Want to celebrate a “green” Halloween? Here are some tips.

(This story was originally published on October 30, 2023.)

Halloween can be a spooky time, and while there are plenty of scary topics to cover in environmental news, we don’t want to be afraid of them.

So in this edition of Scrub Hub, we’ll expand on our advice from last year on the best ways to compost jack-o’-lanterns by looking at other things you can do to make Halloween greener.

For suggestions, we reached out to the Indianapolis Office of Sustainability, spoke with an environmental science professor at Indiana University, and reviewed some of the latest reports and research.

Short answer: Be creative and make your own costumes

Consumer spending on Halloween reached an all-time high last year, with Americans spending about $12.2 billion on costumes, candy, decorations and greeting cards, according to the National Retail Federation.

The biggest increase in spending was on costumes, which amounted to just over $4 billion.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), creating new products such as costumes contributes to greenhouse gas emissions through production and transportation. Typically worn only once a year, these costumes also accumulate in landfills and can leach plastic into waterways.

Indy’s Office of Sustainability suggested several alternatives to purchasing new costumes. In an email to IndyStar, the office suggested that people could look for costumes in their own closet, reuse costumes from previous years or find inspiration at a thrift store.

Shahzeen Attari, a professor at IU’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said she wonders if we could go back to making costumes from things we have at home.

“Could we even challenge ourselves to do this?” – Attari said. “We just throw a lot of stuff into waste streams and use a lot of plastic.”

Long answer: reimagine the 3 Rs

We should all be familiar with the triangular flowchart by now: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. However, when thinking about ways to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills, many people simply go to the last “R” – recycling.

Attari was part of a group of researchers who published a study on sustainable waste management and stated that the study showed that people place less importance on reducing consumption. However, reusing old clothes and other items around the home prevents excess items from entering the waste stream.

The World Wildlife Fund has come up with some ways to reuse some standard household items to make Halloween decorations. These could be tombstones cut from cardboard boxes, using old stockings as spider webs, or creatively using leaves and branches in the garden to create Christmas decorations.

One of the more difficult ways to reduce waste during Halloween is with individually wrapped candy. Attari said costume waste is easier to deal with than candy waste.

In Attari’s study, researchers found that when people think about reducing waste in landfills, they think recycling is the solution. However, if you rephrase the question to say, “At what stage do we need to make changes,” the study found that the answer was about product design, not consumption.

“People generally don’t feel like they can change the system because it’s so big,” Attari said. “I think that’s what we’re dealing with when trying to deal with Halloween and candy: the system seems so big that I don’t know where to start making this change.”

There are several companies that sell trick-or-treating boxes in which you can put old candy wrappers and send them for recycling, but the difficulties of keeping candy wrappers out of the waste stream remain numerous.

WWF suggests looking for locally produced treats with minimal packaging or those that already use recycled materials to package the candy.

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Even though wasting candy remains a difficult problem, there are other ways to have a sustainable Halloween.

Reuse as much as you can from previous years. For trick-or-treating, use pillowcases (they hold more candy anyway) instead of plastic buckets.

Last year we covered pumpkins, but it’s worth mentioning again that jack-o’-lanterns can be composted, and uncarved pumpkins can be made into cakes, bread, and other treats. And of course, don’t forget to roast the pumpkin seeds (a little salt, pepper and cayenne are delicious).

Karl Schneider is IndyStar’s environmental reporter. You can contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @karlstartswithk

The IndyStar environmental reporting project is made possible by the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

This article originally appeared on the Indianapolis Star: Scrub Hub: Here’s How to Make Your Halloween a Little Greener