What is a Zero Waste Halloween?

We're talking zero waste costumes, decorations and candy with a special mystery guest!
We also talk about stats and how they aren't helping and may even be contributing to people not caring about making small changes!
RIP stats!!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Miranda Black: I'm Miranda Black, and this is, What's this place? The stories behind the bricks and mortar.

Well, this week we are talking Halloween, the candy, the costumes, and the spooky decorations that make up this Gonzo holiday Growing up. My mother hand made pretty much all our costumes. I actually don't even remember going into a Halloween store or even a costume supply place. She made stuff out of what we had around the house or from magic. Well, I'm not sure. I now know having my own kid, that it's actually rare for kids to show up in homemade costumes these days. It is not the norm. To be honest, I think that the home crafted costumes are what sends my kid home with best costume awards. Every year you take that spirit Halloween, but I'm not here to make you feel crappyabout your choices. Maybe Spirit Halloween, which claims to be the world's number one Halloween store. I'm not here to dispute that. Maybe it's all you can manage this year. time or the lack of time is the number one reason people resort to impulse buys in all sectors. And I can't see that's any different for Halloween So I figure I still have one solid week, week and a half left to motivate and inspire you to shop your house this Halloween. And the reason I wanna do that, halloween is one mother of a waste producer, and once you start to think about it, of course it is Christmas time. Even if you get something maybe cheap or poorly manufactured, it still has the sentimentality of Christmas behind it, so you're less likely to throw that thing. Christmas is still a heck of a waste producer, don't get me wrong, but Halloween. Halloween has grown to have disposable as part of its identity, and I know you know what I'm talking about. from the costumes that come out of the bag, sewn wrong with threads hanging off them or that tear as soon as you put them on to the toxic decorations in a can that melt into your yard or the 

candy that gets smaller and

smaller each.

year. But mystifyingly with 

more

Teflon like packaging than ever,

but,

How do we reconcile our desire to keep the holiday fun and

spooky with our desire to cut

back on the amount of trash Well, I broke it down into three categories to give you some fast, easy

tips, but more importantly, I wanna invoke the spirit of Halloween by telling you a story and interviewing a special mystery guest who I will introduce in a moment, cuz Halloween, it doesn't have to be disposable, and I know I could benefit from a little more gravitas and tradition this time of year.

 Who is my special

mystery guest and what is a zero waste 

h. 

So once I grew out of being a kid, I went through this period of really not liking Halloween. Maybe you can identify with this. It started to seem like just this big excuse to get drunk and behave badly. and as a. Petite girl in New York City. I didn't feel safe on the streets Halloween night. And I used to resent having to rush home before. dark. 

Most 

costumes seemed

like really lame rehashed tropes combined with this messed up gender binary thing like sexy Santa, sexy

Grinch, Sexy buzz light.

here. Sexy pizza

rat. Yeah. Sexy under undecided 

voter, Sexy board banana. These are all 100% real things that you can throw your money at and they represent everything I hated about Halloween. Fake sexiness, lazy effort. Wasted creative opportunity. It is norm core at its worst. . The only part of Halloween I really loved at this time was going to the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. where I would see tremendous creative effort, no fake, sexy, anything. And I started to see through the creativity of these mostly drag queens, the true meaning of h. Creating an alter ego and leaning into the impending inevitable death of nature, acknowledging that it's about to get bleak and cold and hibernated. This is the part of Halloween that speaks to me and it inspired me to do one of the only costumes I remember making at that time. Remember, I was mostly a ba humbug Halloween, so I rarely did costumes, but I went this. As the shadow of my former self, I did pale makeup and I wore something from my closet that made me feel crappy about myself. We all have that outfit, the one that makes you not like yourself as much when you see yourself in the mirror. And I wrote down on a piece of paper all the aspects of me I no longer wanted to be, and I burned it when I got home that night, and I gave away the outfit the next. Well, this year I am again summoning the shadow of my former self to talk to her about the things she tries to trick me into wanting to be the waste she prefers not to think about and why she's always talking smack about me in my own head, shadow of my

former self. Hi, Welcome to the show.

[00:05:28] Shadow of my Former Self: Thank you. 

[00:05:29] Miranda Black: I, I see you're still in your PJs. Are you not feeling that? great? 

I never feel great. It is such an honor. To have you on the show. Usually you're just in my

head telling me things like, This podcast is a waste of time, or that I'm evil for letting that let us go bad in my veggie drawer.

