Going Green on Halloween

Halloween is all about kids and fun. While the unofficial color of Halloween is orange, the San Mateo County Water Pollution Prevention Program has provided us with ways to think green this Halloween:

1. Decorate with nature using straw bales and pumpkins instead of plastic decorations, which often can’t be recycled and turn into litter.


2. Make your own reusable decorations. Old bed sheets become ghoulish ghosts and tattered flannel shirts can be stuffed to make a spooky scarecrow.


3. Choose decorations that you can hang year after year. Avoid decorations that are too light and can blow away and become litter.


4. Stay away from Styrofoam gravestones! Styrofoam breaks into tiny pieces over time and it’s very hard to recover if it enters waterways. Last Halloween, it took a volunteer more than two hours to remove a Styrofoam gravestone from a local creek.


5. Don’t drop those candy wrappers. They’re one of the top five items collected during cleanup events in San Mateo County.