14. Halloween sustainability - the scoop on pumpkins

James Piper: Hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish, a spooky podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the horrifying truth behind scary headlines and nightmarish stories. In this Halloween special episode, we will discuss chemical recycling, unpack the sustainability of pumpkins, find out whether hair raising costumes are rubbish or not. And we have a question about sustainable decorations. I'm James Piper, author of the Rubbish Book and I'm joined by Robbie Staniforth, my far from frightening. Hey, Robbie. Boo. Was that a good intro? Did you like that?

Robbie Staniforth: Very good, actually. Although I must admit, you tailed off that Dracula voice to start with. Suddenly melded. Maybe that was deliberate. Nice transition.

James Piper: Yeah, I was a bit nervous about the accent. I was like, hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, fine, yeah, there's only so much of that you can do. You've got a few paragraphs to get through. Maybe a bit long for that.

James Piper: I know, I looked, I write down the intro, obviously, because I always forget it and I looked at it and thought, that is a lot to say and I'm not going to be able to say it. The Dracula voice. I also have the added problem because for the first time ever, I've forgotten my glasses so I can't actually read anything.

Robbie Staniforth: So welcome to my world. Shooting from the hip every episode. This is going to be a car crash.

James Piper: Exactly. I don't make lots of notes normally. Normally we're just sort of running on the fly anyway and we just have a couple of bullet points. But I must admit, today is going to be especially difficult.

Robbie Staniforth: Right, well, let's see how it goes.

James Piper: I already feel a little bit guilty because what did we say? We said, okay, we're going to unpack the sustainability of pumpkins. Halloween. Tick. We're going to find out whether costumes are rubbish or not. Tick. That's Halloween. And we have a question about sustainable decorations. Tick. That's Halloween. And then we're going to talk about chemical recycling. It's really difficult to make that about Halloween.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, that's pretty tricky. We've got to keep this thread going because there's been cliffhangers, haven't they?

James Piper: Yeah, we can't make people wait a week again. So look, I get the chemical recycle, but we just gotta keep pushing too. We gotta keep the crisis going. But I quite like these themed episodes. Is this gonna. I mean, obviously what we realised was Halloween this year is on a Thursday. We release our episodes on a Thursday. It would be crazy not to do one. But do you reckon we should do a Christmas one and Maybe extend our bromance to Valentine's Day. Are you up for that?

Robbie Staniforth: Well, let's see how this one goes first. Before we commit to any future, let's see what the feedback is.

James Piper: I don't know what day is Christmas this year? It's probably not a Thursday, actually. I did look, I think it's Boxing Day is the Thursday. So we will be a Boxing Day treat. That would be nice.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yeah, that's good, because no one's going to listen on Christmas Day. They'll be, you know, celebrating with loved ones, et cetera.

James Piper: But on, boxing, watching Gavin and Stacy, like me, just all the Christmas specials. Yeah.

I went to Bristol council office to discuss recycling projects this week

Should we talk about things that have happened this week? So I, went actually to the council office. I went and met. This could get very boring very quickly, but I went to the council office to meet with, some of our new counsellors to discuss some different projects I've got going on at the moment in Bristol. And they took me down to the cafe area and, as always, I'm just staring at the bins like standard, trying to pay attention to the meeting, but also thinking, what's going on with those bins? And there's always something to talk about with bins. And this was no exception. So the cafe, most of what they sold was aluminium cans. You know, they'd sort of moved away from plastic. There were little bits of plastic bottles, but most of it was aluminium cans. And then I got to the, to the bins and they had a paper bin, a plastic bin, a food bin, a glass bin and a general bin. There was no aluminium bin.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, my God.

James Piper: I know. So all the, like. Most of what they were selling was aluminium in terms of packaging, there was no aluminium bin. And I said to the counsellor, you know, that's weird, isn't it? And he was like, yes. And just as I said that, the person collecting the rubbish walked past with their trolley and they had a big aluminium bin written on the side. They were like, this is my aluminium section of my trolley. And of course it was empty because there is no aluminium bin. So I'm like, the mismatch of this person's going around emptying the bins and they've got an aluminium section on the trolley. Doesn't have an aluminium bin.

Robbie Staniforth: But is that aluminum's put on the trolley? Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's, That's some simple stuff. Council. Come on.

James Piper: I was meeting with the Chair of Environmental Policy, I believe, so I'm hoping he's going to Improve.

Robbie Staniforth: He's got some clout.

