How to Recycle Halloween Candy

Halloween is such an exciting time for kids. It's the only day of the year that sees you gain ten pounds of candy for a few hours of walking around. And you're allowed out after dark. Trick-or-treating truly is the sport of kings participated in on a holiday second only to Christmas. But every year we overlook the fact that parents are so mean they won't let us eat that ten pounds of candy in one night. We wait for months for Halloween. We look forward to it so expectantly. And when it gets here we love every minute of it. Fast forward two months or three or six. Eight pounds of candy, give or take, get thrown in the trash.

This instructable is to dedicated to anyone who has ever had to throw away Halloween candy. For those of you who haven't, it's sadder than a dead puppy. What? Melodrama? Fine I'll get on with it.

From the environmentalist side of things, 1 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day and 2 billion live on less than $2.50. Meanwhile an estimated 40% of food in America is thrown away each year. I'm not blaming any of us lazy Americans, but no matter where you live it would help to make an effort and if possible educate the next generation on how to "live greener."

Step 1: Separate

Note: Step 1 assumes the completion of step 0: gather Halloween candy.

Now separate the candy into five groups:

Hard Candy
(candy coated or shelled candy doesn't count. M&Ms are chocolate and skittles are chewy)

Chocolate
(chocolate-flavored (e.g. tootsie rolls) belong under chewy)

Chewy
(The only Chewbacca candy I know of is PEZ and thus is hard candy)

Gummy
(gum is not gummy it is chewy)

Miscellaneous
(Oddly enough whatchamacallits are not miscellaneous, they are chocolate)

Comments

[Cleo420]

You can also sort by colour and make stained-glass cookies - Make sugar cookies with lots of cut-outs, fill cut-outs with crushed hard candies, bake. The hard candy will melt creating a coloured-glass effect within the cut-out portion of the cookie. Very pretty.

[AMAZONIAbydjljwilliams]

In Australia we don't have Halloween candy collectors..although last year I had my FIRST ever kids turn up at the front door dressed in costume! For the first time in months I had candy, so phew! I didn't notice egg cartons in their little witchypoo pockets, but you can't be too careful as a Halloween virgin!
However interesting your ideas are, are you actually telling me, your pry these candy goodies from the hands of children to recycle them?
I always thought the children dressed up, mugged the neighbors of candy, then consumed in abandon until lapsing into sugar induced coma's!

[LaserDave]

You sure have thought of everything here!! Such a great idea and very well done instructable, I found it to be a fun read even though I would never have the opportunity to do any of it (no kids = no candy).

I did have a question about one of the photos in the set near that incredibly inventive Gummy Bear Lamp (is it yours??) - the picture of "Candy Heaven". I cannot tell if it is a side-by-side collage of the many types of candy, or if it's an actual "Bulk Barn" retail situation. I could not imagine that massive layout being real, it would be a nightmare to keep each type sorted and maintained. Was this a photo you found on the net? I would love to learn the circumstances of this mesmerising picture.

Again, great job!!
~Dave~

[rsharpe7]

The lamp isn't mine. I found all of the images online. I was just using them to illustrate ideas. The "candy heaven" picture is not a collage. It was from a store that I have no affiliation with. Similar stores used to be very common in American malls, but they are getting harder to come by.

[scoochmaroo]

This is a robust list!