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Having a More Eco-Friendly Halloween

 

greenhalloween1-300x2881According to the National Retail Federation, Americans plan to spend 6.9 billion dollars this year on Halloween. Of this money about 2.5 billion will go to human costumes, about 300 million will go towards pet costumes, about 2 billion will go to candy and a little less then that will go towards Halloween decorations. That’s a lot of stuff that once Halloween is over will proabably never be used again.  But there are ways to reduce your eco footprint during Halloween. By reducing how much you consume you also reduce how much you waste.

Here is a short list of suggestions to reduce your eco imprint for halloween:

1. Costume Swap

-Instead of buying a new costume every year a costume swap would allow you to have a “fresh” costume without having to buy a new costume. Costume swapping is great for parents with kids of similar ages or if you are an adult who have friends with excellent taste but travel is different party circles for Halloween.  Though National Costume Swap Day already passed, it was scheduled for October 8th, it is still not to late to arrange on of your own.

2. Build a Costume from stuff you have around the house

Homemade costumes can be simple or complex. Making a homemade costume can be as easy as taking an taking an stained shirt and splatter painting it so you look like a Pollock painintg or as complicated as taking old cardboard boxes you had been meaning to recycle and taping them together in order to make a transformers costume. For costume ideas I suggest the website Instructables.com, which includes a gallery of hundreds of creative home-made halloween costumes and the instructions on how to make them.

3. Buy Reusable or Recycleable Decorations

– By buying reusable Halloween decorations not only do you reduce your contribution to your local landfill but you also save money towards buying decorations next year. If you don’t plan on keeping your decorations instead use a more environmentally friendly decorations like a Jack-O-Latern (see next tip)

4. Get the Most Out of Your Pumpkin

– Your pumpkin can be used for more than just a Jack-O-Latern. Before you care your pumpkin use the insides for making toasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie,or pumpkin soup. And when Halloween is over the pumpkin can be used for compost.

These tips should help you have a fun, eco-friendly Halloween.

by Maddie Perlman-Gabel

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 15:26
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