Annam Naturals
Zero-Waste Home

A low-waste Halloween: costumes, decorations and treats

Halloween produces a surprising amount of single-use plastic. A few simple choices keep the fun and lose most of the waste.

2 October 2026 · 7 min read

A carved jack-o'-lantern

Chetanya Goel · Founder & Editor

Chetanya started Annam Naturals after two years of keeping a household waste diary. Chetanya writes about the boring, repeatable habits that hold up in a real week.

Halloween parties have become popular in Indian cities, schools and housing societies, and with them come cheap costumes, plastic decorations and individually wrapped sweets. Most of it is used once. Here is how to have the same fun with much less left over on 1 November.

Advertisement

Responsive display unit — placed after the introduction

Costumes

Cheap costumes are usually made of thin polyester that tears after one wear. Better options:

  • Build a costume from clothes you already own, with a few additions
  • Swap costumes with friends or other families in your building
  • Shop second-hand or borrow
  • Use face paint and simple props rather than a full packaged outfit

Some of the best costumes come from an old kurta, a sheet, some cardboard and imagination. Children often enjoy making them as much as wearing them.

Decorations

Plastic skeletons, fake cobwebs and foam tombstones end up in landfill, and fake cobweb material can trap birds and insects if used outdoors. Instead:

  • Carve real pumpkins and cook the flesh afterwards
  • Make bats and ghosts from old paper and card
  • Use candles in jars or LED lights you already own
  • Decorate with seasonal leaves, gourds and branches that can be composted

Treats

Advertisement

In-article unit — placed mid-content

Individually wrapped sweets create the most waste. Options with less packaging include homemade cookies for people you know, fruit, or larger packs shared out into paper bags. Many families and schools prefer treats that are not individually wrapped anyway.

Treat bags

A cloth bag, a decorated paper bag, or a small basket replaces plastic pumpkin buckets that are rarely used again.

After the party

  • Compost pumpkins and natural decorations
  • Store reusable decorations carefully
  • Wash and keep costumes for dressing up or to give away
  • Separate wrappers properly; most multilayer sweet wrappers cannot be recycled and go in reject waste

The point

Halloween is about play and imagination. Making costumes and decorations from what you have often turns out to be the most memorable part, and it means the fun does not end up in a landfill.

For more of this kind of testing, the zero-waste home hub collects everything we've tried in that area.

Frequently asked

Do I need to buy anything to get started?

No. Every method here begins with what is already in your cupboards. We only recommend a purchase when something has genuinely worn out, and we say what it should cost.

How do you test the things you write about?

Minimum four weeks of ordinary household use, with notes. For anything involving energy or money we use a plug-in meter and record the readings before and after.

Are your recommendations paid for?

Never. Brands cannot buy placement. Some outbound links are affiliate links, which we mark, and they do not change what makes the list.

What if a method doesn't work in my home?

Write to us. A surprising amount of our best material comes from readers explaining why something failed in a flat, a shared house or a very cold winter.

Related

Read next