Thanks to sites like Pinterest and creative consumers willing to share their ideas, greening your Halloween has never been easier. Upcycled tricks and organic treats haunt the corners of the web, spooking up fun. Here are some of our favorite ideas at Modern Kids Design for keeping your holiday eco-friendly.

Costumes

Most of the excitement from Halloween comes from getting to be someone else for a day. From Batman to Elsa to a slice of pizza, Halloween costumes run the gamut from heroic or cute to fun or scary. But if everyone continues to buy new disguises yearly, what does that mean for our environment? Costume swaps have been a popular community event that allows neighbors to exchange their slightly used costumes for new-to-them disguises. Check your community website or local paper to see if there’s one in your area, or consider holding one in your community or among your friends. We all know how quickly children grow and swapping costumes is a great way to make sure they can get a fun costume without adding to the pile of discarded disguises.

DIY costumes can be a fun project that will end in a memorable creation that no one else will be sporting. The Internet is awash with amazing costume ideas. A quick Pinterest search for eco-friendly costumes will turn up dozens of results. Using materials and old clothes around the house, you can craft an exciting costume to spook or inspire. Thrift stores and even Mom and Dad’s closet are also a great place to find some inspiration.

If you are purchasing costume components, we recommend consumers avoid facemasks made of polyvinyl chloride. Not only is it non-recyclable, it’s also a possible carcinogen. Natural latex is a safer option. Similarly, opt for non-toxic, water-based face paint and make sure you read the ingredients and fine print as some of the Halloween face paint could be harmful for skin even if it is labeled safe for kids. Don’t want to take our word for it? Google it and see what you find. It’s pretty scary!

Treats

Organic candies are great for handing out to the neighborhood kids that will be ringing your doorbell, but what about party fare and other treats? Halloween is a fun holiday to get inventive with food. We think these cute banana ghosts and clementine pumpkins would be a welcome guest at any Halloween shindig for the preschool set. We found this amazing list of 64 Healthy Halloween Snacks from Listotic that *surprise* aren’t candy but will still leave kids and party guests feeling treated instead of tricked.

Decorations

Pumpkins and spiders and ghosts, oh my! Halloween decorations are a huge industry unto themselves, but what happens to all the paper and plastic when the ghouls go away? To keep Mother Earth happy after the trick-or-treaters have been put to sleep, consider making decorations out of repurposed household goods and crafting supplies. Not only will you be keeping things out of the landfills, you’ll also be creating one-of-a-kind decorations you can use year after year—which brings us to our second tip. If you love the witches and scarecrows that the season brings, consider investing in decorations that will last year after year. Carefully storing your spooky treasures will ensure years of scaring fun.

For carving, decorating, and eating, we enjoy organic pumpkins. We do our best to use as much of the pumpkins as we can, and then compost the rest. Once we pull out the innards for our jack-o-lanterns, we set the seeds aside for roasting. We really enjoy these sweet Cinnamon and Sugar Pumpkin Seeds.

Halloween is an exciting time for dressing up and decorating, plus the season lends itself to creativity. Experiment this year with greening up your holiday and see what your little goblins think of your eco-friendly Halloween! As always, thanks for reading and feel free to shoot us an email or reach out on social if there is something you’d like us to cover in a future post. Happy Halloween!