James Piper: He's the guy. And this week I featured in the Guardian. People will have seen this if they follow us on social media, but I wrote an opinion piece about flexible plastics and obviously we talked about, flexibles last week and I wanted to share that opinion because I think, you know, we'd had this report about flexibles and about how lots of them were getting exported or burnt, and obviously that's really bad. But I do just have this fundamental thing that we shouldn't be putting consumers off recycling. You know, we

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James Piper: should be saying, look, it's better to collect this stuff and try and recycle it than for you to put it in your general bin where it's definitely going to go to landfill or incineration. So I just wanted to write that down. That opinion got in the garden, which was great, and that generated loads and loads of emails. I was astonished at the response because one of the lines I'd said in there was, incineration is better than landfill. So that was just one line in the article and I think I said on episode five. So on Natalie's episode, the interview that we did, I said, that's not always the case because in a decarbonized grid, actually incineration is not a great way to get your electricity. And so there are times where landfill is better than incineration. And it turns out there's an entire network of people who are in the, UK without incineration network who en masse emailed me to tell me I was wrong. And I was very pleased to receive those emails because obviously I'm always trying to update my thinking. but it got me thinking, if I had incinerator companies emailing me m, they'd all be saying, incineration's better than landfill. So I feel this could be the start.

Robbie: I think we should do talking rubbish debates

Robbie, we haven't committed to this yet, but I think we should do talking rubbish debates.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yeah, but it's not just going to be a shouting match, though. How do we referee it? That's going to be the secret to a good podcast, isn't it?

James Piper: Yeah. I think we'll have to work out how to ref it, but. You up for it? Should we like some pro incineration people and some pro landfill people and have a bit of a debate? Because I genuinely don't know the answer to that question as to which is better.

Robbie Staniforth: No, it sounds like a good debate to me. And this is what happens when you get your pieces in the Guardian. C. James, I'm constantly Writing news articles, but they get in like Rubbish Monthly subscription newsletter and that's about it.

James Piper: But, yeah, Rubbish Monthly, my personal favourite.

People who work in supermarkets don't always know what produce is

And in terms of additions and corrections, literally, as I was dialling in Robbie, I had a really interesting message, from John. So thank you, John, for messaging in. He was just listening to episode nine, which is our, cucumber episode, so where we talked about food waste. And he was saying that there is another reason why supermarkets don't sell veg and fruit loose. And that's because supermarkets or people who work in supermarkets, so I think John used to work in Waitrose. People who work in supermarkets don't always know what the produce is. So if you were to put potatoes out loose, they don't know whether it's a King Edward potato or a Maris Piper, no relation potato. they don't know which one it is. And so when they put the produce out, they might put out too many King Edwards, for example, in the Maris Piper section. And then when they're doing stock control, they order the wrong potatoes. So he was giving that as an example of like where you've got fruit and veg that has lots of different types. Actually having them in bags labelled is quite important for people who work in retail, which I've never thought about. and then linked to that consumer consumers is particularly in kind of this era of like self checkouts might pick a cheaper produce rather than the one that they've actually bought.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, sure, there might be sort of the low cost Maris Piper they pay for that instead of the Premium Royal stanieforth potatoes.

James Piper: Why is the Maris Piper the cheap one? But that's exactly it. So they, Yeah, and he was saying he just got back from France, I think, and there they had this kind of veg and produce sold loose, but you actually had to go to someone to get it bagged up and labelled before you could put it through the checkout. So someone else did the validation of what kind of potato is this? They must have a potato expert in France.

Robbie Staniforth: Ah, what potato is this?

James Piper: What would it be? Pomme de terre professional.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, very good. Apple of the ground Professional.

James Piper: Robbie. I'm very conscious. I'm always doing the additions and corrections. I'm sure you notice things out in the world of waste. Now, I can't even pretend this isn't scripted because I'm like, I know you've got one. I can't, after 11 episodes, suddenly have just gone, oh, Robbie, do you have another additional correction?

Robbie Staniforth: That would be pretty forced to be.

James Piper: Fair, guys, this Line is scripted. Are you ready, Robbie? do you have any additions or corrections for us?

Robbie Staniforth: No. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Obviously. So, friend. Well, I don't know whether he's friend of the pod, but friend in industry, I suppose. Right in, Scott Butler. And let us know whether you're listening to the podcast or not.

Robbie: People out there urge you to recycle your copper cables

A couple of weeks ago, we were talking about, how copper cables were recycled and, Scott Butler, who I know through industry, posted on social media about there's a copper shortage. the research that he published estimates that 38,000 or so tonnes of copper could be hiding in people's Drawers of Doom. So people out there urge you to recycle your cables. Get them out. There's a shortage out there, guys. So get down to your local recycling facility and drop off your cables.

James Piper: Thank you, Robbie. And Drawers of Doom, you know, you made it Halloweeny. That's great.

