How to Have a Sustainable Halloween

We all want to live a more sustainable life, but is it really possible to have a sustainable Halloween? After all, this is a festival known for one-off decorations, extravagant costumes, mountains of plastic-wrapped treats and tons of cleverly carved pumpkins. Do we have to say goodbye to all this fun?

Of course we don’t – there are lots of ways to enjoy your favourite Halloween traditions without costing the earth. Below we’ve put together our top tips for how to have a more sustainable Halloween, without compromising the fun.

Rent Your Spooky Costumes

One of the best ways to have a sustainable Halloween is to rent your costumes. Often you’ll be able to get a better (and spookier) costume for the same cost as buying brand new, and you’ll enjoy the benefit of knowing it won’t be headed straight to landfill after the fun is over.

If renting doesn’t appeal, then why not think about making your costume? An old nightie and some clever face paint can make a vampire bride, or you could get creative with leftover cardboard and create your own coffin – complete with a spooky surprise inside.

When it comes to face paint, it’s worth spending a little more money on a quality set that will last, rather than buying a cheap set each time. You can also make your own face paint using simple household ingredients like body lotion, cornstarch and food colouring.

Make Your Own Treats (don’t use plastic-wrapped sweets)

Another big part of Halloween is all those lovely treats. The problem comes with the trail of plastic wrappers they leave behind. If you’re wondering how to have a sustainable Halloween, then it’s worth making your own Halloween treats. Think about bubbling up some traditional toffee or fudge, and wrapping it in recyclable greaseproof paper, or you could go all out and make some super sticky toffee apples. If you like your treats to be on the simpler side then how about a batch of Halloween brownies or Halloween cupcakes topped with marshmallow ghosts?

Discard Your Pumpkins Responsibly

Pumpkins are another Halloween essential. There are lots of ways to use up all that lovely pumpkin flesh that you scoop out before carving – a warming soup or an all-American pumpkin pie are great options.

What do you do with the pumpkin itself after the big day? A lot of people think that leaving the pumpkins out for local wildlife to munch on is the best option. Unfortunately, pumpkins are very poisonous to some animals including hedgehogs. Leaving discarded food for a long time increases the risk of unwanted wildlife too, such as rats or mice.

The best thing to do with your old pumpkin is to compost it. If you have a garden, you can do this at home. Either chop it up and put it in your compost bin or chop it up and bury it in the garden to feed the soil. If you don’t have a garden, then chop it up for your local authority’s food waste collection. As a very last resort, it can go into your general waste.

Buy Decorations that Last

One of the best ways to have a sustainable Halloween is to buy decorations that last. Choose decorations that you really like and that you will want to put up year after year. You can choose different decorations for each room and rotate them if you find yourself getting bored. If you choose some quality basic pieces for each room, then your accent pieces can be adapted year on year to keep the display fresh.

Homemade decorations are great fun too, and a way to reuse household items. You can make a spooky castle scene from all those home delivery boxes or how about creating spooky streamers from leftover plastic wrap? You can use old sheets to make a very convincing set of retro ghosts or leftover wool to weave your own giant spooky spider’s web.

And When Halloween is Over, Store Your Decorations at One of Our Facilities

Storage is essential if you want to keep your carefully chosen decorations in tip-top condition. You could decorate a special box to keep everything together, and just like with Christmas decorations, it’s important to wrap everything well. If space is a challenge, then you might want to consider using a storage company, like ourselves here at Boxx Storage, with secure facilities so you can be sure your spooky decorations will last for years to come.