Halloween is a time for spooky fun, scary costumes, trick-or-treating with the kids and an excess of sweets. But there’s a dark undertone to the festivities, and that’s the huge amount of waste that’s produced.
18,000 pumpkins are sent to landfill each year
Pumpkins are great fun to carve scary faces into, with some streets up and down the UK getting fiercely competitive about who can create the most elaborate designs. But we are not always using the pumpkins responsibly, discarding the inside when it could be cooked and eaten. Unilever is leading the charge with their #pumpkinrescue campaign, addressing the 64% of people that don’t use the inside of their pumpkins. They’re encouraging people to make delicious pumpkin soup, pumpkin cupcakes and pumpkin pie with the flesh of their Halloween decoration.
99% of batteries aren’t recycled properly
We’ve all seen them – those gimmicky light-up lanterns, glowing hauntingly from inside plastic pumpkins. But on 1st November, they’re often discarded with other household waste, without separating the batteries. That goes for 99% of batteries that are not recycled properly, and they end up leaking chemicals into our environment. Be sure to responsibly dispose of all batteries, finding your nearest battery disposal location here.
Hard-to-recycle plastics are sent to landfill
Plastic broomsticks, devil horns, skeleton masks. They’re all part of what makes Halloween fun. But there’s often question marks over if they’re recyclable and end up going to landfill. The truth is, some plastics can be hard to recycle. Our advice is to check the packaging for an indication of what’s recyclable. If you’ve got one of our skips at home because you’re having a garden overhaul or home renovation, chuck your plastics in your skip and we’ll do our best to recycle it at our state-of-the-art recycling plant.
12,500 tons of Halloween costumes get sent to landfill each year
Cheap costumes are everywhere in the weeks leading up to Halloween. But parents don’t often want to keep them after the event. Instead of throwing them in the bin with household waste and contributing to the 12,500 tons of Halloween costumes that go to landfill each year, consider donating them to your local charity shop so they can be used again next year. Green organisation hubbub.org.uk run workshops in London so people can make or exchange costumes instead.
For more information about recycling, contact us on 01903 762020 or email info@rabbitgroup.co.uk
