Brighton Girl Guide To A Plastic Free Halloween
Halloween, like many other festive periods, can come with a lot of waste. From endless sweet wrappers to broken bunny ears, you’re likely to wake up on the 1st November with a lot of stuff to get rid off. So forget the naff plastic masks and get creative instead.
HERE ARE 9 IDEAS TO KEEP YOUR HALLOWEEN AS WASTE FREE AS POSSIBLE
MAKE HOMEMADE TREATS!
If you live in a trick-or-treat heavy area, it might be tempting to just buy a box of Celebrations and shove a handful at every child that knocks on your door. But, individually wrapped chocolates and sweets create an awful lot of trash. All the chocolate we gobble up at Easter, for example, leads to over 3000 tonnes of extra waste each year! For a greener (and healthier) option, try making these strawberry ghosts instead. For some more food inspo, check out this article!
REUSE OLD CANDLES TO MAKE HALLOWEEN LANTERNS!
A lot of people don’t know just how easy it is to make candles out of the remains of old tea lights. Place a jar filled with leftover wax in a pan of boiling water with a piece of string in the middle and wait for the wax to melt together. You’ll never buy another candle again!
FORGET THE PLASTIC PUMPKIN!
Let’s be frank, plastic pumpkins are rubbish compared to the real thing. They break easily and they just take up space in your attic until the spooky season comes around again. Using a real pumpkin (or even a butternut squash) means your lantern is 100% compostable and you can make delicious soups and curries out of the carvings. Avoid painting your pumpkin though, as it will put all sorts of nasty chemicals into your compost.
MAKE YOUR OWN FAKE BLOOD!
Why spend money on fake blood that comes in a plastic tube when you can make it yourself? Things like beetroot and tomato juice mixed with corn syrup can create fake blood that’s just as convincing as the stuff that comes in a tube! Check out some recipes here.
MAKE ORGANIC DECORATIONS!
If you’re getting your house ready for Halloween, do away with plastic spiders and instead make cute decorations from natural ingredients. Pine cones, sweetcorn, squashes, autumn leaves and even satsumas can all be used to make great halloween decorations.
BUY A SECOND-HAND COSTUME!
Not only are Halloween costumes ridiculously expensive, but they are often made with a lot of plastic. It’s also likely that they will be used once and then chucked away the following year. Make the most of Brighton’s finest charity shops and spend a couple of hours on London Road looking for your costume. No time to hit the shops? Why not…
MAKE YOUR COSTUME OUT OF WASTE!
One of my fondest Halloween memories from my childhood was making a witch’s dress out of plastic bags with my Mum. Now, neither of us are particularly artistic and I definitely looked more like a bin than a witch, but, making your costume out of old bits and bobs around the house is a great way to reuse leftover packaging.
ASK FOR YOUR DRINK WITH NO STRAW!
We all know by now that plastic straws are turtle killers. And, unless you need them, there’s really no reason to have them in your drink. A lot of bars will now give you paper straws but since these waste trees (and literally disintegrate after two sips) you’re probably better off asking for no straw at all or bring your own metal one.
TAKE A TOTE BAG TRICK-OR-TREATING!
If you’ve got kids who are trick or treating, instead of a plastic bag or bucket, why not buy a few tote bags and decorate them with spiders and witches? This is not only great family activity but also means they’ll have their own personalised bag to use each year. Think of it like a kind of spooky christmas stocking.
Written by Beth Watson
