It’s that time of year: Halloween Costume September. If you have a 10-year-old, you know what I mean. In the early years, Bryan or I came up with a costume idea and then found a hopefully sustainable way to make it happen.
Why worry about sustainability when Halloween is just a bit of fun? Alas, it adds up. Think about how consumption has increased around Halloween in the last 30 years. Americans alone throw away 5.4 million kilograms of textile each year from costumes and that doesn’t include decorations. At our collective rate of consumption, humanity needs 1.75 planets, and some countries are using more resources than others.
We decided that we could at least build Halloween costumes around something our kid would keep wearing. There was:
Pink Eye
Pros: It was a paper ‘I’ safety-pinned to a onesie. Easiest costume ever!
Cons: K did not, in fact, wear that onesie after Halloween. Folks who eat spaghetti like they’re Jackson Pollack don’t wear white.
Hula II (inspired by our dog Hula)
Pro: The Hula I and Hula II photos were epic. The black shirt and pants were worn over and over again. Even the black felt tail was reused another year—this time as a cat tail.
Cons: The ears were never reused, but I am not losing sleep over it.
Fairy
Pros: Wings were made out from a cardboard box that K painted. The Peppa the Pig dress was one she already wore 80% of the time. It was her Peppa Era.
Cons: The wings—which she put on like a backpack—kept sliding off.
And so it went. Halloween costumes were homemade and with a few alternations, folded into K’s regular wardrobe. Win for the pocketbook and win for the environment. Last year, K and her friends dressed as witches. We already had a hat from somewhere and found a black dress at a consignment shop.
This year, though, K wants to buy a costume. Her friends are buying theirs and they’re coordinating again on a theme. As an environmentalist, I’m against cheap Halloween costumes that are likely made in inhumane conditions and will eventually end up in the landfill. As a parent, I understand not wanting to be the kid with a homemade costume.
There’s often tension between doing what’s good for the environment and doing what’s easy. That tension is different, though, when you add in another person.
Personal Action: If you have kids, be more attentive to your own environmental footprint and more flexible with your child’s. And to be clear, I’m mostly talking to myself. I keep remembering the kindness of Matt Simon, the author of A Poison Like No Other, who spoke to a group of us over Zoom about plastic waste. Someone asked about microplastics and leggings and he said something like, “I’m not here to make you feel guilty about your leggings. We’ve got to change the systems.”
Why it Matters: Kindness invites change. And seeing someone else make hard choices is more effective than having them forced on you. (Though, of course, kids live with our choices—whether or not we’re environmentalists.)
Public Action: Change the systems. If you live in the United States and are worried about the environmental impact of fast fashion, you can support The Fashion Act. It just takes a minute to click the link and tell your representative that the issue of humane clothing is a political winner.
Why it Matters: Our kids inherit the planet we leave behind and our consumption of clothing is unsustainable. Three out of five textile items end up in a landfill within a year of purchase, and 93% of garment workers aren’t paid a living wage.
So what did my family do for Halloween this year? I bought the costume K wanted, but bought it used on Ebay. My daughter is thrilled about the novelty of a store-bought costume and genuinely appreciates our thought-process behind buying used. Next September, I plan to post the costume on the local BuyNothing page and will hopefully extend its pre-landfill life. Sometimes it is possible to thread the needle. Other times, not so much.
Link Round up:
What I’m reading: I just finished SOIL: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy and particularly enjoyed the chapter on environmental writers who don’t write about washing dishes!
What I’m doing in the garden: A maple branch fell in a storm and I used it to build a bug snug. Pollinators need some yard mess and bug snugs are a creative way to add them. I started building alone, but was having so much fun that my daughter soon joined. We have enough branches, I think, for a second one.