Pumpkins are the centre-piece of North American’s Halloween celebrations. Even though they are a delicious food, part of the popular squash family, millions of pumpkins are used simply for decoration on Halloween and immediately discarded into the garbage. However, throwing your pumpkin into the garbage does not make good green sense.
The Department of US Census Bureau reports that in the USA alone more than one billion pounds of pumpkins were produced in 2006. The $101 million dollar pumpkin industry is potentially disastrous for local landfills. Compost organizations are urging individuals to put used pumpkins into the compost instead of the landfill.
Pumpkins are a great addition to the compost. All you need to do is to remove the wax and candles and put the pumpkin into your backyard composter. Some compost organizations advocate for cutting the pumpkin up first or smashing the pumpkin before you put it in the composter. The smaller the vegetable matter the quicker it will compost.
If you don’t have your own composter, check with your local municipal or state composting service. Numerous Canadian communities are including pumpkins as part of their kitchen waste pick-up service. If your community doesn’t offer this service contact your local compost education centre to find out about community pumpkin smashing events. If you use pumpkins at Halloween, make a little extra effort to keep them out of the landfill.
Greenhouse Gas News reports that global methane emissions from landfill are estimated to be between 30 and 70 million tons each year. Most of this landfill methane currently comes from developed countries, where the levels of waste tend to be highest. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that municipal solid waste landfills are the second largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, accounting for nearly 23 % of emissions in 2006.
Everything we can do to reduce our contribution of compostable materials to local landfills is a reduction in greenhouse gas production and subsequent climate warming.
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