Robbie Staniforth: I didn't even notice that that was an accident. Hopefully that was nice and succinct.

James Piper: It was beautiful.

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Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: We're laughing because if you're listening to this, you don't realise how many takes that job. Like, our poor producer, is going to have about 20 minutes of Robbie attempting. So, Robbie, I think that while it was great having you as an addition, you and yourself were in addition. It was great having you provide additions and corrections. I do not think we'll do that again.

Robbie Staniforth: Come on, then.

Apple put our podcast into the New and, uh, noteworthy section

All right, let's get onto the most exciting news of the week. James.

James Piper: Yes, and this is exciting. Like, really exciting. And I was a bit blase about it. So I realised earlier this week that Apple had put our podcast into the New and, noteworthy section. I think we're noteworthy. We're definitely new. I think it's both. I'm hoping it's both. And this is, When I then started doing some research on this, I realised quite how rare this was, you know, Ah, very, very few podcasts, I think they only have 20 up there make it into New and Noteworthy. So we just wanted to say a massive thank you to all of you guys listening, because we can't do that without you. Like, Apple will decide who goes into New and Noteworthy based on listener information, based on all those stats, reviews, all sorts of things. And so without you, we would not be there. And now we are there. Loads of people are discovering us. Our, podcast on Apple has like a whole new shiny pictures and we're just so grateful that we've been able to have such an impact in a couple of months. And I, just Wanted to say a big thank you.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, genuinely can't believe it. Thanks, guys.

James Piper: So keep listening because maybe we'll get into the we love this section. That's the next one. I think Apple loves this.

Robbie Staniforth: I thought it was old, but still noteworthy.

James Piper: Yeah, old and pointless anyway. And interactions are really important. We absolutely love you guys. Emailing us. We've had some amazing emails. Just this week I had a couple email us saying, we had entertained them all the way through a trip to France and they'd listened to all of our back catalogue on a trip to France. So I just love that Robby and I are keeping people entertained on their holidays. So let's keep that going. Please keep emailing us. Please keep messaging, us on social media because we absolutely love those interactions and bring them out. And the introductions would be a hell of a lot shorter if people didn't. So keep messaging us in. As a reminder, you can get us on social media obishpodcast or you can email talkingrubbishpodcastmail. dot com. Rubbish process.

Chemical recycling is about turning plastic back into its building block

So, as I say, this is the bit that is not particularly Halloweeny because we last week did mechanical recycling, which was the recycling of plastics using a physical process. And we promised that this week we would do chemical recycling, not knowing that we were going to do a Halloween special.

Robbie Staniforth: I'm trying to adapt my laugh to, maybe that's how we could do it.

James Piper: Chemicals create all sorts of superheroes and villains and I think we can make it, you know, like the Joker, he fell into a vat of chemicals.

Robbie Staniforth: okay, there's a thread.

James Piper: Sort of Halloweeny. He's a clown.

Robbie Staniforth: Did he get depolymerized or.

James Piper: Yes, that's it. So chemical recycling is all about turning plastic back into its building block. So mechanical recycling, which we talked about last week, is like shredding it up, washing it and melting it into new plastic. Nice and easy. But what you could also do is essentially heat plastic to the point where it turns back to an oil. And that's what chemical recycling is. It's also called advanced recycling. We often hear people in the industry call it advanced recycling. So it switches between those two names.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, and it's a relatively new technology, hence why those names. You know, it seems to ping pong between them, depending on who you're talking to. But there's a real high potential in this kind of technology to move these hard to recycle plastics, particularly things like those flexible or soft plastics we've talked about previously, into, turn it back into oil, which ultimately can then be made back into food grade packaging, which is kind of what people think of as the holy grail of recycling. plastic packaging.

James Piper: Yeah. And as you say, that's the big difference. Being able to get plastics that are quite contaminated, quite difficult to recycle and turn them back into food grade. That is a massive achievement. If we can do that. and I've seen this, I've gone to like, I've been to a car park in Essex from memory, where they had this in a shipping container. They literally had a shipping container that was like taking plastics. They were essentially heating them. We'll talk about the process in a second. Turning it back into oil. And I just watched this shipping container like drip oil out the end of it. And you just think it's amazing. It really is amazing.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. Yeah. So there's those two main types, isn't there? I don't know which one that would be then. But there's depolymerization and feedstock recycling.

James Piper: Yeah. So the one I witnessed was feedstock recycling. But, I mean, they essentially look the same, but the difference is the different types of plastics you can put in those. Ah. Because of the chemical makeup of those plastics. Again, we don't want to get too bogged down in the details. That's not our vibe. We just

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James Piper: like, we like staying at the surface, don't we?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. Well, you did the biology degree. So this is always when I defer to you as the greatest scientist of the two.

