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Halloween is coming.  I actually love this holiday especially when I was teaching.  It's an opportunity to celebrate the season, indulge in goodies and a chance to dress up and pretend. 

The problem with all holidays is our enjoyment creates mountains of trash- bags of candy, plastic decorations and tiny toys make a lot of trash.

Here are some ideas to help you put the green into trick or treat bags.  

Plastic free candy is a challenge, look for candy wrapped in foil or paper or cardboard boxes.  They will be bulk packed in plastic but it is better than handing out plastic wrapped candy.

It's easier to skip the candy and pass out other sorts of treats.  My favorite idea is a bowl of nature items including shells, sea glass, acorns and stones.  If you live in the city this would be a real novelty for some kids.

Paper straws are a great treat to help raise awareness about the problems of plastic.  Amazon sells boxes of 150-300 and depending on your street a single box could last a few years.  

Sidewalk chalk, tiny cookie cutters, pencils, erasers, bandages, magnets, coloring books or printed coloring sheets, remelted crayons all are lower waste treats and last quite a bit longer than candy.

You can also buy an activity card set and hand out one card per child.  Your local bookstore or toy shop will have a selection.  Expect to pay around $10-12 for a deck of 50 cards.

The website Teachers Pay Teachers has some different printables including Halloween Yoga cards and Halloween PE.   Download to make cute books, printable bookmarks are another option.  The downloads cost between $3-5 making these a fun and cheap treat.

The materials to make a craft are also nice treats.  Friendship bracelets made from embroidery thread are a calming way to end the Halloween frenzy.  You can make a kit for each trick or treater and include directions.  Here is a link-DIY Printable Friendship Bracelet .

I hope this blogs helps you think about ways to celebrate without making lots of extra trash.  Handing out an eco item can help raise awareness about our planet.  Let's all work to make Halloween more green.

Seaweeds many nutritional benefits include being rich in iron, magnesium, iodine, and the omega-3 fatty acids.  Plus there's that great "umami" flavor.  Umami is Japanese for "pleasant savory taste".  These are the reasons we humans love to add seaweed to our diet- but what about our dogs? 

Turns out seaweed is a great addition to our dog's diet.  Those same powerful nutrients that benefit humans help improve our dog's coat and skin.  Nori, the unseasoned sushi wraps can make great training treats for your dog.  That umami taste sensation is similar to a rich, meaty bone.

If you are lucky enough to live near the beach, washed ashore seaweed is NOT a safe dog treat.  In general, my Puerto Rican street dog Tuffy eats a lot of gross things on the beach- but she's never shown an interest in beach seaweed.  The dangers are possible pollutants, salt poisoning and expansion as the dried seaweed expands in the tummy.  

If you're looking for a good seaweed rich supplement for your dog check out the Maine company Source.  Susan Domizi developed a nutritional product to help her horse's health.  One of the problems of modern society is our soils may be depleted and not have all the essential micronutrients that our dogs need.  Source for dogs contains "selected seaweeds plus the added benefits of yeast cultures, brewers yeast, garlic powder, vitamin E, zinc and natural beef flavor."

Source also makes a human supplement which I use but that's another blog!

Find out more on the Source website- https://www.4source.com/product/source-plus-for-dogs/

Find out more about seaweeds in general by visiting the Maine Seaweed Council website- http://www.seaweedcouncil.org/

I'm committed to purchasing as zero waste and plastic free as possible knowing full well I will fail.  Failure is part of the journey and you have to accept the times when you mess up and try and figure out ways to do better.

I was shopping recently at my local grocery store.  Normally I shop at a variety of stores especially when purchasing certain products including yogurt.  The thing was I just didn't have time.  I missed my yoga class because of appointments so I knew I just had to buy everything at the big grocery store.

I did pretty well.  I brought a container for my chicken.  Was able to stand on tiptoes to reach the mayo packaged in a glass bottle.  Bought a bunch of fresh veggies that I simply put in my basket.

I realized as I was walking towards the yogurt that this would be my "fail".  The menu was spicy Indian and I needed plain yogurt.  I also knew that while there were some choices of glass for snack yogurt, plain yogurt is packed in plastic containers.  I know I could reuse the containers for food storage but normally I buy local, farm fresh yogurt in glass bottles.

Voila!  My local Hannaford's was carrying Maine Milk House Yogurt in mason jars.  This is a big deal.  First, as a sustainable shopper I love to see choices in the mainstream shops.  It raises awareness for all and makes it easy for Zero Wasters rushed for time.  It's also really important to encourage and financially support small businesses who make the decision to pack their products as eco friendly as possible.  When a company makes this decision they generally lose money.  It's our experience that eco packaging cost at least double conventional, plastic packaging.

The truth is our cheap plastic packaging is subsidized- it's subsidized by our planet.   

Shop sustainable.

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On my bucket list is a trip to Ireland.   Sadly Ireland is not on my calendar.  The next best thing is to treat myself to a seaweed spa day right at home.  It takes a bit of time, planning and bathroom cleaning- but I'm worth it and so are you!  Give yourself the gift of you.

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