8 Best Tips for a Zero Waste Halloween

Last year I talked about accidentally vegan sweets for Halloween however, this year I wanted to talk more about how you can reduce waste for a zero waste Halloween. It’s not always easy to think of how you can have an eco friendly Halloween, whether that’s for your own children or the neighbourhood children.

Let’s be honest, the traditional Halloween with brand new costumes, individually wrapped sweets and decorations – is very wasteful. Even prior to having children, I remember the adult Halloween parties that I used to go to, usually had a lot of decorations and snacks in single use plastic.

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Things To Remember

There are a few main things to remember if you’re trying to reduce your waste and have an eco friendly Halloween. They are as follows:

• The main thing to remember is to use what you have first and foremost.
• Think about reusable rather than single use.
• Making things yourself will save you money.

That-being-said you might need some suggestions on how to have a Zero Waste Halloween so I’ll give you some ideas below for doing this.

Costumes

Second-hand/Thrifted

The main thing to remember with getting costumes for a zero waste Halloween is that second-hand is always the best option. My son is obsessed with dressing up, we have quite a collection of thrifted fancy dress outfits at this point.

There are potentially a few ways that you can thrift fancy dress costumes. Ebay is sometimes a good option, I’ve found a few secondhand costumes for my son in the past. Facebook marketplace is another great place to look out for costumes for children or even adults. Although I haven’t seen many for adults, it’s still worth a try.

Brand new Halloween costumes are not only expensive but they are usually made from Polyester (plastic) and some of the more elaborate costumes even have plastic bits attached to them as well. Due to the microplastics in clothes, I talk about this in my plastic in our ocean post, however this does mean that if you wash costumes made from polyester you have to be aware of the microfibres that come off of them in the wash. You can try and avoid costumes made from synthetic materials, although this is certainly going to be more difficult when you try and find them secondhand.

Handmade

If you’re quite creative, you can of course have a go at making a costume. I’ve seen some really interesting costumes that people have made out of cardboard or you can even put together a costume out of things you have at home. You can create an octopus costume for example out of some pairs of tights, stuff them and attach on the inside of a jumper.

Borrow

Another great option for a zero waste Halloween is to borrow costumes. I actually asked the sustainable community on Instagram if they had any ideas for an eco friendly Halloween and borrowing costumes was a great suggestion that I got. You can ask in your neighbourhood if anyone has a particular outfit you can borrow or ask friends and family if they have any costumes. In the UK renting costumes is not really an option but if you have this in your area then that would be a great service to use.

Decorations

Most decorations that you buy in a store will be made from some form of plastic and definitely not made to last. However, just because you’re planning on having a zero waste Halloween doesn’t mean you can’t decorate for the occasion.

If you already have some Halloween decorations from previous parties, just make sure that you store them so that you can continue to use them year after year. I always say that the most eco friendly option is using what you already have.

Natural Ideas

I personally think for Halloween or fall in general there are a lot of natural things that you can use for an eco friendly Halloween.

Most commonly used of course would be Pumpkins but other Gourds are also perfect for this time of the year. I love that they come in different shapes and sizes, I think that makes them really quirky.

Things like sticks and pine cones are also really great for eco friendly decoration. Sue from Earthful Enlightenment wrote a guest for my blog last year about natural fall decor if you wanted more ideas for the fall season.

Handmade

If you were looking for more scary decoration ideas for Halloween. I’ve seen some amazing ideas on Pinterest using jars, such as; Mummy jars with a light inside, poison wine bottles and even fun labelled jars with eyes (pickled onions) and hearts (beetroot).

If you’re really crafty as well you can make paper spiderwebs, bat paper chains and I’ve even see some painted tin cans on Pinterest as well which is a really fun idea. My 6 year old loves crafting so we’re definitely giving some of these a go this year.

Bought Decorations

If you’re not particularly crafty you can also have a look on Etsy, I thought the below vintage rhyme bunting was really cool, however they do have lots of handmade decorations made from natural materials which would be perfect for a zero waste Halloween.

Food And Treats

Party Food

In general party food that you buy in the supermarket comes in so much plastic. The best way to have a zero waste Halloween party would be to make the food yourself. I appreciate that this might not be an option for everyone, however some simple ideas could just include satsuma pumpkins, strawberries dipped in white chocolate (ghosts) and sandwiches cut into any shapes eg tombstones, ghosts or bats.

I’m not the most skilled in the kitchen so I would probably do a mixture of some bought items and some put together for an eco friendly Halloween party.

Sweets/Candy

Homemade

I love the idea of making your own treats to give out at Halloween, some relatively simple ideas for doing this could be rice crispy treats or chocolates. I will admit that I haven’t tried this myself yet, mostly because the pandemic meant that most of the children in my village didn’t even venture out last Halloween. However it is a great way of joining in with the Halloween celebrations whilst also saving a bit of money and waste.

Boxes Of Sweets

I love the idea of buying 1kg (or 2kg if needed) of sweets in either a box or a compostable bag, like the below Rubydoobys sweets. You can then separate them out yourself to give out to trick or treaters. My son is having a birthday party with all 30 children from his class soon so I will doing exactly this, to prevent the plastic waste.

Fruit

Another great option for giving out at the door or to your children is of course fruit. This was another great suggestion that I got on Instagram. I think it’s easy to forget about fruit at this time of the year but for a Zero waste Halloween fruit is an amazing plastic free option. You will need to decide if this will go down well in your neighbourhood or not.

Whichever way you decide to do this for trick or treaters, you can also wrap the sweets in bits of fabric or brown paper and string to give them out. If you have children you can also get them to decorate the brown paper which is quite a fun idea.

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I hope this post has given you some ideas of how to have a zero waste Halloween. It might not be the easiest task to avoid all of the usual waste that comes along with Halloween but it definitely is possible.

If you’ve got any tips to add, leave me a comment. I’d love to hear other people’s ideas for an eco friendly Halloween. If you want regular sustainable inspiration which is suitable for beginners, sign up to my monthly newsletter below.

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