James Piper: The better of two evils, but crucially not the chemistry degree. And that's the problem.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: so two main types, depolymerization and feedstock recycling. So plastics is made using polymerization. Basically you're taking monomer chains, so single, chains, and joining them together. And that's what makes plastic. That's simply how it's done. So depolymerization is the opposite. you're basically taking those plastic chains and you're breaking them back down again. But because of the way that works, you can only use that on specific types of plastic. So that process is really good for something like pet. because chemically you can break them down back into their monomers. The challenge obviously with that is PET is quite easy to recycle. So there's a question as to why would you do like a chemical process if the mechanical process is quite easy?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And the economics and the expense and things of chemical versus already mechanically recycling these PET bott, turning them back into bottles. It doesn't really make sense.

Robbie says chemical recycling has the potential to revolutionise plastic recycling

We've talked Quite a lot about, gaining widespread adoption. These technologies basically need to be economically viable because the science is usually always there. It's the economics that, we struggle with.

James Piper: Yeah. And so feedstock recycling does a similar thing. It's actually also called, pyrolysis as a form of feed to stock recycling. And I think nick in episode 10, in our interview on episode 10, actually used the word pyrolysis. He said that's how we would break down these kind of plastics. And so that's what we're talking about here about chemical recycling. we use a process called cracking. So they crack the plastic and all that is, is heating the plastic without oxygen.

Robbie Staniforth: That's not a sledgehammer then that they used to crack.

James Piper: No, not to crack a nut. No, you are literally, you are heating plastic without oxygen. And that is a process called cracking that will create a vapour. and that vapour, when it's cooled really, really fast, will turn back into oil. So basically you're just, I mean it's, it is a relatively simple process, albeit, you know, it's got lots of stages. You're basically heating it up into a vapour and you're cooling it down into an oil. And that process, by heating it and cooling it, you're breaking down those polymer chains and you're creating something that can then be used, to turn into new plastic. Yeah.

Robbie Staniforth: And so those oils that are left at the end, depending on the sort of grade of oil, they can either turn it back into a plastic or use it for other products. I think there's, they can use it for sort of wax type products and also fuel, you know, like marine fuel and things. and it works well for polyethylene and polypropylene in terms of turning it back into plastics. Yeah.

James Piper: And that's always been the challenge with this stuff. It's like, is it counted as recycling if it doesn't become new plastic? No, it's not. But that's, that can be quite challenging because obviously once you've got it to an oil, it's quite tempting then to just sell it as a fuel. And so what we need is chemical recycling. You essentially need targets that say we need this much recycled content in plastic, a food grade plastic, which is kind of what we got with the plastic packaging tax, which we haven't talked about yet. you need those targets to then drive this kind of recycling. Because as you say, Robbie, the economics are the most complicated bit here because it's quite an expensive process.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: And because it's expensive. If it's an easy to recycle plastic mechanically, people would do that. Yep. But that means you might have plastic that then could be food grade, but isn't. And so there's an opportunity to use chemical recycling to recycle the hard to recycle plastics like the films, the flexibles turn it back into food grade plastic. But it is fair to say that there is a lot of scepticism as to whether it could work. And I know we personally worked with a company over in Swindon called Recycling Technologies. when they were developing this technology and they were, they were getting lots of investment, they developed it all and they've gone into administration. And the reality is you need a lot of funding and there is no guarantee of the finances that come out the other end.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And the challenge really is to make sure that as much as possible stays out of fuel and goes back into packaging. Because as, what were your friends, the anti incineration lobby, they would sort of say, well, you're burning it anyway, if you're turning it into fuel.

James Piper: Trash talk. Is that better?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, we're picking up the thread again.

James Piper: Yeah, we've left chemical recycling, which was quite difficult to make Halloween, and we're into pumpkins, which are really easy to make Halloweeny. I was actually wondering if we should do a whole summary of Halloween, like sweet wrappers, trick or treat, all that kind of stuff. But I think our, Christmas special, Robbie, if this is a hit and we decide to do the Christmas special, that's when we should do sweet wrappers.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that's really

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Robbie Staniforth: the, selection box, the tin. Yeah.

James Piper: So every time I started doing research, pumpkins just kept coming back around.

