Help protect our watersheds by having an eco-friendly Halloween!
Reduce your use of plastics, clothing, and electronics which are huge portions of the trash in our landfills and oceans. It’s scary!
Creative Costumes
To keep your costumes eco-friendly, ditch the idea of single-use costumes. Host a costume swap with friends before Halloween to prevent last-minute purchases.
If you go shopping, start at thrift stores! Thrift and vintage shops have low-cost stuff to make into costumes. Do a quick online search for creative costume ideas. Keep an open mind!
Choose clothing that will last, like items you’ll wear after Halloween.
D.I.Y. Decorations
Turn old costumes into new Halloween decorations, like witch hats, masks, wigs, fake teeth and hospital gowns.
Common household items can also be used as decorations, like broomsticks, metal chains, shovels, hatchets and saws. Anything can look scary if it’s stuck in a tree! Use safety precautions and keep visitors a safe distance from your displays.
For Halloween lights, choose quality ones that can be re-used outdoors year-round. Make pumpkin jack-o-lanterns to set the Halloween mood.
Make decorations out of fall leaves, ears of corn, or dried flowers. Or try hanging a string of bright orange mini pumpkins!
Most tissue paper and old cotton sheets are biodegradable and great for making ghosts, and cardboard is perfect for gravestones.
Can’t forget the glitter! Buy biodegradable glitter to prevent microplastics in our watersheds.
Quirky Candy
In the excitement of trick-or-treating, little ones drop some of their candy and wrappers. Litter harms our watersheds and becomes an ecological nightmare during the rainy season! Wrappers get into the gutters and storm drains, which lead into our local creeks, Delta and Bay.
To prevent pollution, talk with your kids and neighbors about the importance of not littering on Halloween and how the watersheds need our help.
Hand out candy with plastic-free packaging like paper boxes (Nerds and movie theater candy), waxed paper wrappers (old fashioned taffy and caramels), or recyclable foil wrappers (Mini Reese’s, Kisses and many chocolates).
Community Cleanup
The day after Halloween, pick up candy wrappers and litter from your sidewalks, gutters and storm drains to help prevent watershed pollution. Better yet, organize a few neighbors to pick up litter together!
Have a fun, safe and eco-friendly Halloween!