Reducing Waste on Halloween

Many believe Halloween is an ancient celebration that began as Celtic harvest festivals, specifically the Samhain Gaelic (Scottish) festival that celebrates the end of the harvest season.  Others credit Christianity with the inception of Halloween. Christian dogma dictates that November 1st is All Hallows’ Day, November 2nd is All Souls Day, which makes October 31st All Hallows’ Eve.  Historically, Christians honored loved ones that have passed by lighting candles and saying prayers.

Regardless of the actual origin of Halloween, I surmise that the meaning has been lost and it has become the secular and commercialized holiday that we know it as today. I’m not a religious person, I celebrate Halloween because it’s fun for the kids to dress up and eat too much candy. I’ve always thought that it’s a little bit funny that we spend 364 days of the year telling our kids not to take candy from strangers, but then we spend Halloween walking them to the homes of people we don’t know for the specific purpose of acquiring said candy.

We grow our own pumpkins most years and it gives pumpkin carving a little bit more street cred.  The kids watch as the pumpkins grow in our garden and they argue about who gets which one. We compost the pumpkin guts and also the pumpkin after it has served its purpose.  

Costumes are tricky business.  On one hand, I feel that children have a finite amount of Halloweens to enjoy and they should be thoroughly enjoyed with a different costume each year.  On the other hand, the costumes are expensive and wasteful. We have bought costumes, made costumes, and pieced together old costumes to make something new.  I like to pass on costumes that my kids can no longer wear to others who will enjoy them. If you can avoid buying a new one with all of the packaging, do so.  Instead of the “disposable” glow sticks, just use a flashlight. Inevitably, at some point the packaging, as well as the costume, will be trash, so trying to reduce the amount of waste is peril.    

Candy is the worst Halloween offender.  Everything is bite size and wrapped in plastic wrappers that will live on for eternity in the landfill.  I don’t have a solution to this conundrum since I friggin’ love candy and will never give it up. You should consider that all the wrappers from every Halloween of your life still exists somewhere.  

Americans buy 600 million pounds of candy per year.  In 2015, Americans spent 6.9 billion dollars on Halloween.  Food for thought.