green Halloween
5 ideas for a
Is waste the scariest thing about Halloween? Follow our tips for a sustainable, nature-friendly and fun-filled festival
Halloween is celebrated each year on 31 October. The autumn festival can be traced back to the ancient celebration of Samhain. This was believed to be the time that the souls of the dead returned home – so people lit bonfires and wore scary costumes to keep spirits away.
In the eighth century, the first day of November was designated All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day, by Pope Gregory III. It's likely this move was an attempt to shift the focus away from the pagan festivities of Samhain, creating a Christian feast day to celebrate the lives of the saints.
But many of the old Samhain traditions remained, and still exist today – from dressing up, to decorating our houses, to lighting candles and bonfires.
Halloween celebrations can have a negative impact on the environment though. Around seven million Halloween costumes are thrown away each year in the UK alone – add to this plastic sweet wrappers, decorations, and uneaten pumpkins, and that's a frightening amount of waste.
Luckily there are easy steps we can all take to make sure Halloween is more sustainable and nature friendly. Here are five ideas.
Eat pumpkin!
According to environmental charity Hubbub, around 15.8 million pumpkins are discarded each year without being eaten.
When carving your Halloween pumpkins, save the flesh and seeds for eating. You can make all sorts of tasty pumpkin dishes, from savoury soups to sweet pies.
One of the easiest ways to enjoy this versatile vegetable is to roast it. Cut pumpkin flesh into cubes, toss in a little olive oil, and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until cooked. Roasted pumpkin can be added to soup, risotto or pies.
Roasted pumpkin seeds are a tasty, healthy snack. Wash and dry the seeds, and spread them on a lined baking tray. Spray with cooking oil and sprinkle with salt, bake at 140°C for 15 minutes.
Go plastic free
Avoid plastic decorations – choose natural, compostable decorations instead (but dispose of them responsibly, see below). Or choose decorations made out of wood or ceramics. Quality, hand-crafted decorations are more durable than plastic ones, and can be enjoyed year after year.
In particular, avoid hanging fake spiderwebs on hedges and trees. Artificial web decorations are often made from polyester or other artificial fibres. They can trap and injure garden wildlife, including birds, insects and small mammals. Fake webs aren't recyclable, so when thrown away they can end up in landfill for many years.
Think about fireworks
Increasingly, Halloween celebrations are merging with Bonfire Night – meaning fireworks often start at the end of October and continue well into November.
Anyone with a pet will know how distressing loud fireworks can be for animals. But it's not just cats and dogs that suffer – fireworks can frighten horses, farm animals and wild animals. Larger animals can injure themselves when frightened, as they panic and try to escape from the noise. And studies have shown that birds sometimes abandon their nests when disturbed by fireworks.
Fireworks also leave debris that often isn't cleared away. This can become a choking hazard for some wildlife.
To minimise your impact on animals, consider attending an organised event rather than setting off fireworks at home. If you want to have your own display, low-noise fireworks are available – and be sure to locate debris and dispose of it properly.
Check bonfires
If you're building a bonfire for Halloween or Bonfire Night, it's important to be mindful of wildlife.
A pile of sticks and dry leaves is the perfect hibernation habitat for hedgehogs, toads, frogs and newts – and as bonfires are often built up over several days before burning, it gives animals the chance to shelter unseen amongst the piled-up branches. So it's best to build a bonfire on the same day that you intend to light it.
Even better though is to give the bonfire a miss altogether. If you have natural garden debris to dispose of, try piling it up in a corner of the garden, then leaving it be. Heaps of branches, twigs and other plant material provide a fantastic habitat for toads and invertebrates, as well as hedgehogs.
Dispose of pumpkins responsibly
Don't leave Halloween pumpkins to rot in your garden, or dump them in the countryside. Eating pumpkins can make hedgehogs, birds and other animals poorly.
Pumpkins contain much more fibre than many wild foods, and can cause upset stomachs. This is a particular problem for hedgehogs that have built up fat reserves before hibernation – and they could become badly dehydrated.
Birds enjoy pumpkins – especially the seeds. But pumpkins can go mouldy very quickly – especially in poor weather. So if feeding pumpkin to wild birds, put it out of reach of hedgehogs – for example on a bird table – and remove at the first sign of mould.
You can dispose of pumpkins in your compost bin or council food waste bin. Or cut it into pieces and bury it in your garden under 20cm soil, where it can be eaten by worms and enrich the soil.
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Little Green Space October 2024