🎃 Rot Happens
Your jack-o’-lantern has taken its final bow. This process turns its remains and other organic scraps into a useful soil amendment.
What is composting?
Your television appears dead, but its standby light lives on. This spooky term describes the electricity it still draws.
What is vampire power? Accept phantom power or standby power.
These flying mammals are Halloween icons, but many species also help farmers by eating insect pests.
What are bats?
Your zombie shirt has a small tear. A needle and thread let you do this instead of replacing it.
What is repairing or mending?
That number inside a triangle on plastic packaging identifies this—not a guarantee that your recycling program accepts it.
What is the plastic resin type? Accept type of plastic.
When food decomposes without oxygen in a landfill, it can produce this potent greenhouse gas—the main component of natural gas.
What is methane?
Despite its name, this device can both heat and cool a haunted house by transferring thermal energy between indoors and outdoors.
What is a heat pump?
Some bats and moths perform this service when they move pollen between flowers.
What is pollination?
DAILY DOUBLE: Your costume’s second life fits this economic model, which keeps products and materials circulating through reuse, repair, and other strategies.
What is a circular economy?
Tossing questionable decorations into recycling and hoping for the best has this optimistic nickname.
What is wishcycling?
A compost pile needs these two elements in balance: one supplied generously by dry leaves, the other by fresh grass clippings.
What are carbon and nitrogen?
DAILY DOUBLE: Watts measure power, but this unit measures a bulb’s brightness. Look for it when comparing bulbs for your haunted house.
What are lumens?
Turn down the unnecessary outdoor lights! Excessive artificial light at night creates this form of pollution, which can disrupt nocturnal wildlife.
What is light pollution?
Your bargain werewolf costume is made from polyester. This synthetic fiber is typically produced from this fossil-fuel raw material.
What is petroleum? Accept oil.
A plastic party cup labeled “compostable” may require a commercial facility. The label does not automatically mean it will break down in this smaller setting.
What is a home or backyard compost pile?
These decomposers have cell walls containing chitin—the same structural material found in insect exoskeletons.
What are fungi?
A 100-watt decoration runs for 10 hours. It consumes one of these units commonly used on electricity bills.
What is a kilowatt-hour, or kWh?
A bat’s nighttime navigation system relies on returning sound waves. This is its scientific name.
What is echolocation?
A costume brand advertises one “eco-friendly” accessory while making vague or misleading claims about its overall environmental performance. This practice has this colorful name.
What is greenwashing?
Most recycled plastic bottles do not become plastic bottles again, instead they are downcycled into other items like this
What is carpet or fleece (also accepted: polyester clothing)?
Forget the shovel: this type of composting puts worms to work processing food scraps.
What is vermicomposting?
A 10-watt LED replaces a 60-watt incandescent bulb with the same brightness. This is the percentage reduction in power use.
What is about 83%? Accept 80%.
Wolves can change herbivore populations and behavior, which can then affect vegetation. This ripple through multiple feeding levels is called this.
What is a trophic cascade?
To assess a vampire cape from raw-material extraction through manufacturing, use, and disposal, researchers use this method, abbreviated LCA.
What is a life cycle assessment?
A company takes responsibility for funding or managing its packaging after customers discard it. This policy approach is abbreviated EPR.
What is extended producer responsibility?