Green Halloween

We are moments away from Halloween and every holiday is another occasion to celebrate the ways we can all care for creation and think green. Here are a few tips to keep the energy vampires at bay.

1. Trick or Treat with Reusable Bags — Cloth or canvas shopping bags, which can be decorated and personalized, or even pillowcases, make terrific eco-friendly alternatives to paper or plastic bags.

2. Make Your Halloween Party Eco-Friendly — Serve healthy and seasonal foods and buy pumpkins, apples and other seasonal items from a local farmer’s market. Produce bought at farmer’s market will not only taste better but saves energy. Use re-usable plates, cups, utensils, napkins and tablecloths. Paper party goods can be expensive and just add more clutter to our nation's landfills.

3. 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 the birds. If possible, bury or compost the carcass.

4. Make Do-It-Yourself Costumes — Make your own costume or buy one at a second-hand shop. Can't find anything suitable in the house? Use Goodwill's online store locator to find a thrift store near you or shop at the online auction.

5. Give Eco-Friendly Treats — 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 include: Hand out individual microwave popcorn packs. Newman's Own Organic has three varieties of organic popcorn. Pick up some honey sticks or fruit leather. There's also plenty of healthy candy bars and organic chocolate on the market these days.

6. Teach your children well — Teach them not to litter. Tell them pumpkin jokes. My favorites: What's the ratio of a pumpkin's circumference to its diameter? Pumpkin Pi How do you mend a broken Jack-O-Lantern? With a pumpkin patch What is a pumpkin's favorite sport? Squash. Good Times.

7. Keep Halloween Clean — Teach your children to keep candy wrappers in their reusable trick-or-treat bags until they return home, or to dispose of them in trash cans along their route. Take along an extra bag when you take the kids out, and pick up litter along the way to help clean up the neighborhood.

8. Walk, Don’t Drive

9. Reuse and Recycle — If you don’t already compost, Halloween is a great time to start. You can add post- Halloween jack-o-lanterns to your compost bin, along with fallen leaves, food scraps, and other organic, biodegradable yard and household waste. Instead of throwing away your Halloween decorations each year, store and reuse them year after year, just as you do decorations for many other holidays, such as Christmas and Hanukkah.

10. Keep it going — An eco-friendly lifestyle and reducing waste and pollution should be a daily event, not a special occasion. With a little thought, you can apply the strategies you use to have a green Halloween to the way you live every day. Experience nature. Visit a pumpkin farm. Pick fresh apples. Talk a long walk outside. Look up at the sky. Notice the moon. Remember, it's Halloween and the Great Pumpkin might be watching.