19 Frightfully Fun Homemade Halloween Costumes Made from Recycled Materials

Segway Zoltar Costume

Dressing up is one of the best things about Halloween. However, it also can be one of the most wasteful, as millions of Americans purchase ready-made costumes, wear them once, then cast them off. Instead of filling up landfills with once-used plastics and fabrics, get creative, and come up with your own unique look with reused and recycled materials. You\'ll save money, as well as reduce impact on the planet.

Last year, New Yorker Jonathan Gleich wowed the Greenwich Village Halloween parade with his whimsical Segway Pirate. In summer, he took first prize at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade with his homemade Zoltar creation, again using his Segway as a moving base (so clever!).

Gleich told us he normally commutes to work with his Segway (sans outlandish outfit). See behind-the-scenes photos of Zoltar here. Hopefully some memorable costumes will be in your near future.

Handmade Crocodile Costume

The creative folk over at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories made this fearsome crocodile costume out of a cardboard box, some butcher paper, tissue paper and a little tape.

The site gives detailed instructions on how to fold, cut and tape it in the right places. Pair with an old clock and a friend dressed as a recycled Captain Hook for a great theme duo (actually, the Peter Pan possibilities may be endless).

Plus, when you are finished scaring your friends and neighbors with your toothy grin, you can easily recycle the cardboard once again.

Sweet Treats Costumes

Jen Cahill snapped this adorable photo of her daughters in cupcake and cotton candy costumes. These sweet designs were homemade with love from recycled tights, leggings, a laundry basket and bits of fabric. We\'re sure they love saying \"trick or treat\"!

Recycled Samurai Costume

This fantastic samurai costume was made from Rubbermaid 32-gallon garbage cans and rubber stoppers. Talk about taking the battle against trash literally!

The costume\'s creator, Flickr user kudzutech, told TDG that a grateful Rubbermaid has sent him six new garbage cans free for this year\'s costume. Of course, that\'s not quite recycling, but we get the idea.

Recycled Umbrella Bat Costume

Winged mammals of the night, bats are extremely beneficial to farmers, as well as natural ecosystems (not to mention anyone plagued by mosquitoes). Unfortunately, bats have long been misunderstood, even persecuted, and their numbers have been dwindling due to habitat loss, pollution and other factors.

But you can show your love for this age-old, warm-blooded symbol of Halloween with a clever, relatively easy costume fashioned from an old umbrella. Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories shows you exactly how. The only materials you need are an umbrella and a hooded zippered sweatshirt, as well as some common tools: needle and thread, pins, pliers, scissors and bolt cutters or tin snips.

Death of a Mermaid Costume

A big winner in Etsy\'s costume contest is Death of a Mermaid by user bamabelle. The thought-provoking creation is dedicated to the effort to stop beach pollution.

The piece is constructed from a vintage prom dress, dyed and painted, as well as household items that are frequently found clogging up the seven seas, choking sea turtles and strangling pelicans. Things like plastic drink rings, straws, ubiquitous Styrofoam, fishing line, a syringe (unused, thankfully), rope and more. The artist made seaweed out of old green yarn.

That little sign reads \"Warning: No Swimming \'sewage in water.\'\" Thanks for the heads-up, mermaid!

For $250 you can have your own version shipped to you. Bamabelle tells TDG she will soon be coming up with a whole new array of costumes. We can\'t wait.

Lego Shaun of the Dead Costume

North Carolina-based Flickr user CoderKev says he came up with this quirky mash-up in a hurry after his original Halloween plans fell through. He had seen a Lego costume on another site, and somehow came up with the idea of mixing it up with the lead from one of his favorite movies.

On Xenomachina you can get detailed instructions on how to make your own Lego head from Styrofoam and some paint. For the boxy body, find some old cardboard.

Given the enormity of the Lego universe, we\'re thinking there are a lot of opportunities for individual expression.

Hamburger Dress Costume

Turn heads with this flattering, one-of-a-kind knit hamburger dress from Joy Kampia O\'Shell. If you\'re vegetarian or fed up with fast food, Joy also makes an old-fashioned-sundae dress, an ice-cream cone dress and a tasty-looking crocheted donut necklace.

Joy made the original hamburger dress with assorted fibers, including nylon. We\'d recommend using eco-friendly yarn, which is becoming increasingly popular. There are natural, more gently processed wool yarns, organic cotton, hemp, bamboo, and even brands made from by-products of soy and corn processing (as well as crab shells). There are numerous recycled yarns, from re-spun silk to repurposed conventional yarns.

So get inspired, and get crafty!

Recycled Mutant Cyborg Costume

Sydney, Australia-based Don Pezzano makes fantastical, vibrant sculptures, paintings and digital compositions that are bursting with color and life. The artist often works with found objects (that\'s recycling!).

Originally made for performance art, his mutant cyborg costume is creepy and impressively detailed. The self-taught artist built it out of scrap foamcore, old wire and other odds and ends of waste material. We wouldn\'t want to meet him in a dark alley!

The Ring Costume

The Daily Green reader Jennifer Wells won first prize in a local Halloween competition with this costume inspired by a popular horror franchise. She tells us that it cost her only $7 in materials from a thrift store, including a 50\'s\r\nstyle white dress. We love the nod to pop culture without buying something premade!

