Forget ghouls, vampires, and monsters. The scariest part of Halloween is what happens when the holiday is over and millions of costumes and decorations are tossed into landfills, where they'll take hundreds of years to break down.
What's happening?
While we don't have final data yet, the National Retail Federation is projecting that Halloween spending in the U.S. will break records this year, soaring to an estimated $11.6 billion.
And given that much of this money is spent on nonrecyclable costumes that will only be worn once, this massive spending has become a problem that "mirrors broader fast-fashion issues," Environment + Energy Leader reported.
E+EL cited a survey by nonprofit Fairyland Trust, which found that approximately 83% of all costumes use nonrecyclable, oil-based plastics. Decorations are no different, and candy packaging contributes roughly 30% of the holiday's packaging waste.
Additionally, approximately 1 billion pounds of pumpkins go to landfills each year, where they take up space and emit toxic planet-warming methane gas as they break down.
Why is reducing holiday waste important?
Beyond the literal thousands of tons of waste generated per year, this single-use approach to holiday celebrations contributes to a harmful and dangerous pattern.
When consumers view the items they purchase as disposable, it incentivizes the manufacturing of cheap, pollutive materials rather than higher-quality items that are made to last. This results in items being unnecessarily thrown out in order to make room for the following year's equally cheap and pollutive items during a time when our planet desperately needs production to decrease — not increase.
Furthermore, as these plastic costumes and decorations sit in landfills, they gradually release both toxic gases and harmful microplastic particles into water, air, and soil.
How can people celebrate Halloween more sustainably?
Fortunately, there are many strategies for celebrating in ways that are both festive and safe for the planet, and E+EL offered several ideas.
🗣️ Which of these factors would most effectively motivate you to recycle old clothes and electronics?
🔘 Giving me money back 💰
🔘 Letting me trade for new stuff 👕
🔘 Making it as easy as possible ⚡
🔘 Keeping my stuff out of landfills 🗑️
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
It suggested finding costumes far away from cheaply made online shops and pop-up stores, opting instead for neighborhood clothing swaps, thrift stores, and community marketplaces like Buy Nothing groups. Alternatively, simply looking at what you already have at home can yield surprisingly impressive results if you think creatively. (If you want inspiration for next year, Medium published a list with easy to make ideas for everything from robots to mermaids.)
The Cool Down also put together a list of ways to sell or donate Halloween costumes, such as 'Ween Dream, so that these often single-use garments actually wind up getting multiple uses.
The same sustainable approach for costumes goes a long way with decorations, too. It's easy to make window cutouts out of paper grocery bags, put candles in used food jars, and simply keep and store other decorations for years of use.
And when it comes to carving pumpkins, one sustainability advocate recommended buying locally sourced edible pumpkins, which make for both a cute decoration and then a tasty treat. That includes the seeds, which you can bake and eat — or even plant so you can grow your own pumpkins ahead of next year's Halloween.
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