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Halloween is usually associated with orange and black, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be green and ghoulish, too!  To help you have a wickedly fun Halloween that frightens your neighbors, but not the planet, I’ve put together a list of frighteningly Green Halloween Ideas.

1.  Green Costumes

With very little money and time you can put together an eco-friendly Halloween costume that will surely win you plenty of treats (or tricks depending on what you’re looking for).  Check out my list from last year of the Top Ten Last-Minute Homemade Green Halloween Costumes for some ideas that would frighten Al Gore.  This year I will be sporting a dorky suit jacket, loud tie and sneakers to go as Marc Summers when he hosted Double Dare, and will be joined by a Family Double Dare team.  Apart from being low-budget, low-impact and just plain ridiculous, the costumes will also feature slime, which as we know is a particularly hot environmental topic these days.  (Just make sure you don’t use toxic face paint for your costume, now that’s really scary.)

2. Green Decorations

Whether you’re hosting a Thriller dance party or trying to out-do your neighbors for freakiest front porch, there are plenty of ways to decorate and still be earth-friendly.  A classic one is building a Scare Crow out of leaves and old clothes, and if you want to be topical, you could dress it like Michael Pollan to scare away high fructose corn syrup from your house.  Other environmentally and economically friendly decorations include a crashed trashbag witch, egg-carton spiders, and a recycled skull.  Also be sure to reuse decorations from previous years, because the older they are the scarier.  And you may find some great costumes up in the attic as well!  And if you haven’t picked up a pumpkin yet, find one at a farm or farmer’s market near you, rather than buying one that’s been shipped from far away.

3.  Green Treats to Eat

Halloween candy is not usually environmentally friendly, as they’re individually-wrapped and full of high fructose corn syrup, but there are plenty of ways to share green treats and not be lame like that old lady who used to give us pennies in a bag or creepy like the woman who handed out unwrapped candy corns from a very convincing human skull.  Gina provided us with some delicious looking options with her list of Top 10 Tasty Vegan Halloween Treats.  And if you’re looking for candies that you can hand out to trick-or-treaters, there are lots of sweets that are organic, fair-trade and free of HFCS, many of which you can probably find in stores.

Have some spooky Green Halloween ideas you’d like to share?  Leave them in the comments section below, and use the action link to get involved with Green Halloween, a non-profit working to make Halloween’s healthier and more eco-friendly.  Happy Green Halloween!