Every week I have to decide what to call our episodes, Robbie

I thought, oh, let's talk about pumpkins, because there's loads to do here. and actually next week we've got an interview with Alex, who is the CEO of Hubbub and Hubbub are an amazing comms charity. we've loved working with them in the past. They do really, really interesting communication stuff. I don't want to spoil too much next week, about next week's episode. But something, they have focused on is pumpkins and pumpkin waste. So we thought this would be a great intro into Alex's episode, which is next week. Every week I have to decide what to call our episodes, Robbie. And this one I have found I sort of try and think in advance so that I end up saying it at the start, you know. So last week I will have already Thought about our flexible plastic title before we start the episode so that I can make sure we get that in. And I couldn't. I literally can't come up with anything for pumpkins. So I turned to ChatGPT and said, I'm doing a recycling podcast. I've got an episode on pumpkins. What should we call it? And they came with three options. So are you ready for them?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. Are we going to choose them now?

James Piper: Yes. Well, we're going to have to have chosen it before the episode goes out. So whatever you say now is what we're going with.

Robbie Staniforth: So this is a two person poll here.

James Piper: I can't do a poll, unfortunately. So here are the three options. Carving out a greener Halloween.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, I mean, it's clever, but it's a little bit kind of, Okay, yeah. Too clever, I think, maybe.

James Piper: Okay, well, okay. They're all a bit like that. Smashing Pumpkin sustainably.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, I like that. But I do just. That's just because I like the Smashing Pumpkins maybe.

James Piper: And the scoop on Halloween, pumpkin sustainability.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, I stand corrected. After being negative on the first one. That is the best.

James Piper: Carving out Green Halloween. Okay, we may not go with that if we don't go with that. Like, do you want to record all three so that I can do, like an apprentice thing? You know, like Alan Sugar or what do we call him? Lord Alan Sugar. Like, sort of decide. He says both of them are the winner, and then the day before they pick. I feel like I should.

Robbie Staniforth: Are you saying you should be made a lord? No, genuinely, I think Smashing Pumpkin Sustainably is the best one. No, James, the scoop on Halloween, pumpkin sustainability. That's got to be the best.

James Piper: Thanks. Okay, I'll take one of those. Perfect.

Three out of five people buy at least one pumpkin this Halloween

Robbie Staniforth: so that voiceover work's really coming in, though.

James Piper: Yeah, I know. We're going to be employed by Ekaver any day. We're going to be every ad. Every ad. Can you tell us, all about your laundry detergent? But I was stunned with some of these figures that hubbub have come out with. Say, three out of five people buy at least one pumpkin. I think that's quite. That is quite high, isn't it?

Robbie Staniforth: That is.

James Piper: Do you think that's about right?

Robbie Staniforth: That must be. That must be averaged out because people are buying multiple pumpkins or something. Isn't that possibly. Ah. What's happening?

James Piper: well, no, this is Three out of five people bought at least one pumpkin.

Robbie Staniforth: Really? Whoa. Okay. That is surprising. I'm very surprised by that.

James Piper: Do you buy one each year?

Robbie Staniforth: I do Often buy one. Yeah.

James Piper: Okay.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. often got a young daughter at home, she's very keen to have it out. It's the signifier of you can knock on the door on Halloween, isn't it? Yeah.

James Piper: I didn't know that like until really when we moved into our house. Yeah, I mean this is like seven years ago we moved into our house and I was like, oh Ellie, let's do a let's do a pumpkin. And we put one out. And I did not realise that meant like literally for five hours we would just have constantly kids knocking on the door and we didn't have. Sorry. I'd recently installed a ring video doorbell.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh yeah.

James Piper: And that ring video doorbell was in black and white. And some of the pictures like literally they would ring the doorbell, you'd load up the app and the scariest, like you'd have ghosts, vampire, whatever it was, but all in black and white. And it would be, it was terrifying like the whole night. And I did not realise it was the pumpkin that was kind of causing everyone to break.

Robbie Staniforth: That's the whole thing. When you've had enough at like 8:39, you just bring the pumpkin in and then it's job done, no more knocking.

James Piper: Okay. Right, I see. Okay, well this year we are gonna have a pumpkin because every episode I like to do a photo as you know and we're gonna have to do a little pumpkin with a recyc cycling logo. So we'll get to work on carving a little pumpkin for our, for our episode. You have seen that if you've, if you're on social. So we talked about food waste in episode nine and if as many pumpkins are bought as, as we suspect based on that three out of five that could create about £26.7 million worth of food waste just from pumpkins in Halloween. and hubbub again. Alex started working on pumpkins 10 years ago. So it's their 10 year anniversary and back then 42% of the population realised eat pumpkins and now that is up to 59%. So I would say their work has been quite good because a lot of what they've been encouraging is for people to eat the pumpkin when they carve it, when they scoop it out.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, that's, I usually make pumpkin mash actually because I'm quite lazy. People are like oh, pumpkin pie and all these sort of like elaborate use pumpkin in baking and stuff. But

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Robbie Staniforth: yeah, no, my go to is just the straight up pumpkin mash, bit.

