Surviving Halloween Sustainably

Green is the new Orange. Here’s the first post in our countdown to raging like environmentalists this Halloween.

Halloween is a beautiful holiday where you can express the strangest aspects of your personality and be celebrated. A holiday where you can dress as sexy as you want and still get severely slut shamed (a day so different from all the other days of the year), or free your inner Yu-Gi-Oh! and be mercilessly mocked (also a refreshing change of pace). This is the day to revel in whatever you keep locked away the other 364 of the days of the year.
But don’t let that one day ruin your carefully cultivated environmental aestheticism. Deprive yourself on Halloween too!
We kid. But buy-it-once halloween costumes are wasteful. They also tend towards tacky, boring, sexist, racist – take your pick.
So we here at Dailybloom Corp™ have cooked up some costume ideas that either spread #awareness of environmental issues, or are actually environmentally friendly.

You get extra credit if you can do both!

Lazy Classic

These costumes are easy to thrift and easy to make. Repurposing things that are already in your closet or that are readily available at any self-respecting thrift store is inherently green.

Lumberjack (#gay)

Don’t pretend like you don’t already have a dozen flannel shirts

Ghost

We’re not even going to say anything. Just don’t buy a new sheet at Walmart, like, obviously.

Mother Earth

Up to your interpretation! Dress in tie-dye, or glue actual leaves to yourself. However you picture the anthropomorphized concept of the Divine Feminine.

Couples/Group

Do you surround yourself with other smug environmentalists? Really rub it in and dress as a group!

Flora & Fauna

One of you can be a sexy cat and one of you can be a sexy flower, it’s a win-win

The Sixth Extinction

Pick any one of the 10,000 species on the planet that goes extinct each year¹ or will in our lifetimes – polar bear, bee, bat, etc. then really bring it home by painting big x’s over your eyes with eyeliner

Literal

No beating around the bush with these.

Trash

Just trash. Just a trash bag. Optionally carry around pictures of your otp.
Spice it up and be the great pacific garbage patch by taping actual trash to you. Obviously you’ll have to collect this trash from a nearby dumpster because no dailybloom reader makes trash.

Igloo

Do you have an old white tee laying around? Sharpie in some blocks and voila – you’re dressed as an endangered architecture style.

Monoculture

Your corn crop, your soybean crop. Achieve this look with corn patterned things, literal ears of corn, felt arranged craftily, etc.

Going Green

Borrow every green colored item of clothing from your friends and family. Put it on your body.

Punny

There’s something so maniacal about an entire costume built on a pun. It’s really in the spirit.

A Vegan

Dress as skeleton. Hold a carrot. When asked what you are, reply, “vegan”

Palm oil

Options include putting oil on your palms, dressing as a palm tree and carrying an oil can, etc

Vampire Energy

Fangs and a broken electrical wire — boom done

good vamp                                                                                     bad vamp

Unplanned parenthood

This is relevant because population (and also the dumb thing where we defunded Planned Parenthood). Look really frazzled, wear a letterman jacket, carry a babydoll.

 
 
Now go out and be merry in your environmentally-conscious get-up. Don’t forget that very important element of self-satisfied smugness at your general superiority of everyone else — that will really help to sell it.

In case you didn’t find the disguise of your dreams above, here are some ~*~ additional resources ~*~ from the annals of the internet:

Turn your last-minute Halloween costume into an environmental statement

Huffington Post – Green Halloween Costumes

YouTube – 5 Eco-Friendly DIY Halloween Costumes

¹http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/biodiversity/