Halloween (aka All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve) can be a great occasion. Of course, as with any major event there’s a bit of cleaning up involved the following morning.

Here are just a few of the ways (10, to be exact) you can make your Halloween more environmentally friendly, and spend more of that clean-up time in bed. Perfect.

When trick-or-treating

1. Walk from house to house : Leave the car at home. It’s really that simple.
2. Make your own trick-or-treat candy : There are plenty of Halloween recipes available both online and in books. Experiment, have fun and save money in the process.
3. Take canvas bags or pillow cases : Sure, there are plastic bags available for doing this; but why not keep things simple? Grab a few canvas bags or pillow cases from around the house, and just throw ‘em in the wash afterwards.
4. Make your own latex rubber masks : This is not only a great project for the kids, it’s a cost-effective way to go about things. What’s more, it can be a whole lotta fun.
5. Make a costume from old clothes : When combined with the ‘make your own latex mask‘ project above, this one turns recycling into an art form. Besides, do you really want to look the same as everyone who buys a disposable one from a local store?

For Halloween parties

6. Send invitations via email : Rather than making up (or purchasing) paper invitations for your Halloween party, invite people electronically. Send out emails, text messages, build a website - whatever seems appropriate for those involved. Or just go out and talk to them personally.
7. Reinvigorate old party games : Try bobbing for apples, or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Not only will you save money, you’ll save preparation time and people will have just as much fun.
8. Use re-usable cutlery and crockery : No matter where your party is, why not add a touch of class by using ‘proper’ cutlery and crockery instead of disposables. Much cheaper, and easy enough to clean. There’ll also be considerably less garbage to put out the following day.
9. Put leftover food scraps in a worm farm : As pointed out earlier, worms will eat just about anything. Including pumpkin.
10. Re-use Halloween decorations : many of the Halloween decorations around the house can be easily kept and reused next year (a few small changes will make sure they actually look quite different). Think of it as recycling.

Final thoughts on having an environmentally-friendly Halloween

As you can see, having a ‘green‘ Halloween isn’t exactly hard work. Go out and have fun.

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