Haunted houses, spooky costumes, and all things macabre come to life during the month of October. But it is not hard to do if you want to make your Halloween celebrations more sustainable. In fact, there are lots of easy ways to make your holiday a little bit greener. Check out these tips for an eco-conscious Halloween, and get ready to have a frightfully fun and spooky season!
Trick-or-treat bags!
Hello, all trick-or-treaters! We all love a good trick or treat. But let’s check out how we can do this more sustainably.
Collect candy this year in a fun and unique way by upcycling household items! Instead of a plastic bucket, use an eco-conscious bucket, pillowcase, or old paper bag that can be decorated inexpensively at home – and reused yearly. Now let’s talk about what goes into the bags!
If you don’t have time to make your own treats, there are many ethical alternatives to regular candy brands. Try products that display independent certifications like USDA Organic, CERES, Australian Certified Organic, NASAA Certified Organic, and Fairtrade. Although these certifications are present, it does not mean that the entire process of making candy is good for both social and environmental issues. If you choose to buy regular candy, limit how much each child receives. Not only is this better for the environment, but also for the children’s health.
Eco-conscious Halloween decor
Here are some ideas for recycling your Halloween decorations:
- Turn stockings with runs into spider-webbing
- Paint foam peanuts (packing materials) and turn them into worms
- Clean Styrofoam and make Halloween masks
- Turn cardboard boxes into tombstones
- Make other creative decorations from netting bags of oranges, cotton balls, leaves, and branches from the yard, etc.
- Decorate with eco-conscious Halloween candy (granola bars, organic lollipops, recyclable candy wrappers)
Halloween Costumes
Halloween costumes don’t have to be bought new. Get creative with old clothing items you already have! If you need help, consider looking in thrift shops, consignment stores, and yard sales instead of retail locations. Your kids can use their imaginations to develop fun costume ideas. You can make so many cool eco-conscious Halloween costumes from things that you already have in your house, be creative, and you will have the best Halloween look this year!
Halloween food
Looking for a more sustainable Halloween dinner? We have the perfect idea for you. Now is the time for you to make a delicious pumpkin soup with roasted pumpkin seeds. You can also visit your local farmer or any health food store and get some organic ingredients for your pumpkin soup! Pumpkins can be used in so many ways, but you should definitely make sure to make pumpkin soup!
We already have the recipe for you to get started!
- Pumpkin – Peeled and chopped into large chunks
- Onion and garlic – the secret ingredients that add extra savouriness to the soup flavor!!
- Stock/broth and water – Do not skip the broth for a tastier pumpkin soup!
- Milk, cream, or half and half stirred through at the end. Here’s my cream view. Does it make it better? Yes, insofar as adding richness to the soup. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. You do NOT need cream to make the soup thicker. All the thickness comes from the pumpkin itself.
- Pumpkin seeds! Roast with a bit of salt on a dry pan!
Place peeled pumpkin, onion, garlic, broth/stock, and water into a pot. Boil rapidly for 15 minutes until the pumpkin is very tender. Use a stick blender or transfer to a blender to blitz smooth. Add milk or cream to taste, then season with salt and pepper. Top with roasted pumpkin seeds!
Eco-conscious Halloween candy
We all love candy (most of us do) and eco-conscious candy even more. Here are a few ideas to make your candy more eco-conscious this Halloween. Buy your candy at a farmers market or your local organic store, or bake your own treats with organic ingredients. Make sure when baking to leave zero waste! Always look for fair trade when buying candy; most supermarkets have much fair trade chocolate and other delicious candy.
Here is a vegan, eco-conscious baking recipe!
Traditional to many parts of Southeast Asia, black rice pudding is a breakfast dish that’s easy to make with ingredients from your local grocery store. You will love the combination of warm black rice and cold coconut cream.
You need:
1 cup black rice
1/2 cup sugar
1 (13 1/2- to 15-oz) can of unsweetened coconut milk, stirred well
Step 1
Bring the rice, 3 cups of water, and 1/4 teaspoon salt to a boil in a saucepan between three to four quarts. Once it starts boiling, reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for 45 minutes (the rice will be cooked at this point but still wet). Stir in the sugar, another scant 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 1 1/2 cups of coconut milk. Bring everything back up to a boil over high heat before reducing it back down to low so that it simmers uncovered. Stir occasionally until the mixture becomes thick and sticky like porridge and the rice is tender but chewy – this should take about 30 minutes.
Step 2
After removing from heat, let the pudding cool to room temperature or warm, occasionally stirring for at least 30 minutes. Right before serving, stir the pudding and divide it among 8 bowls. Take the remaining coconut milk and drizzle it over the pudding.
Eco-conscious Halloween Makeup
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found that most Halloween makeup today includes heavy metals such as lead, nickel, cobalt, and chromium. This is the year to try and be creative without hurting the environment. There are endless possibilities for beautiful and fun makeup looks using plants or fruits. We want to make it easy for you, so we found this fun makeup video where she explains how to DIY your own makeup!
Click the link here
How wasteful is Halloween?
Let’s also talk about just how wasteful Halloween actually is.
Sadly, Halloween is a wasteful and unsustainable holiday because it is so short-lived. After October 31st, most homes throw out their decorations, sweet wrappers, and costumes.
31st October results in a tremendous amount of waste each year, with 2,000 tonnes of plastic (from Halloween costumes, decorations, and sweet wrappers) bought and discarded, according to a recent report by Hubbub and Fairyland Trust.
We want to change this and still have a fun and beautiful Halloween celebration! That is why we gathered all of these amazing hacks!
A list to remember!
Here are a few of the most important things to remember! Write these down and remember them when starting your Halloween party:
- Recyclable packaging
- No food waste
- If needing to buy anything, look for organic grocery stores
- Create your own amazing costumes
- DIY your own Halloween treats
- Make trick-or-treating more sustainable
- Don’t use any plastic wrapping
- Use your compost bin
- Maybe do a costume swap with your friends from previous years?
