5 Tips for a Greener Halloween

With a little more than a week left until Halloween, our neighborhood's festooned with fake spiderwebs, witches, and pumpkins that will welcome costumed trick or treaters in their annual quest to collect candy. And then? Most of those decorations and costumes will go in the garbage. Here are some ways to make this holiday a little less black and orange and a little more green...

Treats: Gone are the days when you could give out apples or unwrapped cookies. The safest and most welcome treats are individually wrapped candies. To minimize waste, buy the largest packages you can find and and try to buy organic if possible. Collect your treats in a recyclable bag.
Tricks: Small treats generate a lot of wrappers. Recycle yours via Terracycle; organize your child's school to collect the wrappers and bring them in and you can collect raise money for the school. For more information, click here.
Boo: Homemade costumes are not only more creative, they're environmentally friendly too. Pull something together from stuff you already have around the house or from stuff that can go on to have a second life: a mop head makes a great wig; an old sheet is a classic ghost costume; an old suit plus a greasepaint mustache and a hat equals Charlie Chaplin; collect ace bandages for a mummy costume. Not feeling it? Try swapping costumes with friends or check out your local thrift store.
Haunted House: When it comes to decorating, think old school: pumpkins, piles of apples, bales of hay, twisted squash and gourds, unshucked corn, colorful leaves and bare branches. Plus they're compostable. Light your house or walkway with soy candles or solar lights (and if you carry a flashlight, make it a rechargeable or solar powered one)
Creepy footsteps: Halloween's a night to leave the car at home while you walk around and get to know your neighborhood and your neighbors. You'll also get a little excercise in the process.

[image: Merelymel13, from their Flickr, with a Creative Commons License]

I'm making costumes that my Fiance and I can wear again: We're going as "period dress" animals. I'm a Victorian Skunk (the bustle dresses just cry out as fluffy tails!) and he's going as a 17th Century French Dandy-lion. His costume, without the mask, will do well for other fancy dress events we go to throughout the year, and I'm just tacking on the white trim that makes my black dress a skunk; I'll be taking it off and re-trimming the dress with other things for different events. The white trim will be saved, and used again next year.

As for trick-or-treat bags: My mom made us cute little fabric ones when we were itty bitty, my sis and I still have them. I use mine when we go out with my friends' kids; it also doubles as a fun October grocery bag.
My decorations (such as they are) are all things that will either last through Thanksgiving, like pumpkins and squash, or are reusable; they get stashed with the Christmas stuff in the closet the rest of the year.

posted by deliriumsama on October 21st 2009 at 6:29pm
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