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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.These tips will help you treat the Earth right on this spooky night. 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 party, and your own 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 and expect it. So this Halloween, why not think green + have fun?

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans are expected to spend more than $5 billion on Halloween costumes, candy and decoration. But there are ways to celebrate without spending so much green, and saving on waste. That's a big pile of candy corn. It's also a lot of crumpled candy wrappers, paper party props and plastic masks and baskets in the trash the very next day.

Whilst Trick and Treating, walk from house to house. Leave the car at home. It’s really that simple. 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. If you need to travel - try bicycle, public transport or carpool.

Avoid those plastic pumpkins, they’re made of petroleum, and you can only use them once a year. Take canvas bags or pillow cases. Grab a few canvas bags or pillow cases from around the house, and just throw ‘em in the wash afterwards.

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 fruit leather or boxes of organic raisins, individual organic popcorn packs.

 Or pop your own organic popcorn in coconut oil and pack and  reuse empty decorated containers from around the home.

Make your own trick-or-treat treats. Experiment, have fun and save money in the process.They’ll get enough conventional candy from your other neighbors. Inform neighbors that you are going sugar + packaging free and hand out literature why you are going green for Halloween. 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!!!

Cacao beans grown in full sun are more susceptible to disease than their shade-grown counterparts and therefore require heavy doses of toxic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. The crop's social ills include child slavery, which UNICEF has found abundant on cacao plantations, and low wages paid to farmers because of market deregulation.

All that is enough to make your face turn green. Look for the healthy alternative - Buy your child's conventional candy back from them, then take a family trip to the eco toy store and let them pick out a few toys or visit op-stores, yard sales etc for recycled toys or visit the organic store for organic no-sugar treats. This is a nice treat, since it's another long two months until Christmas.

One junk a day rule. This doesn't mean they actually eat one every day, it simply means that when they DO eat an organic candy or chocolate, they can only have one.

Some folks skip the candy altogether in favor of useable treats like pencils, pens, funky erasers and even nickels! Or Earth-friendly sticker books with an educational twist about endangered animals, forest creatures, marine mammals, sharks and wetlands.

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

The local animal shelter or collecting old eyeglasses that can be recycled by Gift of Sight. Get the 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) candy 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.

Recycle. Once Halloween is over, recycle your pumpkins, the straw you used to build scarecrows and any other organic material by composting. The compost can be used as fertilizer for your garden.

DIY costumes. An old sheet still makes a great ghost. Use non-toxic face paints.Go through your families closets or browse local resale shops and flea markets for vintage clothes that could make fun costumes. Or put out a request through your local Freecycle, craigslist or ecobites.com free classifieds for used costumes. You’re probably not the only person in your neighborhood to have a few costumes from Halloweens past buried in the back of your closet. More ideas

Decorations

If you don't want young children handling knives, they can decorate pumpkins using least-toxic, water-based or tempera paints.

Hearthsong makes a pumpkin decorating kit that doesn't involve knives, just colourful wooden features children stick into pumpkins to make faces. A parent should still supervise and help make holes with a screwdriver for wood dowel inserts.

Free pumpkin carving patterns are available at Fabulous foods

Celebrate Halloween Parties, by Going Green

Send invitations via email. Rather than making up (or purchasing) paper invitations for your Halloween party, invite people electronically. Send out emails, text messages, build a website - whatever seems appropriate for those involved. Or just go out and talk to them personally.

Reinvigorate old party games. Try bobbing for apples, or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Not only will you save money, you’ll save preparation time and people will have just as much fun.

Use reusable cutlery and crockery. No matter where your party is, why not add a touch of class by using ‘proper’ cutlery and crockery instead of disposables. Finger food is a  great green option which does not require a load of plates and less washing up.  There’ll also be considerably less garbage to put out the following day.

Serve healthy, organic and seasonal foods. Organic produce bought at farmers' market will not only taste better but saves energy.

The options are endless. Remember pumpkins are not just decorative items. The tender meat of the seasonal gourd can be pureed for soups, mashed for pies or spiced up for a main entrée, such as an Indian curry. Serious home chefs might consider whipping up some pumpkin pesto or pumpkin flan with pumpkin seed praline. Buy Allison's Gourmet's organic Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Make use of all pumpkin parts. After carving a pumpkin, make sure to save the seeds. Bake them and serve them to party guests or feed them to our fine feathered friends, the birds. There's no problem putting pumpkin seeds out for birds, wet or dry, confirms Dr. Ellen Dierenfeld, a nutritionist at the Saint Louis Zoo, which accepts pumpkin donations after Halloween to feed to the animals as a seasonal treat.

The Organic Pumpkin Patch

Lay your pumpkin to rest with love and dignity - bury or compost the pumpkin carcass or give to the worms or guinea pigs as a Halloween treat.

Apples also are at their best this time of year. So make use of the crunchy fruit. Fill party bowls with several varieties of fresh apples, from tart Pippins to sweet Spartans.

Serve cider hot or cold. Bake a few organic apples for a healthy, tasty dessert.

Put leftover food scraps in a worm farm.  As pointed out earlier, worms will eat just about anything. Including pumpkin.

Re-use Halloween decorations. Many of the Halloween decorations around the house can be easily kept and reused next year (a few small changes will make sure they actually look quite different). Think of it as recycling.

Charge up some small outdoor solar lanterns during the day, and place them in real pumpkins or luminaria for a renewable ghostly glow at night.

When it comes to decorating your house for Halloween, think reused, recycled or found from nature whenever you can.

Planning

Take the time in the weeks before to enjoy what nature’s best at in autumn. Take a walk through a forest preserve to soak in the fall colors, pick your own apples or pumpkins from a local organic farmer, go for a hay ride or wander through a corn maze. Visit PickYourOwn.org to find the pumpkin patches closest to you.

The use of pesticides on pumpkins varies by climate and region, but among the worst used are the organophosphates malathion, a nervous system toxin and possible human carcinogen, and diazinon, a nervous system toxin. To make your Halloween truly green, search for organically grown or pesticide-free pumpkins in your area.

And most important of all is to have lot's of fun and laughter.

Don't spook Mother nature on Halloween. Happy Green Halloween!

Visit WWF Going wild with pumpkins

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 , now is nationwide. 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.

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