It’s officially spooky season! We love Halloween, but there is growing concern about the amount of plastic waste created at this time of year. This quick guide should help to give you some ideas and hopefully inspire you to have a go at making something to help celebrate without impacting the environment. Whether you’re putting your industrial (or domestic!) sewing machine to use or getting out the fabric glue, embracing the DIY mentality can help you have a fun, creative, and eco-friendly Halloween!
Costumes:
We specialise in selling professional sewing machines which are tailored to produce the highest quality stitching, so poorly constructed single-use costumes aren’t our go-to! These mass-produced costumes are responsible for much of the season’s carbon footprint. They are often made from materials such as polyester which aren’t sustainable and many of them start to fall apart before the day is over! If you have some time to spare, home-made costumes are more environmentally friendly and usually much cheaper too! There are lots of great costumes which can be made by recycling items many of us have lying around, and you don’t need an industrial sewing machine to get started (although it would help with some more ambitious designs if you happened to have one!). You can get creative with costumes you may already have or use regular clothing with the addition of alterations, decals, or other features. Designers such as Wintercroft, for example, have many cheap downloadable patterns for masks which can be constructed with simple craft supplies or even by recycling cereal box card!
For a selection of cardboard masks:
For some easy DIY costume ideas:
Food:
Spooky-themed shop-bought treats are always popular at this time of year. If you’re looking for a fun, eco-friendly alternative, and have some time to spare, homemade goodies are a great alternative! Cooking at home allows you to have more control over the ingredients which go into the food, and this also makes it easier to cater for people with allergies and alternative dietary requirements. Home cooking also means environmentally conscious Halloween fans can avoid non-recyclable plastic wrappers and ingredients like palm oil. Most importantly, making and decorating your own teats can be a fun Halloween activity for people of all ages!
There are plenty of Halloween recipes readily available online, here’s a couple of good resources to get you started!:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/search/recipes?q=halloween
https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/collections/halloween-recipes/
Decorations:
Decorations are another source of a lot of waste at this time of year. Pumpkins are synonymous with Halloween, and they make great eco-friendly decorations! The best way to make the most of your pumpkin is to use the flesh and seeds rather than throwing them in the bin. Pumpkin flesh works well in soup, roasted, or even in cakes, and the seeds make a great snack when they’re roasted. Alternatively, you can plant the seeds to have a go at growing your own pumpkin ready for next Halloween!
Home-made decorations are another great way to reduce the amount of plastic waste produced at Halloween. Getting creative with cardboard, craft supplies, and even household waste such as toilet roll tubes is a fun and easy way to decorate your home without having to buy plastic decorations. If you are buying decorations, try to make sure that they’re of a high enough quality to reuse in the future!
A free decorative bat pattern:
https://wintercroft.com/products/bat-model
For a series of easy DIY decorations:
https://www.woohome.com/diy-2/42-last-minute-cheap-diy-halloween-decorations-you-can-easily-make
If you’re a crochet fan, there are plenty of great free patterns available, this site is a good example:
https://www.ollieholly.com/?s=halloween
