Halloween is almost here! A time for all things scary… like ghosts, creepy clowns, ghouls, and… TRASH! Yes, you read that right. In fact, the most terrifying thing about Halloween is the useless piles of waste that it generates worldwide.
Every year, around one million kilograms of pumpkins are farmed in the United States. Many are carved into jack-o-lanterns and then wind up in the trash rather than on the table. Authorities have warned that these decomposing pumpkins release methane, which significantly contributes to climate change. Similarly, according to 2020 research, half of the UK’s 24 million pumpkins carved for Halloween had ended up as food waste. Plus, 42% of study respondents had no idea that pumpkin flesh was edible. There’s more, with 70% of UK shoppers expecting to buy sweets, chocolates, and other delights, Halloween is now the UK’s third largest commercial festival after Christmas and Easter.
Starting from the massive food waste, shoddy single-use costumes, and plastic candy wrappers to mass-produced decoratives, Halloween is not only a nightmare to the environment but also to our wallets. Here’s your guide to how you can have a happy and Green Halloween in 2022.
1. Reuse or DIY your own costume
Find your old costume from last year. Adding a different accessory or face paint will make it new again! You can also DIY your own costume from thrift store fabrics or recycled finds around the house. Get creative!
2. Swap costumes with friends
Another super fun option is to arrange a Halloween costume swap with your friends. This is a great option if your old outfit doesn’t fit anymore, or if you just want to change things up this year!
3. Make your own homemade treats
Homemade treats are the best! Plus you get to spend a great time with family and friends baking cookies and cakes for Halloween! Then again, if making homemade treats is too time-consuming for you, you can do this instead…
4. Ethical alternatives to regular candies
You can look for sweet treats and candies with independent certifications like B-corp. Note that these certifications do not necessarily always mean they’re completely green. It’s completely okay if you still have to buy regular candies. Just remember that buying only what you need is not only better for the planet but also for the kids too!
5. DIY Decorations
Decorating for Halloween with family, friends, or even just by yourself is a great way to explore your creativity while also being a conscious planet lover. Just find random stuff around your house and go crazy with your ideas!
6. Buy local and seasonal produce
It’s best to buy your pumpkin from a local grower or a farmer’s market. If pumpkins aren’t in season for where you are(like the Southern hemisphere), you can carve out watermelons instead!
7. Make the best use of your pumpkin
Save the seeds and flesh to eat later. You can make pumpkin soup with the flesh and even muffins. Plus, you can also roast the seeds, it makes a pretty good snack! Compost the remains of the pumpkin if it’s past its best use after being on display for too long. Remember, you don’t have to throw away your Halloween pumpkins. You can actually use the Guts, Skin, Flesh, and Seeds to make some amazing dishes. Some examples include:
Baking a pumpkin pie or a cake
Making pumpkin cookies
Making pumpkin soup with the flesh
Making chips with the skin
Making pumpkin gut muffins
Baking a pumpkin bread
Cooking a delicious pumpkin curry
Roast the seeds as a crunchy snack
It’s okay if you still can’t eat your pumpkins, or they seem to be completely inedible. You can always just compost them instead!
8. Save your costume and decorations for next year
Now, this is pretty self-explanatory. Saving everything up will make it smooth and easy for you to set up your Halloween game for the next year. Even if you don’t want to repeat it next year, you can always swap with your friends, or even get crafty and DIY it into something completely new.
Remember, trying to be sustainable, should not take the fun out of the festival. All you have to do is be mindful of your small choices, and it would make a huge difference. Happy Green Halloween!
Have you ever been eco-shamed? As you are here, it is a safe bet to say that even if you have never been eco-shamed, you know about it. Eco-shaming or Sustainability shaming is on the rise, just like eco-awareness, just like extreme weather events, just like the whole climate crisis.
Urban dictionary defines eco-shame as ‘to shame another person for not respecting the environment’, a simple and crystal clear definition indeed. Eco-shaming can be seen more heavily on social media than in real life. But the question that we need to ask is whether it works as a motivator to bring positive changes or if it just makes us feel bad and affects our mental health.
We are not even halfway through 2022 and already we have experienced floods in Australia, wildfires in Argentina, mudslides in Brazil, and typhoons in the Philippines, just to name a few. With increasing natural disasters; temperature; rainfall, environmental awareness is also on the rise. Gen Z and Millenials are caring more about the health of our planet than the previous generations and leading the movement of saving our planet.
