Don’t Get Spooked By Halloween Plastic

Getting dressed up in silly costumes and indulging in tasty treats is a blast at any age, but the Halloween fun often comes with an environmental price: Plastic trick-or-treat bags, pumpkins, decorations, costumes and candy wrappers all wind up in the trash, which often winds up in either landfills or our ocean.
This Halloween is a wonderful opportunity to tweak a few traditions, get creative and celebrate the holiday minus the mountains of scary plastic.

Pass up the plastic costumes

Party stores and pop-up Halloween shops are stuffed with “disposable” plastic costumes wrapped in plastic bags, all of which contribute to greenhouse gases and are destined for the trash. It’s much more fun to be original and stand out with these ideas:

• Borrow from family and friends. Many families have a bin filled with costumes and accessories that are just collecting dust. Get some family members and friends together in the beginning of October and do a costume share. Before you know it, you will be mixing and matching some unique pieces into inventive costumes. Besides saving money, you will be reusing items and giving old costumes a new life.
• Make your own. During this time of year, many thrift stores set up a whole section dedicated to dress-up costumes. You can also look around your house for materials you can reuse, such as old t-shirts, buttons, wrapping paper, food containers, bottle caps, etc. Need ideas? Google and Pinterest are your friends!
• Rent a costume. Consider renting a costume from a local costume shop or checking out the many costume rental companies online.
• Make a statement. Go all out for the environment and create a costume using plastic waste materials to raise awareness about the plastic problem. For example, dress up as the Great Pacific garbage patch or fill clear plastic bags with the cleaned garbage you collected for a month to represent your monthly waste. If you are crafty, make your costume completely out of plastic bags, bottle caps, cups, food containers, and food wrappers.

Look for plastic-free décor and trick-or-treat bags

Everyone wants to out-spook their neighbor with the best Halloween decorations, but be aware of the endless plastic décor at the store — synthetic spiderwebs, black plastic spider rings, plastic pumpkins and skeletons and more.

Paper or cardboard ghosts, witches, and other decorations will decompose much faster than plastic. Or, go a bit more natural and choose edible and compostable decorations like colorful gourds, sunflowers, dried fall leaves, wheat, or even a bale of hay. And, of course, you can’t go wrong with carving pumpkins into all types of jack-o-lanterns to set the mood.

Another way to go green this Halloween is to reuse materials you already have. Weave a spider web with some old natural twine. Make a ghost by stuffing a towel in a white sheet, tying with string, and hanging it in a tree or near a door. Add a scarecrow to your yard using some old shabby clothes and a jack-o-lantern head. Finally, challenge your family and friends to use Halloween wrappers from previous years to create custom Halloween decorations to be used in future years.

Instead of using plastic bags or plastic pumpkins to collect candy while trick-or-treating, choose cloth bags, pillowcases, and natural wooden or wicker baskets.

You can even coordinate with your costume, such as a basket for a Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz costume or a pillowcase when dressed up as a baby.

Cut back on plastic candy wrapper waste

Those bite-sized, individually wrapped treats really cause a plastic waste problem because the wrappers are not easily recyclable. They are made from a mix of materials, including polypropylene, aluminum foil, and paper and it’s not worth the effort or cost to recover each separate component for recycling. Some companies are working on developing candy wrappers that are biodegradable, compostable, and do not rely on oil-based materials. Mars has partnered with Rodenburg Biopolymers to develop this type of eco-friendly candy wrapper, but it is only available in Europe so far. While we wait for American candy wrappers to go green, here are some ways that you can cut back on this type of waste.

Choose non-plastic wrapped candy. Look for candy wrapped in paper boxes or foil so they can be recycled. Some ideas for plastic-free candies include Smarties, Dots, Hershey kisses, and chocolates wrapped in pumpkin-looking foil.

Find other types of goodies to give out. Skip the plastic-wrapped sugary candy altogether and opt for something more interesting and creative to hand out to the kids: friendship bracelets made from thread, Halloween-themed pencils and notepads, Mad Libs, or coloring books.

Recycle candy wrappers. Recycle your candy wrappers by participating in Terracycle’s Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box. This is how it works: choose the size box you need, purchase it, throw your used wrappers in it, and ship it when filled. The collected waste is separated into fibers that are recycled or composted and plastics that are molded into new plastic products.

Reuse candy wrappers. Artists are now getting really creative with waste products. You can find items like artwork, clothing, handbags, wallets, and jewelry made from candy wrappers. Donate your wrappers to an artist or try your hand at making a masterpiece.