Recycled Robot Costume

New Mexico-based user chaintool over at instructables.com made this intimidating, postmodern robot costume out of laundry detergent bottles, crutches and football shoulder pads.

He says he spent a week scrounging through trash cans at Laundromats, and eventually collected 60 used bottles of various sizes and shapes. He recommends using a rubber-based paint for the finish, since it will flex with the plastic.

\"It\'s a pain to get on, takes me about 15 minutes, and I sweat like a pig under a magnifying glass in the middle of the Arabian desert during a freak giant solar flare in this costume,\" chaintool writes. Way to suffer for awesome! (It\'s also a good idea to don elbow and knee pads before suiting up, just in case your robo-balance is less than perfect.)

Great Pumpkin Costume

This brave, brave partygoer went all natural -- we just hope his pumpkins were organic!

Extremely simple to make, jesse.hensel\'s costume on instructables.com consists of two hollowed-out pumpkins. After the body-hugging gourd quickly split, Jesse added laces to one side, which he says allowed him to get a snug fit. Apparently it lasted for a good while, until he got overzealous going after a piñata. Consider yourself warned.

After he got some good laughs from it, Jesse and his San Francisco friends turned what was left into pumpkin soup, pie filling, pumpkin bread and spicy toasted pumpkin seeds. You can\'t do that with any store-bought costume!

Kids\' Recycled Samurai Costume

Masters of the sword as well as of discipline and loyalty, samurai kept order in feudal Japan for centuries. Show discipline and loyalty to the Earth -- as well as unique style -- with a cool getup like this. Besides, what young lad doesn\'t want to be a samurai?

Instructables.com user joto2 made this little warrior\'s armor from cardboard boxes, with one side peeled off to reveal corrugation. The smart origami helmet was made from an old calendar, with the expert skill and patience of ... a samurai (as well as scissors, watercolor, tape and a stapler).

Mr. Baby Man Costume

Whether you find it creepy, awe-inspiring, beautiful or grotesque, it\'s clear the striking work of New York City-based art photographer Phillip Toledano is provocative. True, his work is fine art, but his designs could also function well as the inspiration for DIY costumes.

We\'re not sure what this baby-doll suit means to the artist (e-mails went unanswered), but we like the fact that it can be made with cast-off toys -- lord knows our society has plenty of those! We imagine this idea could also be pulled off with vintage stuffed animals, toy cars or whatever else you can find lying around.

Some of Toledano\'s other designs incorporate menacing guns, so you could imitate that with toy weaponry if you wanted to be really ironic.

Recycled Witch Costume

Much older than Halloween itself is the figure of the witch, which has taken different forms over the centuries in different parts of the world. Now, the classic costume is getting a green makeover, thanks to Lizette Greco of the family collective Grecolaborativo.

Lizette\'s crafty witch costume was handmade from recycled fabric (the hat came from a thrift store). The cauldron was made from papier-mâché, wire and cork, and the accompanying frog, rat and spider were handmade.

Lizette and her family handmake a delightful array of plush animals and costumes from recycled and reused materials. Most of their designs are based on children\'s artwork, and they remind all of us to embrace our youthful spirit.

Chuck Norris Commando Costume

Mike Paulus, an editor at Volume One, wants you to know that he is down with Chuck Norris. In fact, Mike says he has been a fan of the man for years, and he even has this awesome picture to prove it.

Mike\'s commando costume is a cinch to put together (though we doubt just anyone can pull it off with so much gusto). \"Notice the crouching, tigerlike pose ... the crazed, I will kick you in your ugly face look in my eyes ... the Velcro Kangaroos with the pockets on the side. This is how you do it, folks. This is Halloween,\" Mike writes.

Recycled Thomas the Train Costume

Although the children\'s character Thomas the Train has been in the news this year because of lead paint recalls, he is still beloved by many. That includes the son of instructables.com user swissmis76, who is from Long Island.

As these detailed steps show, the boy\'s parents crafted an ingenious toy ride for their son, who got to play a train engineer through his neighborhood. The \"train\" was composed of a borrowed shopping cart, sump pump basin (could be reused), a used window well cover, some cardboard boxes, a cola bottle and some paint, tape and zip ties.

Looks just like the cartoon! Plus, the train makes a good place to store all that Halloween loot.

PET Plastic Bottle Armor Suit

PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastics have come into wide use in recent years, especially for packaging. Sadly, only around 20% is recycled, though the resource savings are substantial.

Kosuke Tsumura, designer for the Final Home brand of urban clothing and accessories, made a splash by turning PET plastic bottles into art. As Pink Tentacle explains, Tsumura made the suit of plastic armor by slicing up bottles and sewing the pieces together with transparent nylon thread.

Coke Can Birdman Costume

Adrian first posted this fantastic birdman costume over at instructables.com. He says he made it out of steel wire, a little duct tape and 60 to 80 old soda cans. Apparently it has been a big hit at several parties, and it\'s not hard to see why.

\"I had just come back from South Africa and I was inspired by the frequent reuse of Coke cans, bottles, bottle caps and the like that I saw,\" wrote Adrian, who is based in Menlo Park, California. Nice!

The creative costumer points out that he did cut himself on the cans a few times while making the outfit, so he counsels caution (and this isn\'t a good one for kids).