Finlay and I recently went shopping and went down the halloween aisle to try make our shopping trip more fun for him. Who am I kidding! I love a good old spooky aisle in the supermarket! However it got me thinking just how much plastic and disposable stuff there is for just one day of the year, I mean we’re by no means eco warriors in our home, but we’re really trying hard to think about our eco footprint. So why not try and make a few changes to go greener this halloween. I have come up with a few ideas to try and adopt this halloween and in the future.
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Outfits
Try swapping costumes with friends. We have a few old trusty outfits in our dressing up box, so why not have a change and swap with friends, go to a second hand shop or a second hand selling online site. I have known local community centres to hold a costume swap service before, that’s just a great way to re-use. Or alternatively if you’re creative get making one!
2. Reduce single use disposables
I won’t be using the usual paper plates and napkins for the kids this year. I will be giving them a spooky tea and will be using non single use disposable tableware. You can always decorate the table with spooky fabrics etc and just use your normal tableware.
3. Lighting
For trick or treating we normally give our kids plastic illuminous single use bracelets or glow sticks. I will be handing my kids torches that we already own in the house, as the amount of glow sticks in landfill must be immense from just one Halloween night!
4. Treats
This is something I need to work on and look into for the future as without thinking I bought some chocolate in for trick or treaters without checking whether the packaging was recyclable. There isn’t many confectionary wrappers that are currently recyclable, something the manufacturers need to be addressing. However I’m sure with a bit of hunting some plastic free treats such as mini smartie boxes, cookies etc could be the better option. Or if you’re inventive maybe a non-chocolate alternative that is plastic free would be a good alternative. Would love to hear your ideas?
5. Decorations
There are so many spooktacular halloween decorations. We love decorating our house up, as it always keeps the kids busy in half term. We now only buy decorations that we can re-use each year and have gathered a whole box full now over the years that sits in the garage. The kids love opening it up and remembering what we have each year!
I love adding seasonal touches to our home. Here is also some seasonal ways to give your home a hygge feel this Autumn and a more grown up Halloween feel.
6. Halloween crafting
I always keep the kids busy with some halloween themed crafts as it usually falls on half term. This year I have purchased some plastic free craft from hobbycraft. They have quite a few craft kits that are totally plastic free. My favourite are the cardboard pumpkins that you can decorate and keep using decoupage paper.
7. Pumpkins
Don’t forget to try compost your pumpkin and/ or use it in cooking!
Last year it was scarily predicted that the UK will bin 8 million pumpkins after Halloween, the equivalent of enough pumpkin pie to feed the entire nation! Almost 58% of consumers buy pumpkins to hollow out and carve, only a third of whom bother to cook the leftover but edible innards, according to the annual #PumpkinRescue campaign. So with more than half of buyers binning the flesh, adding to the UK’s food waste mountain, we all need to be looking at ways to cook or compost it.
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