We love Halloween. It’s probably got something to do with all the orange suddenly appearing. It is, oddly enough, our favourite colour.

However, even for us, Halloween is not all fun and games. Like most seemingly simple things, there’s another side to it.

Making sure that you’ve got enough treats in for trick or treaters. Deciding whether to encourage the local little (and big) horrors in the first place. Wondering what to do with that cut up pumpkin afterwards. Frankly, just the social nicety side of Halloween could drive you insane if you think too deeply about it.

And that’s before you consider Halloween ‘stuff’. Spooky bowls to pop treats in. Witches hats. Scary costumes. Plastic pumpkins. ‘Cobwebs’. Spray. Card. Glitter. Make up.

Halloween is great fun, but it creates an incredible amount of clutter. If we throw it away, the cost mounts for next year AND it’s not very ‘green’!

Whilst celebrations are great fun, bringing us all closer together, in the UK alone, according to magazine The Cut, 30 million of us will dress up for Halloween, with mass market costumes creating 2000 tins of plastic annually. Brits toss out seven million costumes each year. And according to ChooseFinch.com, only 25% of costumes ever get used more than once.

So how do we have a less environmentally ‘toxic’ Halloween? Here are five simple ideas:

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1. Don’t be fooled into buying ceramic pumpkins unless you plan to keep them for at least eight years. Creating ceramic pumpkins creates eight times as many carbon emissions as creating a plastic one.

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2. Compost your ‘Jack-o’-lanterns’ (carved pumpkins to you and I!)

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3. If you don’t want to keep costumes, don’t throw them. Donate them to a local school dressing up box (depending upon suitability, of course) or to a charity shop for them to sell on.

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4. Choose plastic masks over later ones, unless you plan to reuse regularly. Plastic is often recyclable and creates less carbon than latex.

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5. Try and pick ‘treats’ with recyclable wrappers.

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Of course, the best, and probably cheapest, way of avoiding being an environmental horror is to reuse everything: reuse plastic pumpkins; reuse sparkling lights; keep those black or purple tablecloths for next year. You could even rent a storage unit. easyStorage is about half the price of traditional storage (you can get a no-obligation quote online here. We not only collect from you and return your goods to you, but also bring them back – and can even pack and load.

Keep everything tucked away – if you need boxes and packing materials, easyStorage boxes is here to help!

Of course, should you choose to add Halloween goodies to your regular self-storage facility, the odd wand, chalice or light up horror is generally fine (although you might want to remove any batteries).

But don’t forget:  you should never store skeletons or bottles of blood – no respectable storage firm will accept them!

(We had to get a smile in! You didn’t think we’d be totally serious, did you?)

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Here are some bonus spooky stories from our franchisees!

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Having worked in storage for a very long time the strangest experience was at an old mill that we where converting in to a storage centre. The mill dated back to the 1800s and had a history of some strange goings on. After a few week of fitting out on the weekly site meetings the builders all came in (which was unusual) and told us that they would not be working any later than 6pm. When asked why they explained that they had been hearing voices around corners and when going to look their was no one there. Loud banging had been heard and again, when looking there was no explination of it. I have to admit being on the top floor was a scary experience, it felt like someone or something was watching you and it wasn't a nice feeling. I also had a door open right in front of me as I went to push it open.... I guess household goods are not the only things you might find in storage...

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We did a 6 pod job in Camden Market full of film and TV memorabilia - we found some very interesting items!

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