[00:05:44] Shadow of my Former Self: Or that you're a hypocrite and I regret being here. 

[00:05:47] Miranda Black: Yeah. Stuff like that. I'd like to talk to you about the spirit of Halloween and how people

can tap into their own alter egos and how that might take the pressure off having unrealistic costume expectations.

[00:06:00] Shadow of my Former Self: I hate Halloween. 

[00:06:01] Miranda Black: Yeah, that's how I first met you. I had to go to an event and it was costume required kind of thing, and suddenly there you were my alter ego. Cuz , I'm known for being optimistic and funny. 

[00:06:13] Shadow of my Former Self: Are you though? 

[00:06:15] Miranda Black: And I thought it might be good for people to know that sometimes I am the shadow of my former self, and that that can lead to some self-doubt and feeling like your actions can't possibly do anything to help save the planet.

[00:06:27] Shadow of my Former Self: Oh, so you're saving the planet now. Wow. 

[00:06:31] Miranda Black: No. Well, obviously I'm not saving the planet. I'm just trying to make some changes 

[00:06:35] Shadow of my Former Self: All right, Supergirl. Let's just get on. With this so I can get back to bed. 

[00:06:39] Miranda Black: All right, go team. Here are three areas where you can cut down in your waist. At Halloween, 

[00:06:44] Shadow of my Former Self: fYI. You're a bit late. People have already got their Halloween stuff. You should have done this episode at the beginning of October. Ah, you're just always so unprepared and now it's too late. It's not even worth doing it. 

[00:06:59] Miranda Black: Well, that 

that's not a hundred percent true. A lot of people, they do their shopping the week before halloween, so I think it's worth it. 

[00:07:05] Shadow of my Former Self: Of course you do. 

I'm thinking that if we let people know how much waste is generated at Halloween, maybe that'll motivate them to buy more thoughtfully. Did you know in the uS alone, over 11 million pounds of textile Oh, my God. Just stop at the stats. Nobody cares. Nobody even knows what that means. A moving bones, a million pounds of weed. 

[00:07:26] Miranda Black: Yeah. Of of costumes going to landfill, 

[00:07:28] Shadow of my Former Self: Oh, really? Does someone weigh all the discarded costumes? And the millions of pounds millions of pounds of in the billions of. Oh, I'd rather be watching netflix

[00:07:37] Miranda Black: but it, it is a problem. All the candy wrappers and crappy makeup applicators that don't even. work. 

[00:07:43] Shadow of my Former Self: Yeah, we know we're idiots for buying this stuff, but you know what? We're going to do it anyway. And answer me this, in 2018. Why did you buy a crappy Halloween makeup kit when you already own perfectly good makeup? 

[00:07:56] Miranda Black: Uh, well, that year I was going as a unicorn and I didn't have the right shade of pink for my unicorn stripes. So I bought this little kit I thought had the exact right shade, but you know, you're right. When I got it home, the paint was so crappy, it just like greased onto my face yeah, I, I didn't end up using it. I ended up using my own I mixed some white face paint with some red lipstick, and I got the exact right shade. but Yeah, I, I had to throw that other one in the garbage, so I was the dummy.

[00:08:27] Shadow of my Former Self: You got that right? You're the dummy and all the situations. You went from hating Halloween to being the Halloween queen. Look at your yard. You use that fake spider web stuff. The worst. First of all the Halloween waste. 

[00:08:42] Miranda Black: Well, to be fair, I have been reusing that same pack for eight years now. I keep putting it back in the same bag, all covered with leaves and 

[00:08:51] Shadow of my Former Self: Oh, I see. It's okay for you to buy it. The Halloween queen it's okay. It's she's going to reuse it. It's okay for her to buy it. She's going to reuse it. Is that the subtle nuance you're going for here? 

[00:09:05] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

Well,

yeah. Reusing is

good, but refusing is better. 

You're right.

Well, I no 

longer

think I will buy brand new Virgin Halloween

decorations I have in the past. You're right. But people can change and moving forward, check this out. I found a bunch of really cool ideas, like using old wood, like a stump, a wood stump, and you paint scary faces on it. Or you can 

take a two 

by four and wrap it mummy style using old textiles. 

There's so many

of these ideas on

the web 

and there's actually some

wood that's been sitting in our street for like two months now, 

[00:09:42] Shadow of my Former Self: That pile of wood depresses me. 

