Interested in celebrating Halloween with zero waste?! If you’re planning to hand out treats to neighborhood kids, here are four plastic-free alternatives to the usual, individually wrapped candies. These treats won’t leave behind scary plastic for centuries to come! 👻
Fruit
A healthy alternative to candy that I’m sure parents will approve of! To make our oranges more tempting, we turned them into mini Jack-o’-lanterns with a black marker 🎃
Canned drinks
Aluminum cans are easily recyclable, and a 5-cent deposit in Quebec helps ensure they get returned for recycling. I chose these drinks because they had a fun Halloween design on them, plus the 12-pack came in a cardboard box (no plastic rings). Not exactly healthy, but neither is candy! 😛
Money
Rather than spend money on candy that might not get eaten, hand out coins instead. You won’t have to worry about these ending up in the trash! 🤣 A couple small coins for each trick-or-treater (about the same amount you would spend on candy) saves a trip to the store. Plus, it means no leftover candy in the house after Halloween—just put the change back in your wallet! 😉 This was my son’s favorite idea. He said he’d totally go trick-or-treating if neighbors gave him money! 😂
Bulk candies
If you’d like to offer candy, buy it in bulk (using your own container) and choose candies in recyclable wrappers. Candies that come in cardboard boxes like Nerds and Junior Mints are a great option (you can even find mini boxes packaged in cardboard boxes). Foil-wrapped candies like the ones pictured are a good, but not perfect, solution. Aluminum wrappers are recyclable, but there’s no way to guarantee those wrappers will actually get recycled. Check with your city to find out if you can recycle aluminum aside from cans. To improve the chances those little wrappers get recycled, remind your trick-or-treaters to recycle them. They’ll need to make sure they’re clean (no melted chocolate!). And they’ll need to save up a bunch of wrappers and crumple them into a big 2″ ball to increase the chances they get recycled 🤞
If you find yourself with piles of plastic candy wrappers after Halloween, consider ordering a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box from TerraCycle. These boxes aren’t cheap ($43-$218), but perhaps you can convince your daycare, school, office or community center to buy one so lots of people can recycle their wrappers. Or consider splitting the cost among several families to make it more affordable 🙌