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10 Green Tips - Halloween Recycling

1. Costumes. No, we're not going to tell you to cut two holes out of a sheet and throw it over your head. Rather than buy a new costume you (or your child) will only wear once and throw away, make one out of clothes and fabrics you already have. You can also get terrific "costumes" at thrift shops and yard sales. Swap costumes with neighbors and friends. Donate your kids' used costumes to day care centers or shelters. Click here for some terrific ideas.
2. Bag it. You probably know the eco-crimes of plastic bags — they litter, kill marine animals, persist as pollutants for many years and take a lot of energy to make. And the production of paper bags requires more than 14 million trees annually. Send your kids out to collect their candy with reusable buckets, canvas bags or pillowcases.
3. Recycle. Once Halloween is over, recycle your pumpkins, the straw you used to build scarecrows and any other organic material by composting it. The compost can be used as fertilizer for your garden.
4. Teach your children. Urge your children to dispose of their candy wrappers in their bags or in trash cans rather than on the street.
5. Keep it simple. When you're buying treats to give out, choose items that come in a minimum amount of packaging. Some folks skip the candy altogether in favor of useable treats like pencils, pens, funky erasers and even nickels!
6. Lights. It wouldn't be Halloween without spooky lights and flickering candles. Choose green options such as beeswax candles instead of petroleum-based ones and light-emitting diodes, which could save you up to 90 percent on your holiday energy bill. Or just turn the lights off and look at the moon, which will have just passed full on the 31st!
7.  Redecorate. Keep Halloween decorations from year to year so you don't need to buy new ones each season.
8. Carving. Instead of carving pumpkins, cut faces into peeled apples and soak them in one cup lemon juice mixed with one tablespoon salt. If you then put these out in the air for a week, they'll shrivel into ghastly, deformed visages!
9. E-mail party invites rather than snail-mail them. Free e-mail greetings abound online. "Talking" and/or "dancing" ghosts, ghouls, mummies and more are there for the taking at cyber card shops postcards.org/postcards, greetingsdepot.com and e-cards.com. The best pumpkin card patch this year has to be castlemountains.com, which features 96 animated cards, some with short plots or story lines. Witches on brooms warn revelers not to drink and drive. Party invites come with electronic pumpkin piñata games
10. Get a Bin and Use it! If you have not gotten yours yet, why wait? =) Call 591-6000 today.
    

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