Halloween season is a horror for sustainability, with last year seeing seven million costumes ending up in the bin.

Instead of giving up the ghost, the North London Waste Authority has launched its #SewSpooky campaign to reduce cost and waste by encouraging more people to make outfits themselves and to give old outfits a new lease of life by passing them on to friends and family.

The group says a scary £510 million is spent on Halloween costumes each year in the UK, with nearly half only being worn once.

These barely used outfits contribute to the 300,000 tonnes of clothes that end up in landfill every year.

Whilst half of the people surveyed about the scheme weren’t sure about using a costume that had been worn before by someone they didn’t know, 73% were happy with the idea of receiving a used costume from family or friends.

Councillor Clyde Loakes, Chair of the NLWA, said: “People love to join in and get dressed up for Halloween but with so many outfits being worn for only one day, it creates a terrible amount of textile waste.”