James Piper: Of butter, delicious One of the challenges with pumpkins is, I mean, you could eat a pumpkin, right. You can eat any pumpkin, but the smaller the better in terms of taste. And what we often do is go for a bigger one because that's what we want to carve. And so smaller the better. And actually Sainsbury switched to only selling edible pumpkins, I believe, and not just the carving ones. So that's really good. And I think we would encourage other retailers to do the same so that they can get, you know, they're nice to eat rather than bitter.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And it's awful lot of bitter pumpkin to get through in those big ones as well.

42% of pumpkins are composted and 19% go out for birds

James Piper: I was actually quite encouraged by the disposal stats on pumpkins. So when I read into Those, it was 42% are composted, 36% go in the food waste bin and 19% go out for the birds. And I think this is a moment for us to say, please don't do that. Please do not put your pumpkin out for birds. And I know that has reduced because a lot of the comms campaign have been like, don't do that. Don't feed birds pumpkin.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, really? Why is that? Just like, it's. It's not natural. They shouldn't be eating it or whatever.

James Piper: Exactly. I think it's. I think it's quite bad for them. And then 13% in the general bin. So guys, compost them, food, waste them. please don't put them out for the birds, please don't put them in your general waste bin. And ultimately we want you to eat the pumpkin. So. Hubbub have amazing pumpkin recipes on their website. I'll share it on our link tree. Personally, I'm going for the pumpkin Katsu curry soup, which I think just sounds great. That's what I'm gonna make this year.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. A soup as well sounds like quite simple too. I'm not a big baker, but I do like. I like sort of cooking and like, like, yeah, meals. Mains. Is that a main or do you think that's a starter pumpkin Katsu curry soup.

James Piper: I'm gonna have it as a main.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, very nice.

James Piper: Yeah, I got through all these stats. I thought, that's really interesting.

Robbie says he is less likely to go to Starbucks now

Let's talk about those stats. We've just done that and then I thought, but what about the pumpkin spice latte?

Robbie Staniforth: Because, like, is that one of your favourites?

James Piper: No, no, I used to love a pumpkin spice latte.

Robbie Staniforth: I remember you having them, so I'm surprised you're saying I used to love.

James Piper: It, but I have. I am less likely to Go to Starbucks now is the truth.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: but yes, I do like a pumpkin spice latte. I just. The sugar, I'm trying to cut down the sugar and it feels like there's quite a lot in those. so I did some research and I'm going to shock you with some stats, Robbie, because I was like, they must be wasteful, right? They must be generating waste. The pumpkin spice latte.

The pumpkin spice latte was invented by Starbucks in 2003

And seeing as we talk about pumpkins, it would be a good opportunity to talk about it. So I didn't realise the pumpkin spice latte was actually invented by Starbucks. I guess that makes sen sense, but I sort of felt like it was around before that. But Starbucks invented it in 2003, so it's just celebrated its 20th anniversary. So over 600 million cups of pumpkin spice latte have been sold worldwide, which is about 20 million a year. So, I mean, this is a very popular, considering it's only available for what, like a month? Yeah, obviously it's a very popular drink. Interestingly, Starbucks originally didn't include any pumpkin in the pumpkin spice latte, they just included flavourings. But they are now using pumpkins because there was a lot of lobbying to say, well, you can't call something pumpkin spice latte if you haven't got pumpkin in it. And so they started using real pumpkins, but they don't use the orange pumpkins, they use much smaller pumpkins. The kombucha pumpkin, is that you would say it.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, wow, okay.

James Piper: Or kabocha.

Robbie Staniforth: Kabocha. Not heard of that, but okay, cool. It's a smaller one, is it not orange?

James Piper: So they use the kombucha pumpkin, which is small and sweet. And in 2015 they moved into real pumpkins, using real pumpkins for their drinks. Most ready made pumpkin products are not actually made with the pumpkins that we think about with Halloween because they're just quite bitter. As I said, they're big and bitter. So most use, the small and sweet pumpkins and not the orange ones.

Robby says Starbucks use such little pumpkin in their pumpkin spaslatte

So, Robby, I have a question for you. A three pound pumpkin, okay, which is the weight of a duck, a pair of trainers or three packs of bacon? When I searched on Google, three packs of bacon, they must be thinking, well, a pack of bacon's a pound. £3 is three packs of bacon. So when I searched on Google, I said, what is 3 pounds? Those are the three examples Google gave me. So a duck, pair of trainers, three packs of bacon, how many? So think about a duck. Yeah, that's the size of the pumpkin, the weight of A duck. How many lattes do you think that makes?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, a lot, I reckon 50, 100.

