Environmentally Friendly Halloween: How to Celebrate Sustainably This Season
Halloween has become one of the most popular holidays in the United States. With its spooky costumes, haunted houses, and mountains of candy, it provides a fun and festive way to welcome autumn. However, this beloved holiday also comes with a scary impact on the environment.
Between the mass-produced plastic costumes and decorations to the piles of candy wrappers headed for landfills, Halloween generates a frightening amount of waste.
Fortunately, there are many ways to celebrate Halloween in an eco-friendly manner. With some mindful planning and creative thinking, you can host a hauntingly sustainable holiday this year. Here are some tips and tricks for an environmentally friendly Halloween.
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Why Have an Environmentally Friendly Halloween?
Before diving into the specifics, let’s look at why having a green Halloween matters in the first place. Here are some of the key benefits:
- Reduce waste – By making sustainable choices, you can greatly cut down on single-use plastics and other disposable items that get tossed after Halloween night. This keeps trash out of landfills and reduces your carbon footprint.
- Support ethical businesses – Choosing products made from eco-friendly materials supports brands committed to sustainable practices. This helps drive positive change in manufacturing and distribution.
- Save money – Many environmentally friendly options reuse and repurpose items you already have at home. Getting crafty with your Halloween supplies can save you money.
- Teach kids sustainability – Involving your kids in an environmentally friendly Halloween is a fun way to teach them about reducing waste and being environmentally conscious. They’ll carry these lifelong lessons into the future.
- Protect the planet – Most importantly, having a sustainable Halloween minimizes your impact on the environment and protects the planet for future generations. Small changes make a big difference!
With just a few simple changes, you can make Halloween dramatically more sustainable and do your part to protect the planet.
Eco-Friendly Costumes
For many people, picking the perfect Halloween costume is one of the most exciting parts of the holiday. Unfortunately, most costume options from big box stores contain polyester, nylon, and other petroleum-based materials that are bad for the environment.
Here are some creative ways to outfit yourself and your family in planet-friendly costumes this year:
- Buy secondhand costumes – Check out local thrift and consignment shops for used costumes. This reuses items already in circulation and prevents waste.
- Make DIY costumes – Get crafty and transform everyday items around your home into creative costumes. For example, a cardboard box could become a robot suit or spaceship.
- Upcycle old clothes – Turn last year’s clothes into fun costumes! Add some embellishments to pants, shirts, dresses, and accessories to transform them into something new.
- Rent costumes – Many costume shops and even online retailers like Amazon now offer costume rentals. This lets you reuse outfits instead of tossing them after one wear.
- Choose eco-materials – If buying a new costume, look for those made from natural and recycled materials like bamboo, hemp, or upcycled plastics. Avoid plastic-based materials like polyester.
- Use makeup – Get creative painting your face instead of buying a plastic mask. Use natural or reusable sponges instead of disposable ones.
Choosing eco-friendly costumes reduces waste, saves money, and teaches kids about sustainability, all while still letting their creativity shine.
Sustainable Decorations
Decking out your home in spooky Halloween decor is part of the fun of the season. But popular decorations like plastic jack-o’-lanterns, polyester cobwebs, and cheap party favors end up in the trash each year.
You can set the monster mood with environmentally friendly Halloween decorations that don’t harm the planet:
- Carve pumpkins – Carve pumpkins for jack-o’-lanterns instead of buying plastic ones. Compost the seeds and insides rather than sending them to landfills.
- Use natural items – Create decor from fallen leaves, pinecones, gourds, and other natural objects. Add fake spiders or creepy cloth for spooky accents.
- Upcycle household items – Turn junk drawer odds and ends, like paper towel rolls and yogurt cups, into Halloween crafts. Spray paint or decorate them for custom creations.
- Make DIY decorations – Craft eerie silhouettes from cardboard, decorate old jars to hold flickering candles, or hang creepy caution tape banners. Let your imagination run wild!
- Choose reusable products – Opt for fabric bunting and banners, paper streamers and garlands, or other products you can use year after year. Avoid plastic decorations.
