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Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Halloween can be lots of fun, but it's also a time when you can either trick or treat Mother Nature. Just because we try and make Halloween night safe and nutritious, doesn't mean it can't be fun and easy on the environment.

The costumes, the treats, the party, and grown up antics help make it fun, without being wasteful. Eco kids like to see parents lighten up and act like kids again. As long as you weave in safety rules with fun and respect for the environment, children both accept it and expect it. So this Halloween, go green + have loads of fun!

Whilst Trick and Treating, walk from house to house. Leave the car at home. Save the gas and get your fill of the night air. Children must travel with buddies, older friends, and parents. If you’re the designated adult trick-or-treater, why not dress up and have fun? Older trick-or-treaters may be more inclined to accept a chaperone who’s dressed for the occasion.

Avoid those plastic pumpkins, they’re made of petroleum, and you can only use them once a year.

Take treat and treasure bags made out of old pillow cases, canvas bags, used shopping bags, purses, or sewn out of fabric.

Kids love to decorate their bags and make them their own. Because Green Halloween includes non-food item treasures (in addition to or instead of healthy treats), you may also want to help your trick-or-treater make a treasure chest or basket to carry his or her Halloween goodies.

It can be as easy as grabbing a few bags or pillow cases from around the house, and just throwing them in the wash afterwards, or searching the local thrift stores for baskets and decorating.

If all this is enough to make your face turn green. Fear not! There are healthier alternatives for your child - and the environment - that will make you feel green in a good way.

Give out healthy treats. Finding nutritional treats has to be one of Halloween's challenges. But with some serious thought, it can be done.

Some ideas that come to mind are: organic fruit leather, boxes of organic raisins and, where available, other organic dried fruits, organic juice boxes, organic apple sauce snack packs, organic licorice bars, 100% honey sticks (do not give honey to children under the age of two), raw soaked activated nuts and pumpkin seeds (ask parents before giving out nuts due to allergies), trial size packs of dried organic veggie chips, organic granola/breakfast bars, trial/snack sized bags of organic cookies, crackers, or popcorn, and organic fair-trade chocolates.

Make your own trick-or-treat treats.

Pop your own organic popcorn in organic coconut oil and pack and  reuse empty decorated containers from around the home. Dehydrate fruit and vegetable snacks, make coconut balls, DIY chocolate, pumpkin muffins and cookies. Let your imagination have free wings.

Experiment, have fun and save money in the process. Find real treasures to share from nature like acorns, seashells and feathers.

Printed items like word games, word search, cross word puzzles and jokes.
Beads, buttons and bells, marbles, spinning tops, seed packets, and homemade sachets.

Homemade organic playdough/ finger paint/bubbles + pipe cleaner wands. Potpourri,
polished rocks/ skipping stones and mini, dried pumpkins.

They’ll get enough conventional candy from your other neighbors. Inform neighbors that you are going green for Halloween without processed sugar and reduced packaging. You may even educate them about the environment in the process. And that's the best trick you can do for a greener Halloween.

After trick-and-treating, weed out the real junk and eliminate the artificially colored stuff. This will keep most of the chemicals to a minimum, also explain to your children Why!!!

Some folks skip the candy altogether in favor of useable treats like pencils from recycled plastic, recycled denim or recycled money, funky erasers, cookie cutters and even nickels!

Earth-friendly sticker books with an educational twist about endangered animals, forest creatures, marine mammals, sharks and wetlands. Earth-friendly themed coloring books, soy / beeswax single candles and crayons in 3 or 4 pack, stickers with recycling theme, seed paper/bookmarks for planting or reading, and bookmarks/door hangers with recycling themes.

If you can’t find items locally and  decide to shop online, check with friends and neighbors to see if they’d like to purchase items with you. In addition to saving money on shipping, you’ll reduce packaging and fuel usage by having your items sent together, rather than separately.

Make your own Halloween crafts to share for trick-or-treating.

'Green' parents try to limit the amount of exposure to harmful dyes and chemicals. This is a fantastic healthy recipe for organic playdough that smells better, lasts longer and is much more pliable than the commercial kind.

Make beads. Things like glue, finger paint and bubble liquid can be made mostly with items found from the kitchen and garden. 

Make a difference by using Halloween as an opportunity to help others by trick-or-treating for UNICEF

Collect for a local animal shelter or collecting old eyeglasses that can be recycled by Gift of Sight. Get the Eco kids to check the wish list at the local animal shelter and deliver the list to the neighbors before Halloween. Animal shelters can always reuse old towels and baby blankets.

Coinstar coin-counting machines, located in banks nationwide, allow kids to contribute to one of the company's non-profit partners, among them the World Wildlife Fund and the American Red Cross.

Kids can take their change to a Coinstar machine and donations are made when coins are deposited.

Teach your children not to litter. Urge your children to dispose of  any ( ummm ... organic) wrappers in their bags or in trash cans rather than on the street. Bring a separate bag for your kids to pick up the inevitable candy wrappers left by less - green savvy munchkins.

Green Halloween is a non-profit, grassroots community movement to create healthier and more sustainable holiday traditions, starting with Halloween. Founded by Corey Colwell-Lipson, a licensed marital and family therapist and mother of two, Green Halloween began in the Seattle area in 2007 and, this year, is going nation-wide. Green Halloween just one of Treeswing's innovative programs to improve the lives of children for generations to come.

Seeking to address the alarming trend towards childhood obesity and its devastating physical, social and societal impacts, Treeswing's mission is to create balanced, healthy environments for children and foster a lifetime of healthy habits and healthy families. Treeswing's focus is on education, collaboration and creating positive social change. Treeswing works to foster healthy environments for children and families by partnering with other organizations and utilizing a research and results-based model for measuring impacts and effecting change.

Be safe, have fun and treat the Earth right on this spooky night.

Most importantly, if you can go without - do! Nothing could be greener than focusing on people rather than things. Every little thing counts when it comes to making green choices. Happy green Halloween.