[00:09:44] Miranda Black: Well, I'm

gonna haul it 

into our yard and create some wacky 

Halloween characters.

the city gets a parking space back and we get some new decorations. 

[00:09:52] Shadow of my Former Self: Why does no one give that pile of wood, a parking ticket, hate that pile of wood. 

[00:09:56] Miranda Black: Well, it, it's actually the city's wood, so it's very special wood and it gets a free parking right in the.

Downtown 

core of Canada's most densely populated city,

[00:10:06] Shadow of my Former Self: I actually love the idea of you using the pile of freeloading wood. 

[00:10:09] Miranda Black: You do.

[00:10:10] Shadow of my Former Self: Yes. It employs the dead, the dying and the useless things all around us. We are drowning and a graveyard of. Junk. 

[00:10:18] Miranda Black: It can really be anything. I'm thinking about using tin cans, hanging them from our tree in the front yard, and even if we don't have time to decorate them,

it's still gonna be creepy to see a bunch

of tin cans

clanging around in the wind. 

Okay, 

so.

Decorations 

seems 

pretty easy. 

Just use 

junk 

from 

around 

your 

house.

At 

least 

you're 

not 

buying 

new 

junk and you're giving the junk around your

house. One more starring role in

your life. 

let's write it down.

The

changes. 

we're 

gonna make. use 

junk and trash 

for 

decorations 

and 

never 

buy 

virgin 

decorations 

again. 

Here in is giving me a headache and cramps. let's 

do costumes. 

Do you know Halloween costumes is 

[00:11:00] Miranda Black: an $8 billion? industry. 

[00:11:01] Shadow of my Former Self: I said no to stats. It's in my rider. 

[00:11:04] Miranda Black: Okay. Yeah, sure. But collectively, we do spend well over a billion dollars on costumes every year, and

I 

just 

think 

that money would be 

better spent 

on nice 

food or any food or 

food 

for people 

in.

[00:11:19] Shadow of my Former Self: We've already established that we're idiots. We work hard at jobs that kill us inside, and then we use that hard-earned money represented making in the first place on junk that falls Idiots. 

[00:11:28] Miranda Black: People aren't idiots.

[00:11:30] Shadow of my Former Self: People might not be, but you are. Idiots and hypocrites all that preaching about sexy pizza rack costumes. And to me, this where you, or were you not sexy, Dorothy, less than 10 years ago, keeping. Keep in mind i have pictures

[00:11:45] Miranda Black: Okay. We don't

have to go 

busting 

open every private thing about my 

[00:11:49] Shadow of my Former Self: Sexy, Dorothy, sexy Robin, not the bird. 

[00:11:53] Miranda Black: Okay. 

Okay. 

I can explain. When I started getting back into Halloween after being an anti heener, I kind of

swung in the other direction I didn't put a 

lot of thought into it. Cuz you know what? I was busy. I was really bus, I had a store and I was busy. 

[00:12:11] Shadow of my Former Self: Do you smell that? Uh it's it's a poxy. it stinks In here 

[00:12:19] Miranda Black: Yeah. Yeah. 

I, I can 

smell that and 

I would like 

to clear the air. About a decade 

ago, I did 

shop from Halloween 

stores

for 

two seasons. I 

dipped my 

toe

into

the sexy 

trope world, 

and 

you 

know 

what?

It 

was 

fun.

okay? after just two years, my Halloween

tickle trunk was already half 

full, and I 

realized 

that if 

I 

keep 

on 

adding, new stuff to

it. 

Year after 

year, I was 

gonna have an 

inventory problem, and if anyone knows me, 

I hate 

having an inventory problem. So

that's when I started 

making costumes 

again.

The 

great thing

about 

the glorious 

times we 

live 

in now 

is

that there are more and more costume swaps popping up every day. It's a super fun thing 

to host with your friends, 

Google 

[00:13:01] Miranda Black: for bigger ones hosted in 

your area.

And if you 

do have too much inventory, Charity organizations, will accept your costume donations.

You do not have to throw stuff out.

[00:13:11] Shadow of my Former Self: Costume swaps. sounds like a fun excuse to drink some wine. But, you know, I would really like to get back. Why you bought into the lame Trope costume trap. Oh, that sounds like a contradiction from what you were first saying at the beginning. Of this podcast. 

[00:13:29] Miranda Black: Oh

wow. 

That's a great question. Um 

hmm.

Well,

I 

think

that's 

the alter ego part of 

the Halloween equation.

