The Halloween Issue
As Halloween comes and goes, we can’t help but revel in the nostalgia that the holiday brings. Trick or treating with our friends, visiting pumpkin patches, attending costume parties and playing bobbing for apples. To many, the holiday is seen as completely harmless. Halloween is not what it once was, but it hasn’t landed itself in nearly as many controversies as others like Christmas.
When you think of Halloween, the wasteful nature of it is usually not what comes to mind. According to The Atlantic, over 1 billion pounds of pumpkins are disposed of each year by Americans. In 2019, The U.K.’s The Guardian predicted that over 8 million pumpkins would be thrown away. When we toss our pumpkins out after Halloween it almost seems like a sustainable action, considering that many individuals go out of their way to compost as opposed to throwing their pumpkins into the waste bin. What we fail to see is that millions upon millions of pounds of uneaten food are wasted because of the demand during Halloween time.
As pumpkin waste accumulates, so do things like costume remains. Though “trick or treating” was only popularized about 90 years ago, the demand for costumes of all types has grown exponentially. Aside from the obvious issue of clothing waste, many Halloween costumes are made from cheap, fragile plastic. On average, the U.K. disposes of 2,000 tons of Halloween costumes a year. A study by environmental group Hubbub found that 83% of these are made from non-recyclable plastics. Plastic waste is one of the leading causes of pollution worldwide; our continued negligence to this issue not only endangers us, but the ecosystems that surround us.
So, how can we make Halloween more sustainable? Is it even possible on a national, or even international scale?
In terms of pumpkins, we can actively work to reduce waste amounts by using every part of the pumpkin. Every part of a pumpkin is edible, from the stem to the flesh to the seeds. Toasting seeds or creating meals with the flesh are great ideas, but there are other ways to utilize pumpkins in a sustainable way. Composting and recycling nonprofit Scarce has been hosting a pumpkin collection (with over 76 different locations) on November first every year since 2014. As of 2023, Scarce has composted 1,012 tons of pumpkins. Because pumpkins are 90% water, this effort has also saved 217,286 gallons of water from landfills.
What about costumes, though? Not everyone has the skills to sew a costume. Using your own wardrobe as inspiration is an easy way to start. Many characters, such as ones from our favorite novels, have aesthetics that we can recreate with things from our own closet. For example, the characters of Harry Potter or Percy Jackson all wear ‘normal’ clothes that are easy to recreate. If you’re not keen on the idea of utilizing your own wardrobe for Halloween, visiting your local thrift store, consignment shop, or stopping by at a local yard sale are all cheap and sustainable options. Reusing clothes not only gives discarded garments a new purpose, but lessens the amount of plastic that goes into our environment after Halloween.
Individual actions, though small, do add up. Together, we can work to make this Halloween a greener one.
Written by: Sophia Hernandez