By Ava Schwebach
A member of our community has recently brought to our attention that our country should think twice about Halloween, especially since so many emergency services have death and horror occur as a part of their everyday life and don’t want to see it displayed in front yards when simply walking down the street.
Most people know Halloween as an American holiday, however Halloween first originated in Ireland as the night the ghosts of the dead returned to Earth, right before All Saints Day. It only became so popular in America after they had many immigrants from Ireland that were fleeing the Irish potato famine stay there, which then turned the tradition into a new holiday about dressing up and ‘trick-or-treating’.
Though Australia has taken on so many other country’s holidays and traditions, such as St Patrick’s Day and Valentine’s Day, the traditional holiday of Halloween has been changed into a form of commercialisation.
This holiday is encouraging children to go up to strangers’ homes and ask for lollies, which they’ve been taught not to, especially due to the fact that most kids don’t even go to their own neighbourhood.
Another reason this tradition is commonly celebrated in America is because items like pumpkins are in season there, whereas Australia doesn’t have pumpkins in season until February–March, which means they will be getting large imports of pumpkins for Halloween, with major fees and gas emissions simply for pumpkin carving.
After getting these pumpkins all the way to Australia, the majority of pumpkins are left to waste and decompose, producing methane that further contributes to climate change.
Again, with Australia celebrating this holiday during October, our spring time coincides with our fledgling season. This has been a major ongoing issue in Australia with small birds and fledglings being tangled in fake spider webs. Although fake spider webs makes for a cool decoration, it has been proven as extremely harmful towards fledglings that are only just learning to fly.
These fake spider webs are also full of tiny microplastics that eventually end up in rivers and waterways, polluting homes of marine life.
This year, it is predicted that Australians are to spend around $430 million on Halloween. This includes single-use costumes, decorations, and single-plastic wrapped lollies. Every year, most people buy brand new decorations, costumes, and simply throw out their old ones which are usually all made from plastic, and less than one per cent is recycled annually.
This holiday has become massively commercialised, and many people are buying into it.
Instead of buying into the money-oriented aspect of Halloween, if you’re still interested in commemorating it, try celebrating one that is about bringing everyone together.
