For students looking for something fun and eco-friendly to do this Halloween weekend, the Sustainability Center is putting on a great engagement event. The “Hand-me-down Halloween Party” this Friday, Oct. 29 from 5–7p.m. on the Tower lawn is a fun way students can get involved and celebrate spooky season in a sustainable fashion.
For students who attend, there will be Halloween themed crafts, music, snacks and a costume contest with prizes for the top three winners. In order to promote sustainability and reduce waste, the costumes students wear to the party must be either thrifted, repurposed or upcycled.
This is one of the many engagement and education events put on by the Sustainability Center throughout the year. Events such as this one bring the UI community together and educate students on environmental issues we’re facing.
Olivia Wiebe, sustainability coordinator, says that through this event the center is “trying to raise awareness on the textile waste problem that we are facing.”
To avoid textile waste this Halloween, attendees are encouraged to reuse a costume they already have, make a costume out of clothing and material they already own or buy their costumes from a thrift store. This way less fabric material will be wasted – since oftentimes costumes are bought and then only used once.
Oftentimes a fun costume can be quickly put together with the clothes students already have in their closets. If students don’t already own costume materials, there are many thrift stores and consignment shops in Moscow that have eco-friendly costumes and clothes students can buy at a much cheaper price than box stores.
“When you go into some of those big box Halloween stores a lot of those costumes are mainly plastic, you know, polyester fabrics,” Wiebe said. “So finding a way to repurpose can reduce textile waste.”
Reusing, upcycling or thrifting their Halloween costumes this year could save students money as well as help save the environment by reducing overall textile waste. The “Hand-Me-Down Halloween” party is the perfect opportunity for students to showcase their environmentally friendly costumes and maybe even win some prizes while they’re at it as well as just having a fun evening with the UI community to celebrate Halloween in a sustainable way.
All students are welcome to attend and those interested in participating in the costume contest can pre-register by emailing [email protected]. Students can contact this email or look at the Sustainability Center website for more information and other ways they can get involved with the center.
Grace Giger can be reached at [email protected]