Be afraid, be very afraid... of real Halloween horror: Plastic
But if you keep your eyes peeled, you might spot these strange scenes as Irish schoolkids embrace the dress-up aspect of Halloween this week.
As our side of the planet tilts away from the sun, the festival of Samhain helps us celebrate the cycle of life.
Traditionally, Halloween is a special time to mark the end of harvest time and a period when connecting with the otherworld is easier.
The idea of dressing up or disguising yourself during Samhain is an ancient custom originally intended to conceal people from visiting spirits.
Irish and Scottish communities carried their Halloween customs to the United States and Canada where ‘guising’ evolved into ‘trick-or-treating’, and costuming became more widespread, though still homemade - masks, sheets, old clothes.
For our ancestors, potentially encountering a ghost in the dead of night used to be the scariest part of Halloween. Now, contemplating the sheer volume of plastic the holiday produces each year truly frightens us.
Most of the trick or treating costumes we wear are made of 100% polyester, a ubiquitous plastic derived from fossil fuels.
While we have great fun dressing up and acting silly for a few days at the end of October - those plastic costumes last a lifetime. And, as we all know by now, plastic is a problem.
A leading scientific journal, The Lancet, recently published ‘Countdown on Health and Plastics’, a report cataloguing the various frightening ways that plastic has infiltrated our world and threatens our health. The Lancet doesn’t pull any punches.
“Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognised danger to human and planetary health.
“Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding US$1.5 trillion annually.”
Microplastic and nanoplastic particles, which result from the breakdown of larger plastic materials, are an emerging threat to health. Take your pick of petrifying plastic bullet points.
Wherever scientists look, they are finding microplastics - from deep ocean trenches to the top of the tallest mountains.
They are increasingly reported in human biological specimens - blood, breast-milk, liver, kidney, colon, lung, spleen, and heart - in populations worldwide.
Researchers have found microplastics in both maternal and infant placental tissue, and in the brains of deceased people - the equivalent of around a teaspoon (7 grams) of plastic lodged in brain tissue.
Evidence suggests microplastics might be able to cross key biological barriers, in our guts, in our lungs, in our brains and even placentas.
“Infants and young children are highly susceptible to plastics-associated harms,” reported The Lancet.
“Early life exposures to plastics and plastic chemicals are linked to increased risks of miscarriage, prematurity, stillbirth, low birthweight and birth defects of the reproductive organs, neurodevelopmental impairment, impaired lung growth, and childhood cancer.
“Early-life exposures to plastic chemicals can contribute to reduced human fertility and increased risks of non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease in adult life.”
The Lancet report is available online and should be compulsory reading for everyone on the planet.
Without intervention, it is projected that global plastic production will nearly triple by 2060. We are poisoning ourselves, everyone we know and love and every living creature and thing on the planet with plastic.
We know microplastics exist, are everywhere, and are made with thousands of chemicals, including substances that are toxic in other contexts.
What we don’t know exactly is how these particles and chemicals affect human health over decades.
Yet, time and again, governments act as though they need absolute, irrefutable proof of harm before regulating or clamping down on plastic pollution.
The idea that unless something is definitively proven dangerous, it should be allowed, has not worked well in the past.
History shows us exactly where the burden of proof mindset leads. Asbestos was linked to deadly lung diseases for decades before bans came in.
Lead in petrol and paint was known to damage brains, especially children’s, long before it was phased out.
PFAS - ‘forever chemicals’ - were in our bloodstreams for years before regulators started to act.
In each case, the delay wasn’t because we lacked warning - it was because industries demanded ‘more proof’, and governments let them delay changing their practices.
Governments need to do much more to regulate these polluting plastic industries and help establish a plastic-free economy but, as conscious consumers, we can play a role. While governments drag their heels, we don’t have to.
This Halloween, ditch the new plastic costume and make one from whatever you already have at home - face paints and imagination can transform any outfit into a ghoulish creation.
If homemade is beyond you - buy a second-hand costume from your local charity shop. Our school ran a Halloween Costume Fair where families donated pre-loved costumes and picked up a ‘new’ one for this year’s festivities, and hopefully more schools can start that circular costume tradition.
Go for a nature walk and collect outrageously coloured autumn leaves - blood red, rust orange, lemon yellow - for a wreath or bouquet. Brew an apple punch scented with cinnamon, oranges and lemons. Or my favourite, carve a pumpkin.
And for full scary effect, swap the Jack O’Lantern grin for a terrifying message - “PLASTIC IS IN YOUR BLOOD!”
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