Tips for an eco-friendly Halloween!

Halloween is nearly upon us and we all love feeling as spooky as possible! While we love the spooky season, we thoroughly dislike the amount of plastic, disposable and one use costume jewellery, accessories, costumes and decorations that come along with this time of year. According to a study in 2019, an estimated 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste will be generated from one use or throwaway Halloween clothing and accessories.  That’s the equivalent to 83m bottles. And that is just in the UK!

At a time where it is more crucial than ever for us all to be thinking about our plastic consumption and the waste we produce, we wanted to share our top tips for having an eco-friendly Halloween.

 Don’t let those pumpkins go to waste! – 14.5 million pumpkins will go uneaten this haloween. Part of the reason for this is that a staggering 47% of people don’t realise that the pumpkins that you buy from the supermarket are edible. Not only edible, but delicious! Check out these amazing pumpkin reipies and don’t let that delicious food go to waste!

 Get creative with your costumes – It can be so tempting to pop online and order a new, ready made costume every year. But you may think differently when you hear that plastics make up 69% of the materials used in Halloween costumes. And so often these costumes are only worn once before being chucked in the bin!

If you want to go the ready made costume route (which we totally get, not everyone has the creativity or time to make their own Haloween costumes!) cosider these three things: Reuse an old costume, rent a costume, or go raid a charity shop for donated costumes! That way you aren’t adding any new plastics with your costume.

For an easy peasy make at home haloween costume, cut up some old clothes you no longer want, make your face look gaunt with some face paints and add some fake blood around your mouth. Voila! The perfect Haloween Zombie! Check out the Fairy Land Trust website for more really excellent dressing up tips that don’t add any new plastic to the world.

 Get crafty with your decorations -  So many Halloween decorations are single use and go straight to landfill. Spend some time with your kids making your own using recycled or natural materials decorations and kill 2 birds with one stone! Try making your own creations, like this zero-waste spider web  of buying new plastic ornaments that will get binned as soon as Halloween is over.

Choose jewellery and accessories that you can wear year round – It can be so tempting to buy that plastic pumpkin necklace that you know full well you will wear on Haloween and then never again, but why not choose something that you will wear again instead? A black cat necklace or a moon phase bracelet make the perfect witchy accessories but can also be worn all year around.

 These are just a few ways in which you can have an eco friendly Haloween. Remember, no one is perfect and no one can make every single swap, but if you choose to make just one small swap this spooky season you are doing your bit to help the planet