Halloween Horror: Sustainability on the Scariest Night of the Year

By Maddie Juarez

Searching the thrift store when looking for a costume is something that many people have done since they were little. Others have always gone to the Halloween store, gotten packaged outfits they wore once and stored away after. Either way, when someone has a specific costume in mind, in order to get it just right they will have no choice but to go to a Halloween store or order items online- even if they did most of their shopping thrifting. On a holiday where you wear something once and then often never wear it again, it is hard to be sustainable and have the exact look you want. 

One proponent that makes this especially hard is the culture that now surrounds Halloween. The desire to make costumes unique permeates through online discourse, especially on TikTok. These so-called “cool girl costumes,” give suggestions for unique, underdone characters, but their suggestions also offer places to easily buy them, which in this case means buying from amazon for nearly every single piece in each video. Having access to an easy way to buy the look is important, but buying from the right places is too. 

There is an expectation, especially in college, to wear a different outfit every night of halloweekend. This year that means 5 different costumes. It can be expensive and uninspiring, so it is hard to want to invest in items beyond Amazon and Shein. This further perpetuates problems surrounding the holiday and sustainability. 

Where is the best place to buy items for a Halloween costume then? The most sustainable option would be to work backward. Looking at your own closet to see what would work for a costume and then decide from there! That is a less exciting option, but if you want to be something specific, it always works to buy items that you know you can wear again in everyday life. 

Halloween is a holiday where consumption is ever-present. From decor to costumes to candy, it is important to keep this in mind when we are consuming wastefully. This doesn't mean that no one can buy from a Halloween store, but rather remind us to be present in how much we are consuming and how many times we will wear those products again after the holiday is over.