Along with the extreme weather events and awareness, eco-shaming is rising too. Especially on social media platforms, it is quite easy to find examples of eco-shaming in the comments section. Environmentally conscious people are shamed for not being a perfectionist and general people are shamed for not being eco-conscious. Also, public figures, businesses, and governments are shamed frequently for not doing enough.
But the question is, how effective is eco-shaming?
Have you watched the famous Greenpeace campaign video from 2010? It showed that a man was having a Nestle KitKat bar which ends up being a finger of an orangutan but he eats it anyway. This video was made to shame Nestle for sourcing palm oil from companies associated with the destruction of Southeast Asia’s rainforest.
Give the Orangutan a Break: Nestle KitKat Spoof Video by Greenpeace
Guess what happened next?
Just two months after this video was released, Nestle announced a new sourcing policy that avoided any connection to deforestation. So, that video of Greenpeace was surely a positive example of sustainability shaming.
But, when an environmental activist or an eco-influencer is shamed for not being perfect or even when your friend is shamed for not carrying a reusable water bottle, chances are pretty high that it would affect their mental health instead of bringing a positive change. A master’s thesis by Nina Kumambetova at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences on Eco-shaming even found that people experience tiredness and loss of interest in local environmental agendas due to eco-shaming without proper navigation of what might be done.
Also blaming individuals for the climate crisis is surely a way of greenwashing and shifting the focus from the main problems that need attention and fixing to bring real changes. However, it can be argued that eco-shaming is done with a good intention to change individual behaviors. But, making an individual feel guilty and working on that guilt to bring positive behavioral changes surely does not sound very scientific and healthy too.
Changing an individual’s behavior is not something easy.
There is nothing to feel frustrated about. Yes, changing someone’s behavior is tough but it is not impossible. But instead of eco-shaming someone to motivate, it is better to follow some psychological tactics.
Firstly, it is important to remember that it is necessary to be patient about it. Changing behavior takes time. It is surely tough for a smoker to give up smoking due to the craving for nicotine even after knowing the downsides of it.
Secondly, don’t forget to be empathetic and respectful when you are trying to motivate someone to care for our planet more. Surely you feel for our planet and you feel that because you can practice empathy. That empathy is needed when you are trying to motivate someone to become more eco-conscious.
Leading by example is always a super idea to inspire others. Instead of “Do as I say”, try “Do as I do”. Visible tasks performed by others can help someone to believe that it is really possible to change a habit. When you suggest someone stop using single-use plastic, it might seem impossible to them because probably they have never tried something else other than that single-use plastic or they might feel like it is a new responsibility that makes their lives more complicated or there can be other reasons too. But, when you show them that it is really not tough to have your reusable water bottle with you, it is not tough to not litter, it is not tough to use public transport they start to believe that it is possible and try to change.
When leading by example, keeping some factors according to Professor of psychology Peter Max Gollwitzer in mind can help you to help others immensely. Those factors are:
Goals should be as specific as possible.
The goal should be accomplished in the near future rather than in the far future.
Positive gain, rather than the loss of a negative, should be the motivation for behavior change.
These three factors can be used to change someone’s behavior to become more eco-conscious. Still not sure “how”? Suppose, you are trying to make your friend an eco-friendly internet user. There are a lot of practices that have helped you to reduce your digital carbon footprint and you started with cleaning up your email inbox. You can just help your friend out to clean up her/his/their inbox too – so now you have a specific goal. It will surely take a while to clean up an email inbox but by following a strategy it is possible to have one easily and early, it will not take months to have a light inbox – so now you have the goal in the immediate future. Having a lighter inbox means less energy is used to save your files and that means less digital carbon footprint for you. But, having a lighter inbox can also help you to become more organized and more productive. You can surely tell your friend about how your organized and lighter inbox has helped you and it can help her/him/them too instead of saying that – a heavier inbox is consuming more energy for no good reason and that is not good for our environment. After cleaning up her/his/their inbox you can say that – “Hey, it looks organized, it will help you to become more productive and now you have helped our planet too by saving energy.”
Another way of motivating someone is by asking the right questions politely which can help her/him/them to become more eco-conscious. Not clear enough? Okay. Think in this way – if I want you to bring your reusable water bottle and I say, “Don’t forget to bring your bottle again.” or “Please bring your reusable water bottle next time.”, chances are pretty high that you might forget or even you might not realize why carrying your reusable water bottle with you is better for your health and the health of our planet. But, if I ask you – “Do you think having your reusable water bottle with you can help you and our environment?”, I bet that you will answer that question affirmatively and you might also add some points explaining “why” to support your opinion and chances are really higher that the next day you will try to bring your water bottle and try to make it a habit.
