Halloween is just around the corner, and as front yards fill with pumpkins and spooky decorations and HomeGoods turns into a Halloween supply store, I’m focused on one thing: what am I dressing up as this year?
Dressing up for Halloween used to be my favorite part of the holiday, but as time has passed and costume culture has evolved, finding the perfect outfit has become more of a chore than anything else.
When did Halloween go from one night at the end of October to three consecutive weekends of parties, each requiring a different costume? Between scrolling through Pinterest for inspiration, keeping up with TikTok trends, and scrambling to find five different outfits that will arrive on time, what was once a fun holiday tradition has turned into an exhausting cycle of consumption.
The pressure to have a new costume for every occasion may seem harmless, but the environmental consequences of our Halloween shopping habits worsen each year.
The Costume Conundrum
There is nothing wrong with wanting to switch up your costumes during Halloween party season, but with the rise of convenient online shopping and expedited delivery services like Amazon, which can get almost any outfit to your doorstep in just a few days, costumes have begun to feel disposable. I’ve even caught myself overlooking the unnecessary purchases I make when putting together my yearly costumes, justifying spending money on pieces I know I’ll probably never wear again.
As buying new costumes for every Halloween event becomes increasingly normalized, the holiday’s environmental impact is hard to ignore. Even without considering the waste generated by candy wrappers and decorations, discarded costumes alone reportedly contribute over 2,000 tons of waste each year.
And honestly, I blame much of this cycle of normalized overconsumption on social media. After all, it’s totally unacceptable to post yourself wearing the same costume twice, right? This pressure to constantly show off new outfits has created an unspoken expectation that every Halloween party requires a completely different costume.
The Planet Pays the Price
Synthetic fabrics and plastic-based materials make up a large portion of mass-produced Halloween costumes and decorations, making them short-term personal investments but long-term environmental costs. Many cheap Halloween costumes sold by popular retailers like Amazon, SHEIN, and Dolls Kill are made from synthetic fabrics like polyester, which can take decades or even centuries to break down. We buy these costumes for a single night, but the planet is left to deal with them for generations.
The environmental consequences of these costumes begin long before they reach landfills. Producing synthetic fabrics like polyester, nylon, and acrylic relies heavily on petroleum, a non-renewable fossil fuel, and manufacturing and transporting millions of cheaply made costumes strongly contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Once discarded, many of these costumes are difficult to recycle because they combine synthetic fabrics, plastic accessories, and other materials. Even though buying new costumes seems like a harmless, cheap choice, the Halloween costume industry plays a major role in a destructive cycle of waste and pollution.
Celebrating Halloween Sustainably
Just because constantly buying new costumes contributes to environmentally harmful overconsumption doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to dress up and experiment with different costumes in a more sustainable, environmentally conscious way.
This year, I decided to buy all of my costumes secondhand and had amazing luck finding outfits and accessories on resale sites like Depop and Poshmark. Giving even a few pieces a second life instead of letting them end up in a landfill is a small but meaningful way to reduce Halloween waste, save money, and end up with costumes that look just as good as if I bought them new.
At the end of the day, Halloween should be about having fun, getting creative, and expressing yourself, not feeling like you have to buy an entirely new wardrobe every October. Whether you thrift, borrow outfits from friends, or create costumes with clothes you already own, small changes to your shopping habits can make a difference. Making Halloween more sustainable doesn’t mean you can’t dress up. But being mindful of the impact of our fast-fashion shopping habits is an important step toward a more sustainable approach to the holidays we love.