For a Sustainable Lifestyle

Are you getting ready for Halloween? 

I don't know what Halloween 2020 will look like with Covid but here are a few tips to celebrate in a more sustainable way:

🍬Candies: prefer the ones that are paper-packaging like Pixie Sticks, Nerds, Junior Mints, Milk Duds or foil-packaged like the Hershey’s Kisses. Probably less popular but so much healthier, clementines, tangerines or apples are also great alternatives. Give your extra candies to the troops via the Halloween Candy Buyback Program, your dentist might collect them. Again, it's 2020 so that might be different this year.

💀Decoration: Use natural decor, reuse what you already have and check thrift stores and second-hand markets if you need more. Avoid cheap plastic or synthetic decorations that won't last and cannot be recycled.

👻Costume: buy second-hand, swap costumes with family and friends, rent or DIY with what you already have. Avoid costumes made with PVC/vinyl which most likely contain phthalates which are endocrine disruptors and will stay forever in the landfill. This year make sure to wear a face mask, not on top, not under your costume, nor a costume mask in lieu of a cloth mask, instead find pretty halloween face masks on Etsy for instance.

🎃Pumpkins: grow yours or buy local. Once they've served their duty, make a soup, a pie, a smoothie out of your pumpkin. Roast the seeds. Turn carved pumpkins into bird feeders or donate them to a zoo, a farm rescue, an animal sanctuary, a local farmer or compost them.

The CDC does not recommend “traditional trick-or-treating” and consider it high risk. Halloween has been and might be cancelled in some states. We will have to find new ways to celebrate this year - the #candychute is getting very popular.

In all cases, stay safe!