Creative Halloween fun is an ecological nightmare. What to do about it.

Halloween is a time when kids get creative to design fun costumes, try out an alter ego or career ambition or their favorite movie or TV character. Adults make a statement with their costumes too. I have fond memories of dressing up as a bee when I was a child volunteering at the Children’s Village in New York.

The creative spirit is glorious. But in general the suits most people wear and their children wear are an ecological nightmare. Halloween is also expensive at a time when families are struggling to put food on the table and pay rent due to the convergence of tariffs and inflation, high housing costs and a government shutdown that cut wages for millions of federal workers and stopped funding the SNAP food assistance program that serves tens of millions of Americans, including millions of children.

THE National Retail Federation estimates total spending on costumes at $4.3 billion, decorations at $4.2 billion, and candy at $3.9 billion (and 700 million dollars in pet costumes).

It is an expense that is also short-lived. Four out of 10 Costumes are only worn once, according to a study by Treehouse Kids. This means that suits are inherently ‘fast fashion’, not worn long before they are thrown into the trash. Lexy Silverstein — who calls herself an advocate for sustainable fashion and is working with Heal the Bay and Clinical Associates on a campaign to reduce the chance of Halloween costumes ending up in landfills — shared some scary statistics.

Halloween creates tons of waste in landfills

Silverstein’s team wrote to me that, “Each year, Americans throw away 35 million suits, creating more than 5 million pounds of textile waste. That’s equivalent to the weight of 83 million plastic bottles — a staggering environmental impact.” (I was unable to independently verify the source of these data points by the time of publication.)

Waste360.com reported that 2,079 tons of Halloween costume waste sent to landfills in 2022. The Times in the UK reports that Halloween creates more plastic waste than any other celebration.

As you see the costumes tonight and fool yourself, notice all the tons of plastic, in costumes, masks, candy wrappers, the pumpkin baskets that kids often collect their “treats” in, hats, signs and props.

Even bottlers who make and use plastic bottles are reducing their footprint in big numbers, as Ana Canela, head of Niagara Cares, the philanthropic arm of Niagara Water, explained exclusively. interview recently.

There are pop shops that are only open for a few months each year just to sell elaborate costumes. Imagine the waste from that.

Suits, polyester trim, petroleum based product

Most suits are also made from petroleum-based polyester and other similar synthetics, which, Silverstein’s team claims, “can take anywhere from 20 to 200 years to decompose” in a landfill.

Ecological styles In Australia it also states that most pre-made suits bought from the store contain toxic chemicals such as PFAS, phthalates, BPA, lead and cadmium, which is very scary.

LanzaTech develops fibers from captured Co2 that mimic polyester and its Chief Science Officer Zara Summers I brought a t-shirt and leggings made from it to the Earth Day Women’s Summit in April. However, until this and other eco-friendly products are widely available, we will have to get more creative to express our Halloween spirits.

Sustainable Halloween Ideas

Here are some last-minute ideas to reduce your carbon footprint while being creative:

• Use your creativity to raid your closet and your children’s closet to make an original outfit using existing things.
• Use recycled materials to make costumes, decorations and props.
• Use paper more than plastic to make props, masks and decorations.
• Give candy in paper wrappers, not plastic.
• Give organic candies and other “treats”.
• Collect “treats” in canvas shopping bags with Halloween decorations.
• Donate your or your child’s costume to a charity to help other children and families have fun next Halloween instead of throwing it away.

At the very least, you can recycle all those plastic containers you’ve been collecting and put them to use this Halloween.