At 

the time, I was always wearing 

suits and sport coats 

and 

button 

down shirts 

with ties, 

and I had fun tapping into the exact opposite of that tacky, shiny, cheap polyester fabric.

And I 

was 

also 

having a 

really tough go at it. At the time, I was unsure if I was gonna be able to pay my bills every month.

So this fake

glitzy

character,

it 

was 

the 

perfect 

alter

ego to 

escape.

[00:14:04] Shadow of my Former Self: There's no escape from your true self. 

[00:14:06] Miranda Black: , could I 

achieve that same feeling without 

an all in one costume in a 

bag?

I 

don't 

know. I admit there

is 

an allure to stepping into 

a 

pre-made 

character in 

a bag, 

but if

I had to do it all over again, I would look on Facebook Marketplace or go to a thrift store.

and just 

see what I found 

to fit 

the 

alter ego.

It 

didn't have to be Batman and Robin or Dorothy and Toto 

for 

me at the 

time. 

I just 

picked 

whatever. 

I just 

wanted 

to 

be 

glitzy and a bit tacky. 

[00:14:39] Shadow of my Former Self: Are you sure that's your alter ego? 

[00:14:42] Miranda Black: Okay, 

well, let's 

write

down.

Make 

a 

costume 

for materials I 

already 

own

or buy.

pre loved, and never buy a brand new costume again. There's enough costumes already made on this planet. I don't have to spend my hard earned money on a $50 costume that's gonna disintegrate the moment I put it on.

Okay. We're getting a list. Last thing, candy,

If you ruin candy, I will cut you.

[00:15:05] Miranda Black: no, no, I'm, I'm not gonna ban candy. I'd just, can we just take a peek at a stat? Come on. Just let me tell you one stat that I prepared 

[00:15:14] Shadow of my Former Self: you will never change my mind about candy.

[00:15:17] Miranda Black: Not even that $10 billion is spent on individually wrapped candy every year. 

[00:15:22] Shadow of my Former Self: Don't care.

[00:15:22] Miranda Black: What about that one trick or treater? One. kid generates a pound of trash on Halloween night. 

[00:15:29] Shadow of my Former Self: It's a small price to pay for candy. 

[00:15:31] Miranda Black: You're immovable on the candy front, 

[00:15:34] Shadow of my Former Self: It's candy or die. 

[00:15:35] Miranda Black: right, well, maybe we can move the needle just a little bit on this one. 

[00:15:40] Shadow of my Former Self: I will poison your coffee. 

[00:15:42] Miranda Black: Uh, no, i, I'm just talking about paper and cardboard options.

[00:15:46] Shadow of my Former Self: If you hand out paper candy on halloween i will personally distribute rotten eggs to all the children in your neighborhood to throw at your house 

[00:15:54] Miranda Black: No, no, I I mean, some candy comes in paper and cardboard boxes.

[00:15:59] Shadow of my Former Self: crappy granola type candy? 

[00:16:01] Miranda Black: No, like smarties glass setss. Junior mints. 

[00:16:05] Shadow of my Former Self: Go on. 

[00:16:06] Miranda Black: Dots nerds, milk duds.

[00:16:09] Shadow of my Former Self: I would eat all those. 

[00:16:10] Miranda Black: And if you have the cash, there's foil wrapped treats you can give out.

[00:16:15] Shadow of my Former Self: Ugh. What's so great about foil?

Kids love collecting and adding to a foil ball. And when you're done, you put the ball inside a tin can in your recycling bin and tin cans and foil are the most easily reused items in your recycling bin. We can sell this stuff to a post-consumer buyer. If you recycle anything at all, let it be tin cans and aluminum foil. This is trash that works for. us. 

[00:16:40] Shadow of my Former Self: Here and nerding out on the garbage. Can we get back to candy? 

[00:16:44] Miranda Black: Okay. So keep your candy to cardboard and aluminum foil and if you have some big bucks to spend or not. a lot of kids come to your house, wherever you are in the world. Search for zero waste halloween candy. There's companies like. Alter eco equal exchange. Glee gum. You remember Glee Gum? It's super cute, endangered species. Chocolate bites, yum. Earth snacks. 

[00:17:10] Shadow of my Former Self: It all sounds like a hippy nightmare on lame street. It's very on brand for you. I do have a question though. Do you hand out this kind of candy? 

[00:17:19] Miranda Black: Well actually I hand out pencils and crayons and the kids love it.

[00:17:24] Shadow of my Former Self: Now you monster. 

