Conservation 101: the Compete to Conserve Blog

1. Compost Your Jack-o-Lantern
You can also save, wash, and roast the pumpkin seeds for a treat.

photo credit: tanakawho

2. Buy a Second-Hand Costume (and Donate It or Use It Next Year)
You can pick up high quality next-to-new costumes at Goodwill, Salvation Army, and other second-hand stores for less than $5. Sure beats paying $40, and you’ll conserve resources in the process. Don’t let your costumes’ lifecycle end there: pass them to a friend next year or donate to a retail charity and use your donation as a tax deduction.

3. Buy Less Individually Wrapped Candy
Let’s face facts: are you really going to get 400 trick-or-treaters? If you’re buying candy to satisfy your own sweet tooth, skip the small individually wrapped candies and opt for something with less packaging.

4. Turn Out the Lights
It adds ambiance to the night and saves energy, too.

5. Look for Any Opportunity to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Be mindful of your consumption during holidays when our desire to celebrate often leads to falling off the conservation bandwagon. Reuse costumes and decorations where you can. Recycle plastic cups, use compostable utensils, or use your regular flatware. Question whether you really need the Halloween merchandise that’s pushed at us each year. And just because something’s small doesn’t mean it can’t make a difference–I’ve even recycled tiny cardboard candy boxes from the kids’ treat bags.

More conservation ideas for Halloween from some of our favorite bloggers:

“Turning Halloween into Zero Waste Hallo-green,” My Zero Waste, October 16, 2008:
http://myzerowaste.com/2008/10/turning-halloween-into-a-zero-waste-hallo-green/

“Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Oh My!” Low Impact Home, September 30, 2008: http://lowimpacthome.org/2008/09/30/halloween-thanksgiving-christmasoh-my/

photo credit: Harris Graber

It’s come to our attention that a growing number of parents throw out their children’s trick-or-treat bounty when the kids aren’t looking. (Thanks to One Mom’s Musings for tipping us off.)

It’s a troublesome over-consumption paradox. Parents and neighbors buy lots and lots of candy. Children are encouraged to gather as much candy as they can. And then parents throw it out? That’s an enormous waste and a significant addition to overcrowded landfills. At least unwanted Christmas gifts can be returned to the store or schlepped off to Goodwill for reuse.

As a nation, it’s time for us to ask: Won’t somebody please think of the children? And the landfill?

This Halloween, if your children collect more candy than you think they should eat in a year, follow the lead of our forebearers: eat the candy yourself. Or bring it to the office to share with coworkers. It’s the responsible thing to do.

The holiday season is upon us, beginning with Halloween.  In response to Anne’s blog about the billions of dollars consumers are set to spend this year on my favorite holiday,  here are some thrifty ideas across the blogosphere for an affordable green Halloween: 

The Daily Green has a really funny slide show up, showcasing recycled Halloween costume ideas submitted by their readership.  Vote for your favorite.  This one gets my vote!        

Green Halloween is packed with cool ideas, including a decorative hand-made garlic wreath to ward of vampires. 

River Wired features additional eco-friendly decoration ideas, featuring crafty ways to create pumpkins and bats out of egg cartons. 

The Lean Green Family offers an array of green tips, including trick-or-treat ideas.  Leave the car at home when scouting yummy treats to fill up your reusable shopping bags!

photo credit: clownfish

Bleak economic news may be grabbing the headlines, but according to the National Retail Federation, U.S. consumers are set to spend more than ever this Halloween: $5.77 billion, a modest increase from last year’s $5.07 billion.

Sixty-five percent of us are planning to celebrate Halloween by buying candy, wearing a costume, hosting/attending a party, or decorating the house, which gives a good indication of what the nation’s trash collectors will be picking up Monday after the holiday weekend.

The most money will be spent on costumes (net average of $24.17 per person), followed by candy ($20.39), decorations ($18.25), and then somewhat surprisingly, greeting cards ($3.73). (I have to confess, I have bought Halloween cards in the past. If you sell it, they will come, I suppose.)

Here are some more estimates according to the NRF’s Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey published September 30, 2008:

• Average per person spending (2001): $41.77
• Average per person spending (2008 estimated): $66.54
• Biggest spenders by age: 18-24-year-olds at $86.59 per person
• Biggest spenders by region: Northeast at $70.84 per person
• Least likely to party: Only 30% of those in the West plan to attend/host a party

photo credit: hfb

Given that you can’t enter a store between August and October without seeing an array of fake plastic spiders, severed rubber fingers, sexy angel/devil/cat/nurse leotards, and cheek-pinchingly-cute baby costumes, it’s not surprising that many American consumers believe Halloween is the second biggest retail spending holiday of the year. It is not. The National Retail Federation, an industry trade organization, says:

“Though growing, Halloween remains the sixth-largest spending holiday after: Winter Holidays ($457.4 billion estimated), Valentine’s Day ($13.70 billion), Easter ($12.63 billion), Mother’s Day ($13.80 billion), and Father’s Day ($9.01 billion). Because it is not a gift-giving holiday or an apparel holiday, it ranks lower than other annual holidays in terms of spending.”

The retail industry does not measure holidays in terms of waste, but I think it’s safe to say Halloween can earn a second place title in that category. Overall, consumers are making more purchases (costumes, candy, decorations, food and beverage, etc.) in smaller dollar amounts than they typically make for Mother’s Day (flowers, a gift). Collectively, that adds up to lots more trash.

photo credit: Matt Callow

As pumpkin patches across the country hitch up their hayrides and welcome the harvest with visitors, eco-friendly sites are posting hints and tips to remind readers to choose and use their gourds wisely.

This isn’t going to be much different. In fact, in my search to find options of what you can do with pumpkins—aside from showing off your creative carving prowess—I found that many regions of the US and UK are promoting composting. Pumpkins in a landfill can produce weeds and, believe it or not, sprouts. Only to be covered with someone’s torn up sofa or old alarm clock.

Whether you put the post-holiday pumpkin into a curbside compost bin or into your home kit version, the gourd holds valuable nutrients that can make good fertilizer. In fact, one site even recommended that you just plant the jack-o-lantern shell into the garden, to decompose at will.

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