Green Living by Janet Marchant: Greening Your Halloween IV: This Time, It's Environmental

If you're like me, you're ready and waiting for an exciting night of green trick-or-treating, with recycled costumes for your kids, all-natural decorations, and organic spirulina candies to hand out at your door. But wait! Before you fire up your Halloween jack-o'-lanterns, have you made sure that they are as kind to the planet as they can be? Until recently, when I plugged in my Halloween jack-o'-lanterns, they flickered to life with the white glow of compact fluorescent lights. Of course, when I realized that those light bulbs are made with some kind of dangerous chemical or heavy metal in them (I forget which), I immediately switched to all-natural incandescent bulbs.

Now my rows of festive pumpkins are guaranteed not to leak anything that is dangerous to children. And as an added bonus, they have the warm, orange glow that you can only get by using those incandescent bulbs.