Make your Halloween a Green Halloween…learn how!

If you can’t take your broom, walk, bike, carpool or use public transportation.

Walk, ride a bike or use public transportation for Halloween parties and events, including Boo at the Zoo. Take RTD Lightrail to this year’s Boo At The Zoo! Denver Zoo will provide a complimentary shuttle from the 30th and Downing RTD Light Rail stop, which will run from 8:30 am – 6:30 pm every 15 minutes. Route your RTD safari to this year’s Boo At The Zoo: http://www.rtd-denver.com/.

If you drive, carpool to reduce traffic and air pollution. Denver Zoo will also provide a complimentary shuttle running every 15 minutes from our overflow parking lot located at East High School from 8:30 am – 6:30 pm.


Scare your neighbors, not Mother Nature, by buying used costumes or being creative and making your costume with used items from Goodwill.

Help People….Help Wildlife

Recycling and reusing clothing keeps these materials out of landfills and donating your used clothing to Goodwill helps people in need.

The average American throws away 68 pounds of clothing and other textiles each year and children outgrow their costumes long before they wear out. Not only does the production of clothing items require large volumes of water, but discarded fabric items account for nearly five percent of municipal waste in landfills. Help the environment this Halloween season by dropping off your used costumes and clothing items at Denver Zoo and by purchasing this year’s costumes from Goodwill or have fun and be creative by using household items you may already have to create your costume.


When collecting a monstrous amount of treats, use reusable bags!

Use canvas bags, or even a pillow case, to collect treats this Halloween and reuse them after the holiday is over as shopping bags.

Every year Americans use 380 million plastic bags. Some plastic bags end up as litter in our oceans where fish, birds, turtles and marine mammals, including sea lions, get entangled in them or mistake them for their favorite foods and ingest the bags.

Using cloth bags or reusable containers to collect Halloween treats helps conserve natural resources and prevents animals from getting injured by or becoming entangled in plastic bags.


Offer “green” treats for the fearsome creatures knocking on your door.

Purchase treats that do not use palm oil, or treats that contain palm oil that has been certified as orangutan friendly.

It is important not to purchase any food or hygiene products that contain palm oil because the harvesting of this oil is destroying rainforest habitats of Sumatran and Bornean orangutans, pushing those endangered species even closer to extinction. Estimates show that if something isn’t done soon to stop the spread of palm oil plantations into the forests that harbor these orangutans, they will be extinct in ten years.

Palm oil is found in candy, cookies, crackers, shampoo, skin care and beauty products, in different varieties of pet food, and many other products. So when you are shopping for your Halloween candy this year make sure to read the label first! Palm-oil free Endangered Species Chocolate has individual-sized chocolates for this year’s Halloween available at www.chocolatebar.com . Some other trick-or-treating favorites that are orangutan-friendly are Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Tootsie Rolls, York Peppermint Patties, Original and Peanut M&Ms, Dots, 100 Grand and Blow Pops.


Don’t fear creepy crawly creatures this Halloween, help them. Join the Colorado Herpetofaunal Atlas!

It’s easy to love the cute and fuzzy, but this Halloween take the time to find out what makes the slimy, scaly and creepy so interesting and important. Join the Colorado Herpetofaunal Atlas!

A major problem in protecting herps (lizards, snakes, frogs, toads and salamanders) is that for most of the species there is not enough information to know how much their numbers are declining and why. By participating in the Colorado Herpetofaunal Atlas you can help scientists and conservationists fill the information gap.


Pick a "green" pumpkin to carve a Jack-O-Lantern this Halloween!

Purchase a locally-grown, organic pumpkin this year and make use of the entire Jack-o-Lantern.Bake the seeds and serve them as a holiday treat. Remember, pumpkins can be more than decorative items. The tender meat can be used to make soups, pies and entrees.


Compost your leftover Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns before they become scary!

When the parties are over and Halloween has come and gone don’t toss your pumpkin in trash, compost your hollow Jack-o-Lantern after the holiday. Halloween is a terrific time of year to start a compost bin or LeafDrop provides Denver residents the opportunity to bring their leaves and pumpkins to drop-off sites throughout the city during the first three Sundays in November. There will also be weekday sites open from the first week in October through the first week in December. 

For more information about LeafDrop go to: http://www.denvergov.org/recoth/LeafDrop/tabid/425975/Default.aspx

Use this holiday to think about your everyday habits and actions to help wildlife 365 days a year.