Halloween eco-friendly trick or treat bags--Fun way to raise your child's awareness about plastic pollution

Halloween is a fun time to teach our tykes a little about the 3Rs--Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Children really get into learning about the planet and ways we can protect it for future generations, their own included.

Gathering their treats in their very own, colorful, ghostly, ghoulish reusable bag is a good way to get them started.

In a short while, brightly colored orange Jack-O-Lanterns will pop up at the ends of aisles in our grocery and sundries stores. If your kids are like my grandchildren, the moment they see them, they will turn their little faces up to yours at just the most disarming angle, and with wide beseeching eyes, ask for the Jack-O-Lantern.

"But I want it, and all the other little kids have one when they go trick or treating!"

You don't have to cave! This is the perfect moment to talk about plastics and their impact on the environment. Children understand when we tell them about all the plastic choking our riverbanks, beaches and oceans. They especially understand when we share, with gentleness and care, how harmful those plastics can be to the wildlife who take their living in and near the water.

Once they understand this, children want to do something to help. This is when you introduce reusable bags they can enjoy year after year, and that are just as colorful and fun as the plastic Jack-O-lanterns--something to look forward to each Halloween, just as they look forward to getting out the spiders and gauzy webbing.

When discussing the reasons you want to cut back on plastic containers with your child, keep it simple. Ask them some simple questions and listen closely to their answers. You might want to write down their answers.

Don't be surprised to discover the children in your life asking you these questions before you get a chance to pose them. Many kids today are savvy about plastic pollution. Either way, be prepared with straightforward and simple answers to the following questions.

1. Where do our plastic pumpkins come from? Answer: They come from oil--black sticky stuff buried deep in the ground. Oil companies pump the oil from the ground and use it to make things we use every day. Some of it is used to make gasoline to power our cars. Some is used to make plastic. Every plastic pumpkin, every plastic wrapper around candy, and every glow stick comes from oil.
2. Why do we need to use less plastic? Answer: Lots of reasons. One is that we are running out of oil. Another is that, when we make plastic from oil, we put poisons into the air that we breathe and into the water that we drink. Those poisons make people sick. A third reason is that plastic never goes away. It breaks down, into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. Some pieces are so small that we cannot see them, but we can breathe them. They get into our food, and we eat them. Scientists believe that all those plastic particles are making people sick, but they need to do more studies to understand how and why.
3. Can't we recycle our plastic pumpkins? Answer: That depends. If the pumpkins are made of certain types of plastic, yes they can be recycled. Others have to go to the landfill, where they break down and contaminate ground water and sometimes our drinking water.
4. Can we burn the plastic pumpkins, if we can't recycle them or throw them away? Answer: Burning plastic releases even more poison into the air and can make people very ill.

I'm always looking for Fair Trade and organic products that are as fun as any of the cheap plastic objects the stores offer us.

For now, these polyester Chico bags are as close as I can get. The good news is, they last practically forever, wash easily, never seem to fade, and tuck away into their attached stuff-bags in seconds.

I can't decide if I like the big orange Jack-O-Lantern or the bat bag better. Which is your favorite?

I think I need one of each. Or rather two, since I have four grandchildren.

You?

Of course, you could send your darlings out with a large paper bag, like I used to carry as a child. Long as I came home with a pile of candy, I was happy.

If you're crafty, plan an afternoon of creative fun with the kids to make their own Trick-or-Treat bags. Here are just three delightful sources to get you started.

1. My sister Hubber, Lorraine Brummer provides a charming step-by-step how-to for making Trick-or-Treat bags from plain brown paper sacks. She includes lots of yummy recipes for homemade treats to fill them--perfect if you're giving treats to children whose parents know and trust you.
2. For more fun, ghoulish, fancy, silly and whacky homemade trick or treat bags and buckets using materials around the house, check out Trick or Treat! 15 Bag and Bucket Ideas on Parents.com.
3. Who better than Martha Stewart to show us the cutest, cleverest and, most importantly for safety, glow-in-the-dark homemade trick or treat bags?

Not the crafty type? Fall schedule way too pinched to add one more thing?

If you're like so many parents, you may be looking for the quickest ways to get through the holiday with maximum fun and least fuss. You need an alternative.

Easy! Grab a few Halloween-themed reusable bags for your little ones. Not only do they look just as much fun on their arms as a plastic Jack-O-lantern, they are light-weight, much easier to carry, and possibly even more fun to show off than a plastic bucket.

Laundering is a cinch. Just throw 'em in the washing machine when all the sticky candy is gone and hang them up to dry for an hour or so. shove them in their self-stuffing sacks and hide away with the witches hats and broomsticks until next year.

While the bags are as big or bigger than the typical plastic supermarket grocery bag, they stuff down into a palm-size cushion you can carry around on a key chain.

After Halloween, fold each of the bags away into its tiny self-contained sack and toss them into the Halloween decorations box. Forget about them until next year, when they'll be as clean and new looking as they were when you tucked them into their self-stuffing sacks.

Do we really need all that orange and black plastic? How will you and your family celebrate Halloween this year? Are you planning to make it a little greener? What do you think of starting with environmentally friendly trick-or-treat bags?