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With Halloween drawing near and a lot of people in the community making the most of the celebrations; whether that be getting dressed up to go trick or treating, going to Halloween parties/disco's, or even making cookies and carving a pumpkin; it is something that seems to play a big part in our society.
For over a week now I have seen houses decorated ready for the upcoming event, which got me thinking about this blog and some information that I think is fascinating.
Seeing the figures is quite spooky. According to Finder.com Halloween spending was at £600 million in 2021 and rose to around £687 million in 2022. This year it is estimated to go up to £777 million spend on Halloween, mostly focused in retail and hospitality.
However, the waste that comes with this is another story. In 2021 it was estimated that 2000 tonnes of plastic waste would be generated from Halloween, and 7 million Halloween costumes are thrown away every year. As for the pumpkins - 1.4 billion pumpkins are produced for Halloween every year, back in 2019, 8 million of these went to landfill.
There are so many directions we could go with this, some of which have already been done
- costume swaps, articles to make your own costumes and decorations
- growing your own pumpkin
- recipes to make use of the flesh and seeds from the pumpkins
- activities focused on children and communities; like pumpkin carving, baking and craft workshops, or hosting your own.
Although I find all of these fascinating and could drone on for hours, I thought I'd get down to the core of where they come from.
Pumpkin farmers (who will usually grow other fruit, veg and livestock too) say to harvest 1,500 to 40,000 pumpkins a day, with some offering PYO (Pick Your Own) and others paying staff to pick and wash them.
Sweet treats attract 40% of the Halloween shoppers each year. Giving an estimated £310, 800, 000 spend this year on sweet treats alone.
60% of what consumers spend at Halloween is on costumes.
As for the designers, producers, bakers and marketers in the spooktacular season, their growth is a significant increase, before the dramatic Christmas increase (no figures found).
So to the creatives, hard labourers, manual workers and cookers/bakers (amongst all of the other linked careers), there are a number of seasons, including Halloween, that make use of your talents, and would gravely miss your input, potentially making what is on offer hidden in the darkness.
Even though the negative effects of the plastic, production (electricity) and waste (land fill) has a big impact on our lives and the environment, it is something I feel should have a primary focus , and will cover in another blog.