Instead of buying another bulky plastic pumpkin pail-which inevitably ends up in the garbage after Halloween-encourage your kids to collect their candy in reusable canvas bags or pillowca... read full tip

Instead of buying another bulky plastic pumpkin pail-which inevitably ends up in the garbage after Halloween-encourage your kids to collect their candy in reusable canvas bags or pillowcases.

Cute candy containers such as those plastic pumpkins are fairly inexpensive, but they're made from virgin plastic and are rarely recycled.

If your scary little monsters collect their treats in reusable sacks, you'll save yourself a couple of bucks, and prevent those orange plastic eyesores from haunting the landfill for the next thousand years.

If just 1 percent of kids were to go trick-or-treating this year with a reusable bag instead of a disposable plastic carrier, 200,000 pounds of plastic could be diverted from the nation's landfills and incinerators. This is enough plastic material to build a pumpkin pail the size of a baseball stadium.