- Use eco-friendly lights – Light up your home with LED string lights and battery-operated candles instead of wasteful wax candles. Use solar-powered pathway lights outdoors.
Read on: Best Indoor Halloween Decorations: The Ultimate Guide
Responsible Trick-or-Treating
Of course, what’s Halloween without trick-or-treating? With environmentally friendly Halloween planning, you can still gather loads of candy without generating excess waste:
- Use reusable bags – Skip the plastic pumpkin pails and use a pillowcase or reusable cloth bag for collecting candy. Many sites like Etsy sell cute Halloween-themed reusable bags.
- Candy in compostable packaging – Seek out candy brands that use compostable wrappers made of plant-based materials that break down naturally, like those from Alter Eco.
- Buy bulk candy – Purchase Halloween candy from bulk bins instead of pre-packaged bags. This reduces packaging waste.
- Share unused candy – If you have extra candy after Halloween, share it with neighbors, and family, or donate it to local food banks and shelters.
- Compost wrappers – If you do end up with some wrappers, see if your community compost program accepts candy and chip bags. Many now recycle this packaging.
Making trick-or-treating more eco-friendly ensures kids can enjoy the Halloween excitement while also learning important lessons about reducing waste.
Eco-Friendly Halloween Parties
Hosting an environmentally friendly Halloween party is thrilling fun, but it can generate piles of trash from food, drinks, decorations, and party favors. Make your monster mash an eco-mash with these tips:
- Use reusable dinnerware – Serve food on washable plates, cups, and napkins instead of wasteful disposables. Or use compostable bamboo plates, cups, etc.
- Offer reusable water bottles – Provide jugs of water and reusable bottles instead of water bottles and cans that get tossed.
- Skip straws and stirrers – Rather than plastic straws and stirrers, serve drinks as-is or use reusable straws.
- Use cloth napkins and tablecloths – These can be reused year after year, unlike paper versions. upcycled cloth scraps make perfect party napkins.
- Give eco-friendly favors – Skip cheap plastic favors and give plants, reusable water bottles or straws, or homemade treats in recyclable containers.
- Compost food scraps – Set up a compost bin at the party so guests can recycle food waste like apple cores and jack-o-lanterns.
- Use eco-friendly decor – Choose reusable, natural, and upcycled decorations as mentioned earlier.
- Recycle properly – Provide clearly labeled bins for recycling, composting, and trash to ensure items go where they should.
Bonus: Fabulous Finds from Marley’s Monsters
For sustainably designed decorations and everyday essentials with frightful flair, check out Marley’s Monsters. Their Falloween Collection 2023 features cleverly upcycled products like:
- UNpaper® Towels – Made from discarded scrap cotton and hemp, these reusable towels come in cute Halloween prints. They’re the perfect eco-friendly paper towel replacement.
- Wool Dryer Balls – Help reduce waste from dryer sheets with reusable wool balls. Toss a few in the dryer to soften your laundry.
- Beeswax Food Wraps – These reusable food wraps provide an eco-friendly alternative to plastic wraps. Use them to cover leftovers and snacks.
- Scrap Felt Fabric Yardage – This upcycled felt can become boo-tiful bunting and other decors. Enjoy a stylish yet environmentally friendly Halloween!
Don’t miss out on these special items for your environmentally friendly Halloween – use one of these Marley’s Monsters coupon codes to score the best deals on their eco-friendly products.
Have an Environmentally Friendly Halloween!
With some eco-conscious planning, you absolutely can celebrate Halloween in a way that’s kinder to the planet. Follow these tips to reduce waste, make creative upcycled decorations and costumes, distribute candy responsibly, host sustainable parties, and more.
Why not make this the year to have your greenest Halloween celebration yet? Our planet provides the perfect backdrop for this spooky holiday, so let’s protect it. Mother Nature will thank you for it!
Start planning your environmentally friendly Halloween today to enhance your Halloween in an eco-chic style.
