And although nothing says fall like the hand-carved smile on a plump little pumpkin, the practice is a touch unsustainable. With nearly 1 billion pounds of pumpkin corpses sent to landfill each year, those ghoulish gourd faces come with some serious emissions.
How wasteful is Halloween?
To put that into context, that’s around 2000 tonnes of plastic waste or a horrifying 83 million plastic bottles caused by the Halloween festivities. Even more disturbing is the fact that the plastic polymer used in over 63% of these costumes, polyester, can take anywhere between 20-200 years to decompose.
Are pumpkins wasted in Halloween?
Here are some tips to enjoy Halloween while minimizing your environmental impact. Millions of pumpkins are tossed in the trash after Halloween, clogging up landfills and adding to food waste.
How do you not waste a pumpkin carving?
Simply add some string to your pumpkin so you can hang it from a tree or fence post, then put plenty of bird seed inside. You might also want to check that there are big enough holes carved into the front so birds will be able to get in. You could even cut one big circle into the front to give them a clear entry point.
How much pumpkin is wasted?
Over 18,000 tonnes of edible pumpkin end up in landfill sites every year – the equivalent of 1500 double decker buses, or 360 million portions of pumpkin pie.
How many Halloween costumes end up in landfills?
“80% of Halloween costumes end up in the landfill,” said Executive Director of Angelina Beautiful Clean Emily Thornton. They encourage residents to approach the sustainable lifestyle during the spooky holiday.
Are Halloween costumes bad for the environment?
Did you know? 7 million Halloween costumes are thrown out every year. This is the equivalent to 83 million plastic bottles, most of which will end up in landfill. Just in the UK, around 2000 tonnes of plastic waste is generated from people throwing away their Halloween costumes.
What happens to unsold pumpkins after Halloween?
It Starts In the Patches
In those cases, the excess pumpkins are typically donated to local zoos, given to a farm’s animals such as hungry pigs and eager cattle, or “disced” by farmers and used as natural fertilizer for the land.
Are pumpkins bad for landfills?
According to the group, pumpkins disposed of in landfills create methane gas, which is a greenhouse emission that hurts the environment. And landfills are the third biggest source of methane in the United States.
How many pumpkins are thrown away after Halloween?
The pumpkin waste amounts to about 18,000 tons of pumpkin, including flesh and seeds.
What can you do with pumpkin carving waste?
8 Eco-Friendly Ways To Dispose Of Your Halloween Pumpkin
- Compost it. Like all organic, plant-based food waste, a pumpkin will easily break down in the compost.
- Bury it.
- Leave it for wildlife.
- Feed it to chickens.
- Harvest the seeds.
- Make pumpkin puree.
- Make a pumpkin planter.
- Keep it a little longer.
What can you do with pumpkin waste?
5 things to do with your pumpkin instead of putting it in the bin
- 1) Compost Your Pumpkin.
- 2) Feed it to wildlife.
- 3) Put down the knife.
- 4) Eat your pumpkin.
- 5) Freeze it.
Can you eat carving pumpkins?
Can I eat carving pumpkins? You may have seen pumpkins in shops labelled ‘carving pumpkins’. Don’t let the sticker lead you astray, these pumpkins are perfectly edible. However carving pumpkins have been bred to be large, thin fleshed and robust.
Is pumpkin carving sustainable?
When you’re done with your carved pumpkins, these jack-o’-lanterns can be composted instead of thrown in the trash. Unless your pumpkin was painted, any leftover pumpkin remains can be composted! If you’re on campus, toss it in a compost collection bin.
How much waste is produced during Halloween?
According to a study by environmental group Hubbub, 83% of Halloween costumes are made using non-recyclable oil-based plastics; meaning they are set for landfill. That means that for just one day of use, close to 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste is generated – which equates to 83 million plastic bottles being thrown away.
How many people carve pumpkins every year?
This statistic shows the number of people who planned to carve pumpkins for Halloween in the United States from 2017 to 2022.
| Characteristic | Number of people in millions |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 150.01 |
| 2018 | 147.88 |
| 2019 | 145.09 |
| 2020 | 151.95 |
How much Halloween candy is wasted each year?
Behind the numbers (Apartment Therapy): “Every year, Americans throw away about $400 million worth of uneaten sweets from trick-or-treating. That’s a lot of food waste.
How can we be sustainable on Halloween?
Clean Styrofoam and make Halloween masks. Turn cardboard boxes into tombstones. Make other creative decorations from netting from bags of oranges, cotton balls, leaves and branches from the yard, etc. Reuse your decorations from the previous year.
What happens to Halloween costumes?
The simple answer is, they’re thrown away or forgotten about, and our landfills are heaving with the single-use plastics, both biodegradable and non-biodegradable textiles, and other environmentally damaging materials contained within them.
How long does it take a pumpkin to decompose?
about 8 to 12 weeks
How long does it take for pumpkins to decompose? Whole pumpkins that haven’t been cut or carved take about 8 to 12 weeks to start decomposing after they are fully grown. What is this? Once you cut a pumpkin up, it will take about 5 to 10 days to start to rot in a compost pile.
How many pumpkins go to landfill?
But after Halloween comes the sometimes unpleasant task of disposing of old pumpkins. According to the US Department of Energy, most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in a landfill.