[00:17:27] Miranda Black: What? Scented pencils and erasers. This is super cool to shell out. 

[00:17:33] Shadow of my Former Self: No, it's super awful. Do the smarties and those good ones and I won't egg your house this year. 

 so we're writing down. buy treats that come in cardboard. Okay. Decorations, costumes, and candy. They all have something on my burn list 

[00:17:47] Shadow of my Former Self: and stats. I would really like you to give up the stats for good. Like no one cares how many tons of CO2 polymer, What's it dye, gets released into the ocean every year. We all know it's bad. We know that every time we go shopping, we're doing something bad. You gotta make it personal for people. Interview people whose whole town is gone cuz of that giant iceberg that fell into the ocean. Or someone who lives beside a port in Ghana where they burn the excess donated clothing, we think is going over there to save them our clothing. Donations are such a huge problem, but no one cares until they hear from the girl who's breathing in the smoke from the stupid, sexy board, Banana Bread, costume.

[00:18:26] Miranda Black: Okay, this got dark, but I will make a note. 

No more stats. 

 Listen, I know I've been joking around with the shadow of my former self and no longer using stats, but it comes from reading. I've been doing. On eco anxiety. And from my limited ability to research, bombarding you with stats, it doesn't help anyone well, except maybe the scientist to can actually read data and use it to help fund their research and activism. 

But I'm going to assume you're not a scientist and instead. You're a little like me. You feel worried, you feel helpless and you're not sure if any of your actions are actually helping. Do your small changes actually add up well from everything I've read. Yeah, they do. You're small actions cut down on waste and carbon emissions. 

And that helps reduce your eco anxiety saying no to that plastic water bottle gives you the similar endorphin hit as when you refuse cookies and choose broccoli. It's hard, but it's impactful and your brain knows it and it makes you feel better. There you go brain. I'm doing something 

I'm part of something bigger than me So moving forward, I'm going to do my best to avoid statistics that might freeze you up and cause you anxiety. And instead. Focus on the small things that make you feel more empowered, make you feel like you're part of a movement. 

We're going to grow out of this disposable era. We will adapt and we will improve as a society.. Speaking of feeling like you're part of a movement. This episode was inspired by a conversation I had this week with some members of remake. 

Remake fights for fair pay and climate justice and the clothing sector. You can find them@remake.world. I'm an ambassador. You can be too. If you want, if you have time, if you feel like it 

Each week, there are calls with members from around the world. And this week we got to talking about stats and how they often bogged down the conversations about de-growth and. Finding their origin is not always easy. And is it even true? And then you're down a rabbit hole and that's how the shadow of my former self was resurrected. 

I specifically want to thank Elizabeth joy from the conscious life and style podcast. Always an inspiration. You can find them at conscious style on Instagram. And Alison green, the remake events manager, she's got a calm in the storm energy and she's just a crazy cool crochet hair. You can find her at atomic Tangerine. Guys this episode is a direct result of our conversation because everyone already knows that the problem is massive and we got to focus on ways to move forward without stats. And they don't really seem to 

[00:21:08] Shadow of my Former Self: Yeah. Stats aren't real birds. Aren't real. I'm not real. It's time for me to go. 

[00:21:13] Miranda Black: This year joined me by turning the disposable Halloween industry on its head. And spend less or nothing on brand new costumes, decorations, and candy wrapped in plastic that will outlive all of us. 

Thank you to my special mystery For coming. I hope I don't see that negative Nellie again until next Halloween. I mean,

[00:21:33] Shadow of my Former Self: I'll still visit you at 3:00 AM on your sleepless nights. 

[00:21:36] Miranda Black: Oh, I bet you will. 

Guys. I jumped at number 23 on art's podcasts in Canada this week and that's all. Thanks to tons of listens and shares with your friends and some great reviews like this One from run Hugh. He says, I loved listening to 

what is a bespoke tailor? Pasquali provided a wonderful view into how people grew up into the trade and art of tailoring in Italy. Thank you run. You. And this one from Marie L awesome podcast. I love Miranda's optimism and genuine curiosity, it was so funny to read the week, my alter ego is taking up so much rent in my head. 

Each interview is eyeopening and inspires me to think about my world and the positive changes I can make. Guys. Thank you so much. If you like this show. Gimme your review. It really does help me out. 

[00:22:28] Shadow of my Former Self: You nauseate me. 

[00:22:30] Miranda Black: Okay. Well, we will see you next time on what's this place.