October 20, 2013

How to Keep Your Child Safe from Toxic Halloween Costumes

It's Halloween season again, and it's definitely time to start putting together your child's Halloween costume. Although we normally focus on paper conservation issues and ways to help you ditch paper towels, we're going to do a two-part series on keeping kids safe from toxins this Halloween.

Costumes are one of the most fun parts of the Holiday season, but recently a scary story out of Seattle has pointed to the fact that we all need to be vigilant about what we're giving our kids to wear this Halloween. On October 15, the Customs and Border Protection Officers and Consumer Product Safety Investigators confiscated a $10,000 shipment of Halloween costumes from China that contained up to 11 times the amount of the legal U.S. limits for lead.

While most costumes aren't so blatantly toxic, many costumes that have plastic pieces can contain BPA, phthalates and other known toxins that you ordinarily wouldn't want your child to be around. To reduce their exposure, try the follow tips:

- Make your own costumes. Even if you're not crafty, you can shop thrift stores and use pieces from your closet to create costumes. Or check out some of the handmade costumes on Etsy.

- Choose cloth. If you are buying a costume this year, look for costumes that are made from cloth, preferably 100 percent cotton.

- Go organic. Several stores offer organic Halloween costumes for babies and kids.

- And if you must go plastic... Keep an eye on your kids and don't let them put pieces in their mouths. Tell them to save room for all that candy.

How are you making sure your child's costume is nontoxic? Tell us your ideas in the comments section.