Halloween is sweet, but candy is a scary case

I do not worry about sugar consumption on Halloween. I imagine it's time to focus on healthy eating during the most enjoyable holidays of the year, but every other day, when I will not be overwhelmed by hot flashes.

In addition, there are bigger and more haunting problems with All Hallow's Eve treats. Even if it is positioned as essential to our ridiculous and ridiculous fun, Big Candy engages in unsavory activities.

Years ago, the satire website The Onion produced a fake news item on Gap clothing, using the invented slogan "created for kids, by kids". The same depressing joke also applies to a lot of chocolate.

As stated by Oxfam, the BBC, the International Labor Organization and other organizations, children are an important part of the labor force in Côte d'Ivoire's cocoa farms, which produce 70% of global supply. Among the buyers are Nestlé, Mars, Hershey, Mondelez (owner of Cadbury) and Ferrero (who bought this year most brands of confectionery from Nestlé, other than KitKat).

The Slave Free Chocolate organization estimates that more than two million children are working on confectionery and more than 10,000 are trafficked and are now considered the property of someone else.

This is not new news. Major brands have promised to eliminate child labor and forced labor in their supply chains for two decades. In 2001, the US government almost adopted mandatory labeling of "no-slave" chocolate, but bent to industry lobbyists.

Instead, companies such as Barry Callebaut, Hershey, Nestle and Mars signed a joint agreement to eliminate the "worst" forms of child labor by 2005. Most have not kept that promise.

Hershey continues to push back the date when he will develop a conscience in the future – he is currently promising to stop working with children in 2020.

Corporate lawyers are always right: in August, Nestle opposed an Australian bill that would require companies earning $ 100 million or more a year to report annually to the company. modern slavery in their supply chains.

And Mondelez took Cadbury out of the Fairtrade program, which solicits farmers' advice, for his own "Cocoa Life" program, which industry watchers are skeptical about. This is unfair to consumers who strive to be ethical and often spend more money doing it. (If you like, the Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and UTZ logos show that a company tends to pay workers fairly for this product, but not necessarily for its entire list of products).

If that is not enough, consider the waste – all the individual non-recyclable plastic packages that contain these nice bars or potato chips.

Earlier this month, Greenpeace and the Break Free From Plastic group released the results of a six-continent study, in which volunteers collected and sorted garbage they found on wharves around the world.

The most common multinational brand identified as litter on Canadian rivers and lakes is Nestlé, followed by Tim Hortons, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and McDonald's.

It is the bottles of water, not the candy wrappers, that are the essential, but it only makes the problem worse: Nestle also standardizes the public water in the world whole, and then allocates the waste left to inadequate recycling efforts. That's all the gain, no pain for the company, let alone the actual harm caused by its products.

Fortunately, efforts are being made to make Halloween even more fun. British Columbians are particularly fortunate when it comes to waste: London Drugs collects hard-to-recycle packaging, including chocolate wrappers and bags of chips, at its 51-year-old BC stores.

The process is not perfect: some of the waste is sent to a laboratory, where researchers are trying to find a way to make it truly recyclable. But most of it is incinerated, the energy produced being transformed into electricity.

"At least there is no question of burying garbage in landfills," said Maury McAusland, the company's sustainability specialist, in an interview.

The company is also trying to convince large companies to act more responsibly in terms of waste, which McAusland says is difficult to sell. "We are a small retailer in a very large pool," he said. "If it was Walmart speaking, it would be another story."

Which brings us back to us, the candy eaters, who might be using our sticky fingers to encourage retailers to reduce their waste or to push Big Candy to keep its promises. It's the least we can do before diving into the sugar bowl – for our indulgence should not be the horror of anyone else.