It’s Halloween time! Unfortunately, this season is often marked by plastic-fibered, cheaply produced costumes, masks, and decorations that are made in highly polluting overseas factories and shipped to big box stores. Americans spend billions of dollars on this stuff. And after a year or two? They throw it in the trash.

“Trick or treat!” Halloween’s #1 fun-filled activity is about collecting individual plastic-wrapped sweets in large plastic bags. And what usually happens to the leftovers? They are thrown in the trash.

Pumpkins galore! Often trucked to us from faraway commercial farms. We carve them into Halloween faces. Fun! Most end up in landfills where, like all food waste, they produce methane gas.

Make Halloween a green holiday. Organize and participate in a costume swap. Use parts of costumes to create new looks. Hit thrift shops and put costumes together from reusable materials. Make festive decorations made out of organic material. Store everything for another year. Buy locally grown pumpkins, gourds and corn stalks. Use pumpkin flesh for baking and seeds for roasting a tasty snack. Leftover pieces are nutritious food for animals such as squirrels and deer. Compost pumpkins. Use small recyclable or reusable trick or treat bags and consider how many sweets you want your children and you to eat. Don’t end up throwing out sweets in their plastic wrappers!

Enjoy the season’s experiences without the waste – Fall Harvest Festivals, Corn Mazes, Halloween Yards, BooLights, WitchFests, Pumpkin Days, hayrides, Little Haunts, Halloween Trains, Haunted Hollows, films, fun runs. Happy Halloween!

By Bev Harrison