According to a study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, the question-behavior effect is the key to behavior change. The key is to ask questions respectfully and ask a question that forces you to choose a definitive yes or no answer. The study says that discomfort motivates people to change and with the help of such techniques of questioning an individual will not go through shame and will feel like she/he/they need to change a certain behavior because it is the right thing to do. Remember to stay respectful and supportive so that the person does not go through a feeling of guilt for doing something which is not eco-conscious for a long time even after knowing it. Help them to always remember that imperfect environmentalism is realistic and it can help a lot too. Seeking an Instagram-perfect lifestyle will not only fail to bring real changes in behavior but also can make them feel depressed too.
Eco-shaming has its own positive and negative sides. It surely depends on who is being shamed. Eco-shaming an individual is not a good idea but shaming a business or a policy can bring real meaningful changes. It is important to remember that, we want everyone to act eco-consciously for our planet, to overcome the climate crisis and for that, we need changes in individual behaviors, changes in the ways of doing business, and changes in legislation. Keeping that in mind it is wise to have different strategies for different times, places, and situations and eco-shaming is surely not a good strategy to convince an individual to become more eco-friendly.
The pandemic has surely got us to learn and use some new terms, of them the most popular one must be – “New Normal”. Our ways of thinking, our ways of speaking, and our ways of behaving change with time. Events – global events, local events, and personal events are the factors that drive these changes. The Covid-19 pandemic, being a global event, has surely brought changes into our lives too. It has made us think about our lives and our ways of living. We understood pretty quickly that, the sooner we can adapt to these changes, the better it is for us and we started calling these changes – The New Normal.
What is a Sustainable Lifestyle?
First, let’s discuss what a “sustainable lifestyle” is. It’s a way of living that helps one to have a positive impact on our planet, the people around us, on our own selves and save money, and live a healthy – peaceful life. This is, of course, a philosophy, this is of course a way of thinking.
Now let’s talk about why or how “Sustainable Lifestyle” has also become a “New Normal”, whether we understand it or not, whether we agree or not, it’s the best move for any individual to adopt this lifestyle, in this post-pandemic world.
The pandemic has made us realize that we need to act responsibly, otherwise worse events than this pandemic will become a “new normal” for us. The most important idea of a sustainable lifestyle is – responsible living and surely the pandemic has made us think a lot about our actions, our behaviors, and our decision-making process.
We have realized that spending responsibly is really important. Spending money on the things that we don’t really need is not quite a good idea. Saving that money up may help us or the people around us, in crisis. Spending money responsibly – not being an impulse buyer is an essential part of a sustainable lifestyle.
The pandemic has taught us that staying home, buying local, and visiting the places where we live are not only possible but fun too. Of course, a sustainable lifestyle wants us to buy local, spend and invest in local businesses to create a circular economy and reduce our carbon footprints.
Now we are more concerned about making healthier life choices. We are concerned about what we eat, how we live, and what we wear. We have realized that maintaining good health is important to have a strong immune system. More and more people, all around the world are cutting meat and fish off their menus slowly every day and getting interested in heavier planet-based diets. People are trying to keep their homes as clean and non-toxic and natural as possible because we have learned that any kind of pollution is bad for our lungs and good for diseases! Also, we have surely understood that not all types of masks can help us against viruses and we have also realized that, only taking pictures and uploading them on our social media we really don’t need to buy clothes no matter how many times the fashion brands tell us that we are getting out of style. Is it really difficult to understand that they just want us to keep buying new clothes every day just to make profits?
Lastly, we have learned to check on our family members, our friends, our relatives, and our neighbors more than before. The pandemic has taught us that our relationships are more valuable than any other thing and so we have learned to look for ways that will help us and our loved ones to live a healthy life and a “sustainable lifestyle” is all about living a healthy life. A society that cares about each other is really a strong one and we have learned that.
The most important thing the pandemic has taught us and which is also the most important part of a sustainable lifestyle is finding meaning in our actions and finding peace. A sustainable lifestyle is all about making our lives easier, acting responsibly, and finding peace and the pandemic has taught us all of these. It’s really not tough to understand and say that – Of course, Sustainable Lifestyle is the New Normal.
