How to have a Sustainable Spooky Season

The holiday of Halloween is believed to have originated from Celtic harvest festivals of ancient Britain and Ireland. It originally marked the beginning of winter, and was believed to be a day in which the souls of those who have died returned home. Halloween has since formed into a secular holiday, but a lot of the old traditions remain in some form, such as dressing up, as the original Halloween celebrations involved wearing masks and other disguises to avoid being recognised by spirits or ghosts.

Halloween as we know it today, is observed in many countries around the world with a variety of activities such as trick-or-treating, costume parties, pumpkin carving, bonfires and watching scary films. Like any holiday that might involve buying specific clothing, decorations, food and other items, there is a risk that the festivities may lead to an excess of waste. Sadly, according to a study conducted by Hubbud  83% of Halloween costumes used non-recyclable oil-based plastics, meaning they were destined to end up in landfill, where they would take anywhere between 20-200 years to decompose. No one wants to ruin the fun of Halloween, but it can put a dampener of a celebration if you look around the costume party and think that every costume, balloon and plastic cup will still be sitting in landfill in 100 years from now.

The Issue with Halloween Costumes

One of the biggest contributors to excess waste is single use items, meaning items that are designed to be thrown away after only a few uses. The majority of Halloween costumes fall into this category. Being made cheaply from synthetic materials, most people will wear them once or twice and then throw them away. Approximately 7 million Halloween costumes are thrown away each year in the UK alone! But how can we fix this?

The obvious answer is to re-wear your costume, keep it in your wardrobe for a year and then bring it back out next October. However, this comes with a few issues, a lot of costumes are so cheaply made that they may not survive one party, let alone a whole year in the back of a wardrobe, plus synthetic materials are much less forgiving when it comes to making any adjustments, so unless you are the exact same size you were this time last year that old costume will most likely not fit you anymore. Plus who wants to dress as the exact same thing two years in a row?!

Finding a Better Option

Our alternative is to avoid buying commercially available Halloween costumes altogether. There many alternatives out there, firstly you can craft something yourself, this lets you be creative past what is available in the holiday section of your local supermarket. Every year people go viral online for their creative and hand-crafted costumes. You don’t even have to be the technically skilled at sewing or crafting, some of the most classic Halloween costumes such a bed-sheet ghost or a bandaged-up mummy are very simple to put together but always affective and recognisable.

If crafting isn’t your thing, you can always shop for inspiration within your own wardrobe. Costume parties can be a great excuse to wear some items that you might already own but never get to put to use! for instance, you may not get as many opportunities as  you would like during the year to wear formalwear, but with a little bit of make-up and accessorising, a tuxedo can be turned into a dapper skeleton, or a black gown can be turned into a stylish witch, all with little to no modification of the clothes themselves, so they can be worn again in the future.

If you do find yourself needing to buy items for your Halloween costume, try and think about how they could be re-purposed in the future. In the way that a single shirt could be used in a pirate costume one year and a vampire costume the next. Many costumes can even include components that can be worn all year round and incorporated into your wardrobe. When you do buy new items, making sure you are making informed choices and picking high quality brands that will last a long time to reduce waste.

DIY Decorations

As with costumes, holiday-specific decorations are often made with synthetic materials and only intended for a single use. Everything from balloons, to bunting, to tablecloths, to plastic cutlery, everything you buy for a party, there is a more sustainable option out there. Making your own decorations is not only sustainable but also fun, and can be a great activity for all the family! Creating decorative paper chains and streamers out of old scrap paper is a very simple activity to do for any holiday or party.

For spooky decorations, you can make cobwebs from old lace curtains, spiders out of pipe cleaners, hanging bats out of scrap paper, the only limit is your imagination! Halloween is also the perfect holiday to use nature to decorate, autumn leaves and plants found in nature can make cosy autumnal decorations that work well all throughout the season, not just for one party. Well crafted hand made decorations such as crochet pumpkins are adorable and you can bring them back out year after year!

If you don’t think that crafting is for you, there are thankfully a growing number of companies making sustainable holiday decorations, so go to your local party shop and see what they stock that’s made with recyclable materials, you may be surprised by the amount of choice! Choosing a local shop or even a local craft fair or small artist to buy your decorations from is not only much more environmentally friendly than shopping online, but also helps boost your local economy and support small business!   

Frightening Food Waste 

One of the most unfortunate side effects of any parry or celebration is food waste. It can always be a difficult challenge when hosting a party to balance between making sure your guests are all well fed and ending up with a table full of untouched food at the end of the evening. Here are a few ideas on how you can prevent food waste this Halloween.

Pumpkin carving is a long-standing Halloween tradition, but what do you do with the insides of your pumpkin? There are many options beside just throwing them away, from pumpkin pie to pumpkin soup, you can find many healthy and delicious recipes online. Plus the seeds from your pumpkin roasted with a little but of salt make for a tasty alternative to popcorn for scary movie night!

It is always hard to predict how many trick-or-treat visitors you might get, you don’t want to run out of sweets and chocolate before the night is done, but you also don’t want to be left with a bucket full of sweets that you feel the need to either eat yourself or just throw away. So why don’t you mix things up by handing out other small non-edible treats such as stickers, pencils, or bouncy balls, these things might even be more appreciated by children that have had nothing but sweets all evening. If you want to stay traditional and stick with sweets though, keep an eye out for sustainable options made with ethically sourced ingredients and in recyclable packaging.

When it comes to party food, home made often has a much lower carbon footprint than shop-bought snacks. A potluck where everyone brings a dish, they made themselves is a great way to manage both the workload of the host, but also make sure that the ratio to food and guests is correct. Plus a pot-luck is a great opportunity for some friendly competition of who can make the best themed snacks!  

In Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many ways you can make your Halloween celebrations this year a little kinder to the planet. A void buying cheaply made, single use plastic items. Instead, use what you have, and make sure what you do buy is of a high enough quality that it will survive long enough to be re-used or re-cycled!