How To Have a More Sustainable Halloween
When the end of the year approaches, it means many things are coming. Autumn is one of them, and you can enjoy it sustainably in many fun ways. Nonetheless, the one word that can most accurately describe this part of the year is celebration! Halloween is the initiator of the party season, which takes place in October, and is followed by Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas and New Year’s Even in December.
To start making the festivities more sustainable, focus first on Halloween, which is a great way of overcoming the unsustainable inertia of such an abundant holiday season. Once you did your trial with October 31st, you can start analyzing ways to have a more conscious Thanksgiving, Christmas, and NYE.
Halloween might take the crown for the most unsustainable holiday–I think it’s tied with Christmas– because it’s such a wasteful time, that starts being promoted in August or September, when stores being to put Halloween decorations out and tempting us into buying stuff. The main characters include an array of categories: costumes, decorations, pumpkins, and candies.
An estimated 2000 tons of plastic waste–the equivalent to 83 million plastic bottles–is generated from throwaway Halloween clothing sold by leading retailers in the UK (only the UK!). Research done by Hubbub found that 83% of the material used was oil-based plastic that probably ends up in the landfill. Let’s remember that 60% of our clothes are made of plastic, which means they won’t biodegrade, and will take years to break up in the landfill.
In 2021, the spending on decorations in the U.S. was set to climb to $3.17 billion, up from $2.59 billion in 2020. Total spending on costumes hit a record high since 2017 at $3.32 billion.
Regarding pumpkins, the most popular item in Halloween decorations, about 40% of consumers buy fresh pumpkins to hollow out and carve on Halloween to make the famous jack o’lantern, but 60% of them admit they don’t use the flesh. In the UK alone, 10 million pumpkins are grown every year, of which a staggering 95% are used on Halloween and then thrown away, creating 18 thousand tons of food waste.
With these numbers, there’s no arguing we need to step it up and make Halloween more sustainable! In this post I’ll show you how.
TIPS TO MAKE HALLOWEEN LESS WASTEFUL AND MORE SUSTAINABLE
What to do with your Pumpkins to be more sustainable
Since I said pumpkins are the center of attention during the Halloween season, extending even to Thanksgiving, let’s start with how to be more conscious in this area. You can buy reusable secondhand pumpkins at your thrift store. Goodwill usually sends a wide variety of holiday deco.
However, if buying real pumpkins isn’t negotiable to you, buy them from your local farmer’s market. When you buy locally grown pumpkins you are reducing the number of miles they travel. The other very important thing you should do is eat the pumpkins’ flesh after you empty them. Food waste’s carbon footprint is estimated at 3.3 billion tons of CO2, and around 1.4 billion hectares of land is used annually to produce food that is wasted. Besides the carbon footprint and land usage (not to mention other resources used to produce the food that is thrown, such as water), most people don’t realize that fruits and vegetables don’t decompose properly in the landfill environment.
When you carve out your pumpkins, use the flesh to make breads, soups, or any recipe that includes it as an ingredient. Also, don’t forget to eat the pumpkin seeds. After the season is over, instead of throwing the shell away, compost it when possible (try not to put glitter on it or anything that would remove its capacity of being composted).
How to decorate sustainably for Halloween
On to the next big wasteful tradition in the Halloween market: decorations! Something I’ve noticed since I moved to the U.S. is that some people, as unbelievable as it still sounds to me, buy new decorations every year, only to throw them away once the season is over. This is an extreme of ridiculousness and wasteful culture, and I hope this group is in the minority. This probably happens because these things are super cheap here. In contrast, in Argentina, people buy decorations once and use them for many years to come, because that’s our culture, and because things are more expensive there.
So, number one rule to be more sustainable with decorations this Halloween is to use the ones you already have at home. If you are buying deco for the first time, buy it secondhand and store them until next year (and the next, and next, and so on), so that you can reuse them and give them a long life!
Another option is to make decorations by repurposing things you have at home. For instance, you can turn cardboard boxes into tombstones. This is where creativity comes into play! Maybe you can turn an old t-shirt into ghosts or spiderwebs, or make a jack o’lantern with repurposed cans instead of pumpkins. You name it! To make it a more engaging and fun event, turn it into a competition or a family activity.
Eco costumes for Halloween
Costumes become a real environmental issue during Halloween. The reason is simple: people want it to be different every year (you won’t dress up as a vampire every year for the rest of your life–unless you want to). This makes storing and reusing your costume a challenge. As I mentioned before, most costumes are made with plastic materials like polyester, and if people throw them away, conceptually there’s no difference between that and throwing away a bag full of plastic bottles.
The focus in this area should therefore be put on: novelty and afterlife. Basically, we need to find new costumes, but considering what happens to it afterwards as well (and paying attention to where they come from).
To choose a new costume you’ve never worn before, but doing it sustainably, instead of buying a completely new costume, you can make one with clothes you already have at home. This could mean grabbing a needle and thread, or simply putting different garments together to create a character. For example, last year I wore a unicorn onesie I’ve had for years and a unicorn headband from my Bachelorette Party, and became a Unicorn Ambassador. Another time, I grabbed some baggy and colorful pants I usually wear to work, put on a vest, some band on my head, and became a hippie. More easy ideas are: cowboy, Adams family member, or characters that wear simple clothes (like Velma from Scooby Doo).
Another way of keeping the novelty in your costumes, but doing it so in an eco-friendly manner, is to swap costumes with friends. You can lend them the one you wore last year, and in return, you can borrow the ones they have been storing. Also, buying secondhand costumes is possible, and you can find them online or at your local thrift store. You can find a complete costume, or you can make your own by buying secondhand clothes. One of my friends did this recently. She bought a pair of pink pants, wore a denim jacket and t-shirt she already had, some white sandals, and curled her hair, to dress up as Madonna. After Halloween was over, she could still use all those things separately, including the pink pants, for any occasion.
Besides making your own costume, using what you have, swapping, and buying secondhand, you can rent a costume! I never did this, but I know you can find a local store that offers this service, or you can find companies that do it online. This means the outfit will be worn, returned, and used again by someone else.
A more sustainable trick or treat
All these factors I’ve been mentioning lead up to this final stage. Most people decorate their homes and wear costumes to go trick or treating, where they ask for candies around the neighborhood.
To make the trick or treat experience more sustainable, walk or ride a bike, and avoid the car.
Regarding the treats, choose plant-based candies, as a plant-based diet is more sustainable. Some of my favorite ones are: some Hu chocolate bars, YumEarth Organic Fruit Snacks, Smart Sweets Sweet Fish, and Unreal Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups. If you want to make them healthier and even zero waste, try baking some delicious vegan muffins or cakes, or prepare homemade popcorn.
Party sustainably for Halloween
In case you are hosting a party for Halloween, I prepared this bonus tip!
To make your Halloween party more sustainable, serve plant-based food, use reusable cutlery and glasses, and do all the things I mentioned previously, including using more sustainable decorations, costumes, and candies.
Enjoy this spooky season. Boo!
If you’d like to know more about sustainable living–including but not limited to eco-friendly holidays–please don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter to read my future posts!
Hi, I’m Melina,
I’m the creator of Sustainable Rookie, and my goal is to share what I learn throughout my sustainability journey, so that I can help other people live a more conscious life.
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