Halloween is a scary day and it has very little to do with the ghouls and gremlins.  Well, actually, it does, but not in the way you might think.  Halloween is the first of the fall holidays that lead to an uptick in waste production among Americans.  Each Halloween, Americans spend about $40 per person on candy, decorations, greeting cards and costumes.  But what becomes of the rubber masks, candy wrappers, artificial cobwebs, plastic cauldrons, vinyl witch noses and spooky lawn decorations on November 1st?  A lot of it ends up in the garbage and sugar-addled kids start counting down the 364 days till next Halloween, when they get to do it all over again.  What a waste of money and resources!   To prevent your Halloween from becoming the scariest day of the year for the planet, here are some simple suggestions.

COSTUMES

You scoured your closets, your friends’ closets, local consignment shops and the Halloween costume shops to come up with a costume.  Now what?  Rather than toss it, hold on to it when you’re done.  You never know when you or a friend can use a witch hat or zombie mask.  Also, more communities across the country are organizing costume swaps that keep the cost and environmental impact of dressing up to a minimum.  You might be able to swap this year’s fairy princess get-up for a Cat Woman costume next year. Finally, consider donating your gently used costumes to a local school or theater group.  They can usually use extra costumes and props and have the storage space you might not.

CANDY

Let’s face it, trick-or-treaters don’t want anything but the really sugary, bad-for-you candy, so don’t bother wracking your brain for some kind of healthy alternative.  And don’t trick the poor kids, it’s just mean.  Except for Hershey Kiss wrappers, most candy wrappers are not recyclable through traditional methods.  But there is a solution!  TerraCycle is a recycling and upcycling company that specializes in hard-to-recycle materials, including candy wrappers.  Anyone can sign up for free at http://www.terracycle.net to send in their empties through the Candy Wrapper Brigade, sponsored by Mars.  You’ll earn points to be used for charity gifts or donations and TerraCycle will use the wrappers to make new products, like portable speakers, tote bags and watering cans.  I’d say that is a sweet deal!

DECORATIONS

You spent hours upping the creepy factor of your home for Halloween, so please don’t start from scratch next year.  Did the plastic gremlins get trampled by trick-or-treaters?  Perfect!  Did the cobwebs get full of branches and leaves?  Wonderful!  Halloween decorations are probably the only holiday items that look better a little beat up.  If you really don’t feel like saving the stuff, call around to nursing homes and assisted living facilities and see if they could use some extra decorations for next year.