We're Buying More Halloween Costumes Than Ever Before and That's a Big Problem
Insert corny joke about how fashion is the real nightmare of the season.
This post was originally written three years ago, and the numbers have increased by nearly half a billion dollars. I’m resending this and only changing the numbers to highlight that awareness is great, but we have a long road ahead.
Eleven. Billion. Dollars. That figure represents both the GDP of a small country, and the amount of money Americans will spend on Halloween this year. According to the National Retail Federation, in 2024, $3.8 billion of that total will be spent on costumes alone (which is up about 27% from last year). Now, I’m not one to take the joy out of the Halloween industrial complex because if there is a haunted house or hayride in my vicinity, put me in coach. However, those costumes, whether for kids, pets, or adults, are part of the ever-growing waste issue in fashion.
For starters, most people wear their costumes once (maybe twice if you’re really into the holiday). But it’s not occasion-wear like a wedding dress that gets worn once and stays with you forever. When you’re done with a Halloween costume, it’s more than likely that garment is getting tossed. The issue is that these products are made of two materials: polyester and synthetic latex, better known as petroleum. When I looked through the offerings on Spirit Halloween and Yandy, two of the biggest Halloween costume sellers, I found that the majority contained at least one of these materials, if not both.
Of course, the problem is that combined, we have over 3 billion dollars worth of newly-made costumes that most people are likely to wear once and then send on a path straight to the landfill. Currently, polyester cannot be recycled, and it doesn’t biodegrade – not great for the already huge issue of fashion waste. Alden Wicker explained in a story on Ecocult from January 2021 that polyester sheds into harmful microfibers before it degrades, which is problematic for aquatic life and the air we breathe. Moreover, there is no transparency in sourcing for most of the costumes. Though many of the sites claim that they adhere to strict ethical standards and use third-party auditing to make sure there is no forced labor in the supply chain, that’s impossible to know without more clarity about which factories the costumes are being made in. Overall, Halloween costumes are not great for anyone, and I can guarantee the satisfaction of someone drunkenly telling you they “totally get” what you’re trying to be is not worth it.
Now I KNOW it’s just a few days until Halloween, but there is still time to rethink the trip to Spirit Halloween, especially as it takes over every abandoned Sears location near you. Some of the most searched costumes this year, such as Shrunken Head Bob (from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Raygun, can be easily done through thrifting. As for your pets, DIY mummy dog and rocket ship cat are both very cute. It’s not just on us though — getting rid of fossil fuels in the supply chain is a problem that is well beyond the consumer. The brands manufacturing the costumes need to be regulated and held accountable as well.
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