James Piper: 100?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: Okay. Well, according to the Institute of Food Technologists, the amount of pumpkin added does very little other than to appease those who wanted to see pumpkin on the list of ingredients. Starbucks use such little pumpkin in their, pumpkin spaslatte that actually a very small pumpkin, you know, the weight of a duck makes 800 lattes.

Robbie Staniforth: Whoa. Okay, so it's like literally pumpkin dust.

James Piper: It's like a tiny bit of pumpkin and added to their puree that then has lots of other

00:30:00

James Piper: ingredients that then makes the, makes the pumpkin spice mix. So believe it or not, they sell 20 million cups a year. And I thought 20 million cups a year. They must get through so many pumpkins. They must have just pumpkins all over the place. And then I worked it out, it's actually only 25,000 pumpkins.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh. so it's not many pumpkins really.

James Piper: Not many pumpkins considering. What are we selling in terms of orange pumpkins? So we're up at 30 million pumpkins were bought last year in the UK.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Okay.

James Piper: And this is 25,000 worldwide.

Robbie Staniforth: So we can deduce that the pumpkin spice latte is not significantly adding to the pumpkin waste issue.

James Piper: Exactly. And I got to the end of my research, realised that thought. Well, it's still worth talking about. It's quite interesting. interesting though I did find a report from the USDA, so the US, Department of Agriculture from 2014 that said acreage dedicated to growing pumpkins in America had increased by a third. This was linked back to Starbucks. So acreage for growing pumpkins had grown by a third in 2014. Linked back to a drink, not because Starbucks needed those pumpkins for the drink, but because people suddenly had pumpkins in their mind because of the popularity of pumpkin spice latte and more people bought pumpkins.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. So it's got a knock on effect.

James Piper: It had a knock on effect, yeah. Which I just find very interesting.

Robbie Staniforth: The power of marketing. It's scary.

James Piper: Rubbish. Or not.

Only 14% of Halloween costumes are homemade, according to Hubbub

So let's talk about fancy dress costumes. I personally. Do you like dressing up, Robbie? I love dressing up.

Robbie Staniforth: I've actually got into it more recently. you know, kid round the house type thing. And you just got to lean into these things. But previously not really. So I don't have a big back catalogue of good costumes to draw upon.

James Piper: Well, I like to be creative, I think. I don't know if you remember, but I once went to our work Christmas party dressed as Every James Bond film.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes, I do remember that very well.

James Piper: And, the golden contact Lens to create GoldenEye just caused my eye to go bright red and not gold.

Robbie Staniforth: It was a big effort. I mean, it was pretty impressive stuff.

James Piper: Yes. I like to think about creative ways to do fancy dress and I guess that's what we're asking here. So again, I got some more stats from Hubbub, who just appear to be the Halloween experts. So I'm really glad we got Alex on next week week to talk us through what Hubbub do. they estimate about 79% of households with children dress up for Halloween. Approximately 7 million costume ends up in the bin and 2 in 5 are worn once. That's crazy, isn't it?

Robbie Staniforth: That's mad.

James Piper: Yeah. And it's the same as about 83 million plastic bottles. So, you know, when we talk about like plastic bottles and all those kind of things, we don't often think about like plastic and fancy dress costumes. Yeah, so. So I guess the question is if these costumes can be 80% plastic, Robbie, which is what they can be, and 69% of that could be polyester, what do we do with them? Are they rubbish or not?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, gosh. I mean, mixed materials, don't think that can be recycled at home. So I would say rubbish.

James Piper: Yes, I think I agree with you. So what would we advise? So we'd advise, look, guys, swap your costumes. If you're only going to wear them once because your child has grown bigger, then swap it with someone else who's got a smaller child.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, Hand me downs. Yeah, exactly.

James Piper: Keep it going down the chain. And link to that, I guess. Obviously you can buy secondhand. I mean, my thinking is make one. I love making costumes. I once went to a party. I mean, I've done, I've gone as all the James Bond films. I once went dressed as the first Harry Potter book, which was like bigger than me. I went to an Indiana Jones theme party dressed as the boulder, which was like a massive chicken wire, boulder thing that I then paper mache. Honestly, it was ridiculous. And I just, just sat inside for the whole evening in the boulder. And I'd made it so that the crosswords were in front of my eye line so I could do the crosswords when I got bored. So maybe that will inspire you to make some costumes. You could go this Halloween as the boulder from Indiana Jones. Only 14% are homemade. So again, use waste materials. You've got cardboard every week and you're recycling, use that. I feel like you could Go one better and actually just go to the party dressed as recycling. Just stick a load of packaging on yourself.

Robbie Staniforth: Great idea.

