Decorating for holidays is a fun time for the whole family. However, landfills are constantly bombarded with truckloads of one-time-use decorations every year, and it puts a strain on the planet. You can do your part by making your Halloween costumes and decorations eco-friendly through re-purposing old material. It’ll end up saving you money while also lessening your waste for the season, making your Halloween a Hallo-Win!

Buy things you’ll use more than once

Sometimes those fake cobwebs end up being more hassle than they’re worth to put up and take down. All the knots and tangles mean that many people throw them away at the end of the season. Unlike real cobwebs, however, those plastic decorations take a long time to decompose in a landfill. Take the time to buy things you know you’ll use for years to come. It may mean $50 or $60 for a larger decoration, but you’ll put that ghoulie out every years instead of dropping $20 yearly for throw away decor.

Use the Whole Pumpkin

You can use your porch pumpkins more effectively. Instead of trashing the insides, cook the seeds and turn the guts into homemade pumpkin butter! You’ll have delicious snacks for the family while eliminating unnecessary food waste. If pumpkin flavored foods aren’t your thing, you can melt the guts into some wax, buy wicks, and DIY candles to light up the pumpkins you carved. Then you can dye the seeds with food coloring and string them together with a needle and thread to make costume jewelry; completing your Halloween look!

Get a Goodwill Costume

Re-purposing cheap clothes instead of buying a new costume you’ll only wear once is a great way to make sure clothes don’t go to waste. There are plenty of clever ideas that don’t take an elaborate costume to pull off. Puns are in, so take full advantage! Paint a yellow circle on a white shirt and throw on some devil horns and you’ve got a “deviled egg.” The word “copy” on an all black outfit with the addition of some ears and a painted on nose and whiskers turns you into a “copycat.” Be creative and you can save money while lessening your holiday waste.

DIY Decorations

Everyone made them in elementary school, but mobiles are a fun and simple way to craft decorations that are cheap and made from recycled materials. Cut bat shapes out of cardboard boxes, paint them black, and hang from sticks with fishing wire at differing lengths to create a mobile of spooky bats for the living room. Drilling holes in clean tin cans using your smallest drill bit to spell out words like “boo” or “spooky” and putting tea candles in them is a fun way to light up the house without buying string lights that will burn out before next year.

All of these are great ways to reduce your waste this Halloween season. Have another haunting Halloween DIY for this season? Let us know in the comments!