Sustainable Tricks and Treats

Halloween, with its mountains of candy being given away, is definitely not a holiday that embraces eco-friendly principles.

Without avoiding the holiday and its parties and activities altogether, there are ways you can be mindful and a little more sustainable. 

I'm honestly not a big Halloween person, so my costumes usually tend to be sustainable in that I either use things I already have, or shop secondhand for something I need. Side note: I'm procrastinating real hard this year and still haven't thought of a clever costume to wear to work next Tuesday. Now accepting eco-friendly/secondhand costume ideas!

I do enjoy putting pumpkins out for decoration each fall, although I don't yet compost them after the holiday has passed. I plan to roast the seeds out of this year's pumpkin so they don't go to waste.

I love decorating the house for autumn and Halloween and  I've been reusing most of the same decorations for the past five years. Stick with what works and save a little money, in addition to not throwing decorations out each year.

When it comes to passing out candy, I haven't come across a great eco-friendly/non-wasteful solution, besides choosing candy that isn't overly wrapped (like fun-size Starbursts that have three pieces of trash each.) I always enjoyed trick-or-treating in my neighborhood as a child, and now that my husband and I live in a neighborhood, I love that it's our turn to sit outside and pass out candy.

Because we haven't had that many kids trick-or-treating on the past few Halloweens, I don't buy a huge amount of candy, so we aren't stuck with a ton of extras. Especially this year, I don't need the sugar from Halloween candy when I'm spending this week trying to eat the rest of our anniversary cake so it doesn't go to waste!

My latest column for the Times of Acadiana features some tips on how you can make Halloween a little more sustainable, so head over there to check them out!

Go Green This Halloween!