James Piper: That's what I'm gonna go to parties dressed as from now on. Recycling. Yeah, just rubbish. And then I'll just, you know, walk in and shout rubbish or not at everyone. funnily enough, I was preparing this, yesterday and I saw a Facebook post that was just hilarious. It was basically a young girl who had a ponytail and her dad had, just stuck a Pepsi bottle on the top and the ponytail looked like the Pepsi coming out of the bottle.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, nice.

James Piper: It was really good. I thought, that's per. Just stick a Pepsi bottle on your head, put a ponytail and make the ponytail look like Pepsi coming out of a water fountain. Like

00:35:00

James Piper: a, ah, soda fountain. Absolutely amazing.

Robbie Staniforth: Very clever.

Robbie and M. Accul challenge each other to make recycled Halloween decoration

James Piper: Robbie's question. Believe it or not, Robbie, we did not get a question linked to Halloween because nobody knew we were going to do this.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. We would have had to have put the shout out, in like, I don't know, beginning of October or something to know that.

James Piper: Yeah. So, I'm going to pretend we've had an email in from Dr. Accul.

Robbie Staniforth: A real person for sure.

James Piper: I mean, there must be a Dr. Akula out there. If you are listening to this and Your name is Dr. Akula, right in. And, Dr. Akula asks, as I'm sure he or she will, when they write in, do we have any sustainable decoration ideas? And I thought, robbie, let's challenge each other to come up with a decoration idea made from recycled material. And then we are going to make that. Right. I'm going to. You need to do this. We're going to. Whatever our idea is, we've got to make it and then we'll put it on our socials. So if you're listening to this on Halloween, 31st of October, have a look at our socials. Robbie and I will have made whatever we're committing to now. So we're recording this m a bit ahead, so you've got a bit of time to prep.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. Okay, so come on then. What M. What bright ideas have you got?

James Piper: I've got two. I can't pick between the two, so I'm gonna. I think we'll get Ellie to make one of these. But like, I was thinking you could get a, ah, toilet tube, right. And then sort of staple the top and bottom to like bring it in, cut some ears out of the top and then out of some more cardboard or paper, create some wings and I could turn that into A bat. So a toilet tube, middle, some wings. That's gonna be a bat. And the other one I came up with was a drinks can. So we get like a drinks can and then I'll put some kitchen roll over it. A little used kitchen paper elastic band on the bottom to hold the kitchen paper over the can. And that's going to be a ghost. So I'm going to make a bat and a ghost out of my recycling this week.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, very good. Okay, I think, I mean, I'm just trying to think what's in my recycling bin most often. Probably cardboard, I think is the most common. So cardboard, you've got loads of things cut out, shapes and things. I'm thinking maybe we should go with the pumpkin theme. Maybe I should try and make a pumpkin out of the recycled cardboard. Use could, use the, you know, the beer bottle tops as the eyes. Although the eyes have to be scary. Okay, so I'm going to commit to a pumpkin. I will make a pumpkin from rubbish anymore.

James Piper: You know, you could get your daughter to do what? Like, you know. Do you have a second?

Robbie Staniforth: I mean, that's about, It took me long enough to come up with that.

James Piper: Lovely, Robbie, that sounds amazing. I'm looking forward to seeing your pumpkin. Send me a picture. We'll get that up on socials.

This is the end of our spooky Halloween episode

So speaking of socials, we're obbishpodcast, and that brings us to the end of our spooky Halloween episode. What do you think of our themed episodes, Robbie? Do you like it?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, that was pretty good. We lent into it in places. It was fun.

James Piper: Cool. We'll have to work on that rubbish process, I think, and come up with something for Christmas. Anyway, I'll have a little think. Thank you all for joining us. And as we said at the start of the episode, honestly, we could not be growing to the level we are without you. So thank you so much for listening. Thank you for leaving reviews, thank you for telling everyone about the podcast. we're just so grateful. We really, really, genuinely are.

Robbie Staniforth: James is very grateful.

James Piper: I am very grateful.

Robbie Staniforth: No, we're both very grateful. Thanks, guys.

James Piper: And remember, if you want to contact us, we're on email talkingrubishpodcastmail.com or you could catch us on any of our socials where we'reubbishpodcast. I will put all reports on things we've talked about today in our link tree, which you can get from our show Notes. Another episode done. Robbie, are you looking forward to the interview next week?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, can't wait Absolutely. Yeah. pumpkins are top of mind, though.

James Piper: I know, but we need to talk to Alex about things other than pumpkins. We've covered.

Robbie Staniforth: We gotta open with pumpkins. It's really mining for info, but yeah, no, there'll be lots more besides.

James Piper: Great. Well, I'm looking forward to that. Catch you all next week. Bye.

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