It’s Halloween.  Remember this, something I read recently in a newspaper: “Everything we throw away comes back to haunt us in the future.”   I was reminded of when I looked out the window of a church recently and saw a white plastic bag floating across the graveyard, defying the otherwise pristine, restful setting.

Just thought I’d pass along a few tips from the Philippines about how to behave in a cemetery.  Some countries mark All Souls Day with festivals to honour the dead taking place in cemeteries.  Visitors leave the places in an absolute mess.

This Filipino Top Ten list could apply to any place in the world, whether a graveyard or a backyard.  For your ghoulish reading pleasure, here is the Philippines Top Ten List for All Souls Day in Cemeteries.

1. Choose clean-burning, lead-free candles that do not yield black fumes or soot. Set alight a limited number of candles to reduce heat and pollution.

2. Offer local fresh flowers, not plastic ones, or consider bringing potted plants and flowers instead.

3. Bring your own water jug to avoid purchasing bottled water. Discarded plastic bottles add up to the country’s garbage problem.

4. Go for waste-free meals. Use reusable carriers, containers, and utensils such as lunchboxes and thermos, cloth napkins and silverwares, and not throw-away bags, wraps, foil or Styrofoam, paper napkins, and forks and spoons.

5. Buy less or only as much as you can consume in terms of food and beverage to avoid spoilage or wastage. Bring bayong or other reusable bags.

6. Cut your waste size by buying products with the least amount of packaging and avoiding single-use plastics.

7. Don’t litter, dump or burn trash in the cemetery. Leave the resting place of your loved ones litter-free.

8. Put your discards into the recycling bins if available.

9. Relieve yourself only in the proper place where one should. Keep the urinal or toilet bowl clean as a courtesy to the next user.

10. Refrain from smoking in the cemetery.  

Halloween is prime time for litter. 

It’s not the actual night that’s the biggest problem, but the days that follow.  Evidence of littering lurks like a lost ghoul roving the landscape and casting a foul image. 

Before the big night arrives take your trick-or-treaters through a few preventive tips for reducing candy wrapper and snack litter.  Here’s an easy, five-point plan.

Point #1:  Chewed gum, those gooey globs that become indelible black tar splotches on roads and sidewalks, must not be spit out.  Save the gum wrapper.  You’ll need it later.  Put it in your pocket.  You didn’t throw it out when you opened your gum, did you?  The wrapper goes in your pocket until you retrieve it at the conclusion of your chew to use to enclose the wad and put it back in your pocket and then in a garbage can.   Demonstrate this method to your children.  Make it a hard and fast rule.  Gum makers should be stating this on their packaging. It’s the least they can do: they don’t pay to clean up gum litter.  We do.

Point #2:  Don’t leave home without your litterbag.  Most parents insist that Halloween treats come home for inspection first.  Make sure your darlings don’t morph into pranksters who litter.  Include a mandatory paper or plastic litterbag when packing lunches and snacks.  Check that all the packaging material returns home with them.  Have them recycle whatever they can and trash the rest.  Emphasize the responsibility for putting the waste in the right place, helping it come to its “end of life”, as it’s called in solid waste management circles.

Point #3:  Limit snacking on the run.  If you don’t have somewhere to put the packaging - a litterbag, pockets, a purse or backpack, the right bin -- then eating on the go is risky and litter accident-prone.  Dropping it or leaving it behind isn’t an option.  Understand that you have to keep the stuff with you and secure it properly, then impart that knowledge across the entire gremlin and goblin community.

Point #4:  Keep ‘litter’ in the conversation.  Not just on Halloween, regularly discuss litter prevention and keep your kids, parents, friends, yourselves (!) accountable.  Become more informed about littering, what it’s costing us in dollars and damage to the planet.  Indicate your disapproval of littering.  Encourage your schools, places of worship and workplaces to seek out and implement litter prevention programs, and help reduce the rate of littering.  Estimates are that between 30 to 50 per cent of the population litters.

Point #5:  Listen to your children.  Statistics show that kids up to 13 rarely litter and that pensioners litter more than adolescents.  Set a good example.  Engage and support young people in caring for the environment.  They’ll take that lesson with them through life.