Halloween is on its way and the spooky celebrations give us a great excuse to get creative! 

It will be decorations, costumes and pumpkins galore - but this can also mean that a lot of extra waste is produced. We've created a list of our top recycling tips to make sure that your Halloween is (ghoulishly) green.

Decorations
There are so many ways to make fun decorations at home, without buying lots of plastic ones! Here's how...

• Use the cardboard insides of your loo roll and paint them! You could turn them into ghosts or witches, zombies or whatever your like. They can be decorations or you could hide sweets in them and hide them around the house for some spooky hide and seek with the people in your household! 
• Nice and simple - create bed sheet ghosts from sheets you don't mind cutting up or painting.
• A bit of flour, water and newspaper can make papier-mâché monsters from newspaper.
• Whilst we're on the topic of papier-mâché, make some again but this time with flour, water and a bit of pva glue. Then get some strips of cheese cloth and stick them around a glass jar. Then stick some eyes and a mouth made of black card. They make brilliant scary mummy lanterns! But, make sure you use battery-powered candles inside them, just to stay extra safe. See the photo below.
• Avoid cheap plastic toys and look for items with minimal packaging.

Spooky mummy candle lanterns

Pumpkins
Every year so much pumpkin is wasted! Check out what you can do instead of throwing it away.

• Turn it into soup! Here's the Love Food Hate Waste recipe for pumpkin soup
• Don't dump those pumpkin seeds after carving! Clean, salt and roast them for a real treat.
• Turn your empty pumpkin into a planter
• Create a Pumpkin Birdfeeder. Slice the top off a pumpkin to where there are no holes to make a bird feeder. Add some string so that the feeder can hang from a branch or plant hanger. Fill with birdseed to attract your favourite feathered friends.
• If you don’t reuse your pumpkin, put it in your green top bin or home compost.
• Next year try growing your own organic pumpkins in an allotment or a garden for an especially green Halloween!

Costumes
A report has warned that Halloween costumes this year will create 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste. Help stop this from happening!

• Hit the charity shop (observing distancing guidelines of course!) for pre-loved ghoulish clothes or look for mix-and-match items that can create your perfect costume.
• Make your own! It's loads of fun! 

Don't forget to @ us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (@royal_greenwich) to send us photos of your Halloween celebrations!