Five Super-Simple Steps to Green Trick-or-Treating
Getting your little ghosts and goblins ready for Halloween while attempting to minimize your impact might seem scarier than global warming, but it’s so simple: you’re probably already doing at least one of these things.
- Use reusable candy-collecting bags. Simple, easy, and ensures that your large stash of candy won’t end up all over the street from a less-than-durable plastic bag. Avoid those plastic pumpkins, too. They’re made of petroleum, and you can only use them once a year.
- Handing out treats for trick-or-treaters? They’ll get enough conventional candy from your other neighbors. Try healthier alternatives (for both kids and the planet) like honey sticks, fruit leather, granola bars, organic chocolate, or boxes of raisins. Avoid food altogether and give pencils, erasers, mini toothpastes, soy crayons, or stickers.
- Don’t drive your kids around. I’m amazed at how many kids’ parents (even in Missouri’s mild October weather) drive them around the neighborhood. Part of the fun of trick or treating when I was young was the thrill of walking around the neighborhood at night. Save the gas and get your fill of the night air.
- DIY your costumes. Avoid the plastic and vinyl monstrosities at the discount store and create your own from things at your house or secondhand stores. Your costumes will cost less, look better, and your kid won’t be one of seventeen Dora the Explorers or Thomas the Tank Engines you run into.
- Use trick-or-treating as an opportunity for stewardship. After trick or treating, bring a separate bag for your kids to pick up the inevitable candy wrappers left by less-savvy munchkins.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Another idea, why not give the kids marijuana and magic mushrooms, sure it is organic and natural and very different from what they usually have. What should be rather banned is the rampant merchandising of multinational firms around halloween. Furthermore, Halloween has always been a celebration of social inversion and charivari, it is probably the only time of the year when transgressions should be allowed. What needs to be done is not so much to refuse to give kids a few candies on Halloween but rather to change their diet throughout the year. To be honest I am sick about this type of formulaic articles in five steps or giving five tips to green the way you wipe your **** Is there some mystical symbolism in the number 5 (perhaps a subtle hint at the result our beloved president had at his last IQ test).
October 10th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
The trolls are out! I wasn’t even calling for carbon caps…
I don’t even feel the need to defend myself except to say that I didn’t expect such attention from a benign post that attempted to get people to think about making small changes in one aspect of their lives. I didn’t think it was such heresy to dare suggest that people hand out treats other than individually-packaged corn-based sugar bombs in petroleum-based wrappers. The horror! The outrage!
It amazes me what riles people up in today’s society…we have a lot more to be outraged about than the fact that a random high school teacher suggested carrying a reusable candy bag on Halloween.
And, for the person who suggested that I’m a hypocrite and that I should move? I live less than two miles from my work. I walk, bike, and take the bus since I sold my car. Take that argument to someone like Josh Dorfman; I’ve got no time for it here.
Have a great day trolling someone else!
October 10th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
So many hateful postings for an article with good intentions! I think it was a simple, easy way to get the point across that, like the other over-commercialized holidays, it is too easy to fall into the trap of excessiveness and there are ways to keep it green and fun.
Granted I agree with the one poster that giving out item like toothpaste could draw repercussions, its Halloween! Kids are supposed to be scared.
The children will still get plenty of corn-based-sugar-products to rot their teeth from your neighbors.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:43 am
I thought these ideas were simple but brilliant. Thank you for posting and for protecting both our kids and environment at the same time.
Just remember, when people are firing metaphorical bullets at you, you must be doing something right.
October 15th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
my, oh my! What a cauldron-fill of angry postings over a simple article on trick-or-treating. Having grown up in Bklyn, NY, I can say that we almost always had home-made costumes, often preferred white pillowcases to those plastic bags that broke anyways, and - even before the scare-tactics of razorblades in your apples, were forbidden to even THINK of eating anything until our parents had a chance to minnow out suspicious items. We also, if memory serves me correct, had cans for Unicif or some such. I did the same thing for my kids, btw, and think some of these folk posting, maybe need to chill out?
Excellent article, wonderful refresher course, and - for this over-50-years-young-person, a nice trip down memory lane. We need more holidays that are about sharing, giving and finding ways to do it the “old-fashioned way” without messing up the environment while having some fun.
October 15th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
I agree that homemade costumes are nice and that organic chocolate is an awesome idea (we ordered Halloween packs of Endangered Species chocolate), but as a kid I always hated it when people passed out raisins. I guess I might’ve reacted better to fruit strips. I agree with the remark that having healthy treats for kids should be a year-round effort. If the comments on here are any indication, giving out anything but candy might result in one’s house getting egged or TPed, which would not be an environmentally friendly occurance!
I do think that kids should get to pick what they get to be for Halloween. My mom always made our costumes, and she’d shoot down some ideas, but she did let us choose. I’m not that great a seamstress, though–haven’t sewn much since I was in junior high–so I’m afraid I’d be doing my kids a disservice if I made their costumes. I did make a couple sweatshirt jackets into mouse costumes for my son, but that may be about the extent of my abilities. . .not to mention the fact that sewing takes a lot of time.
October 17th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Because we don’t make a big deal about Halloween candy in our house, we often have October 31st treats still floating around by the time December 31st rolls around. Just like dieting, it should be everything in moderation. So I appreciate the spirit of giving out everything but candy on Halloween, I think it’s OK to indulge this one time a year. However, I think your idea of doing a post-Halloween litter patrol is brilliant.
I also wrote about ways to green (and save money) on Halloween on my blog. You can read about it here: http://suddenlyfrugal.blogspot.com/2007/09/halloween-spending-can-get-frightening.html
Thanks for some great ideas.
Leah Ingram
October 17th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Okay, who really believes that kids will enjoy getting honey sticks and raisins in their Halloween bags? I mean come on, being environmentally friendly is great, but be realistic here. I remember getting raisins in my bag, and I hated that! Not to mention, if the treats are not sealed in packages, odds are they will get thrown out, what a waste! Also, I know that things like “fruit to go” are way to expensvie to give out on Halloween, and so are granola bars. And homemade fruit leather would be expensvie too. If you really don’t want to give out food, make a trip to the local dollar store and buy little Halloween toys. You can buy bags of them, including rings, skeletons, bouncy balls, and etc. And expecting your kids to clean up candy wrappers from other kids is kind of stupid!