Halloween poses a challenge to many eco-conscious parents. If we stay true to our values and reject the unhealthy, wasteful trappings of the season, we feel like we’re depriving our kids of a rite of childhood. Many of us give in, but the knowledge that we’ve compromised principles that will ultimately protect our kids’ future haunts us.
To help make your Halloween a little greener, try some tips that have worked for other eco-minded parents.
Start with the costumes
Costumes don’t need to contain frightening compounds or leave a scary trail of waste. Those getups advertised in newspaper circulars may look cute, but past studies of Halloween costumes and accessories found high levels of PVC, lead, and other chemicals hazardous to your little trick-or-treater’s health. The good news is that there are many other ways to outfit our kids for a fun night of dress-up, minus all the waste and questionable materials.
- Make your own costumes from items you already have around the house. You’ll save money and reuse materials while encouraging your child’s creativity. The things you can make from a cardboard box and other contents of your recycling bin are endless. More fun to see yet another Disney-made Elsa marching around the neighborhood or a homemade airplane or zebra? Creating a costume with the help of mom or dad may become one of your child’s favorite memories of Halloweens gone by.
- Repurpose items from your dress-up box or closet, or pick up gently-used costumes from garage sales and thrift stores. Mix and match to make new costumes out of old ones. Last year’s butterfly wings can be added to this year’s fairy outfit. A favorite dance dress or athletic jersey can transform kids into ballerinas or sports stars.
- Host a costume swap with friends. Every participant brings a costume and leaves with one that’s new to them. Endless recycling and no waste! (If you’re organizationally challenged, Green Halloween has tips for hosting your own swap party.)
- Avoid dollar-store face paint , which contains some pretty scary stuff. A report from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found heavy metals in half of the face paint brands they tested. This included as many as four of the following: arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead and mercury. Seek out non-toxic options or try making your own.
Try waste-free decorating
Halloween has it roots in harvest festivals, so play up those pumpkins! Carving your own jack-o’-lanterns is a fun family activity, and when you’re done you can all enjoy the roasted seeds. The smaller decorative pumpkins can eventually be added to soup, muffins, pancakes, and lots more (need some ideas? Blogger Eliza Cross’s book 101 Things to do with Pumpkin might help.)
What’s left can be used to celebrate the garden’s cycle, winding up in the compost to nourish next year’s vegetables. U.S. farmers grow over a billion pounds of pumpkins each year, which would produce a lot of methane if they all went to the landfill. Buy an organic pumpkin and you help support sustainable farming practices while keeping pesticides out of your pies.
Skip the plastic lawn ornaments, orange plastic leaf bags, and the piles of decor peddled by big box stores at this time of year. If you want more than a jack-o’-lantern, consider making a few decorations from what you already have, like scrap paper bats and ghosts. As with costumes, creativity can go a long way to getting the spooky effects you’re after without adding to the holiday waste stream.
Don't get tricked by treats
The candy part of this holiday can be especially tough to work around. Folks trying to avoid giving kids sugar often suggest inexpensive trinkets of various sorts, which create waste and probably contain compounds better kept out of your house.
Finding “treasures” kids would actually use and won’t object to in place of Snickers and Smarties is your best bet if you want to forgo candy. Some trying to buck the candy trend have distributed crayons, polished stones, erasers, coins or even certificates to local businesses. Will some trick-or-treaters be disappointed? Maybe, but they’ll likely get more than enough candy from the other houses they visit.
Green Halloween has some suggestions for better treats and treat alternatives and numerous smart green parents have developed tempting-yet-healthy treats so kids won’t feel deprived. Random Acts of Green hosts a Hallowgreen challenge every year for families that makes it fun to get everyone involved.
If you want to keep candy in your Halloween celebration, look for products with minimal packaging and the least harmful ingredients. Organic candy, while not exactly healthy or impact-free, at least means kids won’t get unnecessarily exposed to chemicals and other unsavories.
The most affordable and easy-to-find options are organic lollipops, and though your dentist probably won’t be thrilled, they’re one of the better choices out there. If you don’t have many trick-or-treaters to provide for and feel like spending some of the money you saved by not buying costumes and decorations, organic fair trade chocolates in single-serve sizes have also gotten easier to find.
What to do with the sack (reusable, of course) of dentists’ nightmares your kids bring home? Generally full of multiple forms of sugar, artificial colors and flavorings, GMOs, and trans fats, there’s plenty to scare the health-minded parent.
Alternative Halloween night activities
You can also join the many folks daring to skip trick-or-treating completely. Get together with like-minded friends and throw a no-waste party with homemade treats instead. Kids might not object to missing the whole trick-or-treating part of the holiday if they got to enjoy a fun evening of games with friends.
If you do decide to make the rounds, consider redirecting kids’ efforts from gathering sugar to doing good. A number of groups trick-or-treat for nonperishables that go to local food shelves (WE Scare Hunger is one common tradition in our neighborhood) or raise money for Unicef. Now that’s a tradition an eco-parent can get behind.
