National Costume Swap Day

While Halloween is meant to be spooky, the feeling doesn’t have to transfer over to the cost of buying a costume – or to the millions of tons of clothing that end up in landfills every year!

National Costume Swap Day offers a distinct opportunity to celebrate Halloween with a much small impact on the earth, and the wallet.

History of National Costume Swap Day

The foundations of National Costume Swap Day can be traced back to 2010 when the day was started by a company called Green Halloween.

The event was established with an eye for reducing consumer waste and reusing old Halloween costumes to be more environmentally friendly – while still getting to celebrate the holiday.

National Costume Swap Day started as part of a larger effort to promote “green” holidays, inspired by the book Celebrate Green: Creating Eco-savvy Holidays, by sisters and entrepreneurs Corey Colwell-Lipson and Lynn Colwell.

Situated just a couple of weeks before Halloween, this event offers plenty of time for people to locate and secure a costume that can be swapped.

Whether for small children going trick-or-treating or for fully-grown adults who are attending a party, National Costume Swap Day is a fantastic opportunity to have tons of fun and feel good about the impact it makes on the earth (and the pocketbook!).

How to Celebrate National Costume Swap Day

Host a Halloween Costume Swap

Get together all of the moms from the neighborhood, at the school, from church, or some other environment and encourage them to bring all of their gently used, clean Halloween costumes that they would happily part with.

In exchange, there will be other parents there with costumes for all sizes of children and there can be a trading or bartering system.

Those who are hosting events can make sure to put up flyers at schools, dance lessons, kids’ sporting events, or even on Facebook.

It’s a great way for everyone to not only do their part to prevent filling up landfills but also to save a few bucks during this Halloween season!

Shop for Costumes at Thrift Stores

Folks who aren’t in a position where hosting a costume swap would work might still get in the spirit of National Costume Swap Day by heading over to some thrift stores to either buy existing costumes or build them from scratch.

Second-hand shops have all sorts of opportunities for creative and unique costumes so that no one has to worry about repeats!

Other Days of the Year events that focus on taking care of the earth and making more out of the life of clothing or other items include National Thrift Shop Day in August, National Upcycling Day in June, and No Disposable Cup Day in early October.