A green Halloween: make it more sustainable with eco-friendly decorations

Ready to opt for a (slightly more) sustainable Halloween this year? I say ‘slightly’ as it’s not always easy to go the whole hog but what we can do is forget the plastic Halloween decorations, ditch the hurried Halloween costumes and not buy mass produced Halloween ‘treats’. I’m exploring ideas for adding a little creative imagination to make my gathering one I’m really proud to give (and if you’re in a hurry, just nip straight to our small business Halloween collection for ideas).

So how do we make Halloween less wasteful?

In 2022, an estimated £687 million was spent on Halloween¹, compared to just £21 million in 2001². Yet with many of us being just as conscious about sustainability as we are about money, it might be time to focus on those heirloom items we can bring out year after year instead. For Halloween decorations, I now have three rules…

1. No plastic tat (or at least very little. Opt for baskets instead of plastic buckets or glasses rather than disposable plastic cups and so on).
2. If you carve a pumpkin, make the soup (or if, like me, you don’t cook, give it to someone who does, just don’t waste it! Research shows that more than 22,000 UK pumpkins remain uneaten³).
3. Buy Halloween decorations you can keep up (for longer than a week at least or choose items you can re-use year after year, such as beautiful handmade garlands, for example… well, any excuse…).