The other day someone from the Twittersphere asked a sincere question about Halloween. How do we share treats without creating lots of plastic waste, including the junk little goblins may throw away on the candy trail?
We talked about this in our home, and Ruth noted that the treats such as candy apples and the cookie witches fingers she used to bake are anathema now. When our kids were young she made them for children we knew, but forget that now.
Go a step or eight farther and we realize that masks and costumes are plastic, not to mention all the plastic pumpkins and horrific lawn junk, create thousands of tons of garbage which is probably not recyclable. Here is a segment from an article in The Cut about a survey in Great Britain which estimates that 2,000 tons of Halloween plastic will be produced there this year:
The survey points out that Brits typically toss about 7 million costumes per year, which shakes out to tens of millions of bottles in plastic waste. All told, 30 million people in the U.K. dress up for Halloween — child’s play compared to the United States, where over 175 million people celebrated the holiday in 2018, according to the National Retail Federation. Of that group, 68 percent planned to buy Halloween costumes.
So, a Celtic pagan festival of the "thin place" between this world and the next is co-opted by Christians as a recognition of the "saints" who have gone before us. Baby Boomers turn it into a retail juggernaut which celebrates empty sugar calories, then create an environmental nightmare. We really are messed up!
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