat, keep on flying for pleasure, keep on consuming environmentally disastrous foods, keep on pursuing financial wealth above all else - until the flood is at their doorstep, it's too hot for them to sleep, or work. Then they'll blame 'everyone' for not doing enough to prevent the predicted changes.

I'm in my 60s, I shan't be around for most of the fallout, no kids, no family really - but I feel for those who come after me - poor sods.

YABU.

Why did you buy all this pointless tat? I missed the memo making it compulsory.

We had 2 pumpkins and sweets to hand out. I’d avoid the single wrapped sweets but don’t know how. For costumes there’s charity shops or home made / improvised costumes (which are the best imo).

@Notjustanymum

Not everyone celebrates Halloween though, so I think the worst offenders in terms of climate change are the “themed Christmas tree” brigade - often buying a real tree or a new fake one every year, decorating it with new, colour coordinated tat and then throwing the whole lot away after Christmas. Real trees cut off from the roots is IMO more unsustainable than a pumpkin crop, which takes one year to grow and is also consumable, either by yourself or by wildlife. We have a Halloween decorations box and a Christmas decorations box, and re-use these decorations every year (one DC has a birthday near Halloween), only replacing stuff that breaks. Our fake Christmas tree is >15 years old, and we grow our own pumpkins for carving. Each decoration, both Halloween and Christmas, holds a memory, and only goes to landfill if it breaks irreparably, so I think you are judging everyone by your own perception, rather than looking at what might actually be happening...

Love this post but a quick point - real trees are much more environmentally friendly than fake. I think you have to use a fake tree for something like 30 years before the carbon footprint is lower than that of real trees. And of course, even if you use it for long enough that the carbon footprint is lower than real trees, it will still ultimately end up in landfill for the next 500 years.

I’m a bit biased because I love a real tree anyway, but they are also the eco choice

I think we need serious legislation now against all of this rubbish. Plastic toys and things should have a levy. Kids magazines should not be allowed to come with a page of plastic crap.

We did do halloween. One child’s costume was an old Christmas present (one of his only presents not to be second hand - although he had mostly no idea) and the other one was bought recently second hand. We had pumpkins - we did make soup and pumpkin pie but still, they were frivolous. I don’t feel THAT bad about it but it’s hard because if we’d gone to the big supermarket my DC would have been begging to buy all the plastic tat I’m sure. It takes a lot of work to just avoid it!

Couldn’t agree more. May as well hoist up Poundland et al with a crane and put the whole damned thing into landfill. While you’re at it, all those containers full of plastic tat sitting at Felixstowe.