Green Your Halloween

Halloween can be scary with all the toxic face paint, huge amounts of candy, plastic masks, and more. This year try to green your Halloween.

1. Buy your organic pumpkin at a farmers market. Pumpkins are grown with a lot of pesticides and end up taking a lot of space in the landfill after the holiday. Try something different this year and paint your pumpkin with non-toxic paint so you can still use it for a pie after roasting the delicious seeds. If you do decide to carve your pumpkin be sure to compost it after Halloween.

2. When trick-or-treating walk in your neighborhood instead of driving.

3. Make your own costume and avoid using face paint (check your make up at safecosmetics.org)

4. Light soy candles scented with essential oils rather than synthetic chemicals.

5. When choosing treats to give out avoid the artificial colors, flavors, and dyes found in traditional candy. Instead hand out fair trade chocolate from Equal Exchange or Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates, Yummy Earth Lollipops which are vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, contain 100% natural colors, and are certified organic, or check out Clif bars new mini bar – Spooky S'Mores which have a Halloween wrapper. Or you could always hand out goodies like crayons, coloring books, stickers, or coins.

6. When out trick or treating be sure to use a reusable bag. The Reuse bag by 3G comes in a great orange color perfect for trick or treating. After Halloween put the bag back into it's handy purse size bag and toss it in your purse so you'll always have a bag handy - it's bright orange color will make it easy to find!

7. Give the houses you visit a treat - fair trade chocolate. Equal Exchange is sponsoring a Reverse-Trick-Or-Treating event where you hand out an informational card on fair trade chocolate with a yummy piece of chocolate attached. For more information check out www.reversetrickortreating.org

For more great information on greening your Halloween check out www.greenhalloween.org