IT Blog

It’s about time we got spooked about the environmental impact of Halloween.

American consumers are expected to spend $3.32 billion on Halloween costumes this year. Most of these will be cheap, disposable costumes sold by retailers like Spirit Halloween and Walmart. Around 83% of materials used to make these costumes is derived from plastic. And many will be thrown out on November 1. In the U.K., one study found that 7 million costumes are thrown out each year—potentially the equivalent of 83 million plastic bottles. In the U.S. which has five times the population and where Halloween is a more popular holiday, that figure will be significantly higher.

The good news is that you can still have a fun-filled Halloween without adding to this waste. In fact, you can take a page from Halloweens of the past, when disposable costumes weren’t the norm. “When I was growing up, we made our costumes or bought them from thrift stores,” says Aja Barber, author of