5 ways to celebrate Halloween while also reducing waste

This post was written by Anna Robertson and originally appeared on The Cool Down.

Get ready to break out your creativity, community connection, and conservation spirit with these simple ways to have a spooky Halloween without so much ghoulish waste. 

Here are five ways to reduce waste on Halloween this year.

1. Host or attend a costume swap

My local library is hosting a Halloween costume swap where you can bring costumes your kids have outgrown and swap them for a better fit. You could also host one of these in your neighborhood, with your community organization, church, or school — or why not even make it a fun social event?  

2. Shop thrifted for secondhand Halloween gear

Check Facebook marketplace or local Facebook groups for people giving away or selling their gently-used Halloween costumes, and stop into thrift stores to find great costumes at a fraction of the price — or even for free. 

3. Build your costume around basics you can use again

There’s nothing more creative than a homemade Halloween costume, and primary.com has loads of ideas for DIY costumes that build around Primary’s high-quality, organic clothing line that will make great staples after Halloween is over. We created a Percy Jackson costume for our 8-year-old son with an orange T-shirt and jeans from Primary. 

4. Don’t throw out your pumpkins!

So many communities are offering pumpkin drop offs where you can discard your pumpkin safely. Ask around your community to see if you can drop your gourds somewhere to be composted. 

5. Host a candy wrapper collection drive

Candy wrappers are now being used to create outdoor furniture and all kinds of things. Terracycle offers a box you can buy to collect old candy wrappers. Our elementary school parent-teacher organization just funded one of these for school, so parents can drop their wrappers in the box. You could fund the purchase of one of these boxes with the money you raise from your sneaker drive!

This post was written by Anna Robertson and originally appeared on The Cool Down.