CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The jack-o’-lantern by the front door that looked festive last week became instantly dated when the calendar flipped from Halloween to Nov. 1.
One composting advocacy group recommended smashing pumpkins instead of throwing them into the garbage.
Kay McKean, founder and executive director of the composting advocacy group SCARCE, said tossing pumpkins into the trash means they will wind up in a landfill. At the landfill, McKean said, the pumpkins will decompose in the dark, emitting harmful methane gas.
SCARCE held the first pumpkin smash event in the Chicago area in 2014. Back then, there were just three sites to break down pumpkins for composting. This Saturday morning there will be 56 pumpkin smash sites across the region.
People can use sledge hammers, baseball bats, catapults, and long drops to smash the pumpkins into a pulp, which is then retrieved and composted. The end result is a mixture that is good for the soil.
"Some have a target in the rolloff, so they've made that red and white target like a bullseye, people throw it at the target and then it splatters and remains in the rolloff," McKean told WBBM Newsradio.
She added that the event is a fun way to learn about do's and don'ts of composting. For example, she said, you must remove all stickers and decorations from the pumpkins.
"So that when their community has food scrap composting available to them, they'll know 'no stickers on your banana peel' and those kinds of things. It's a stepping stone to food scrap composting across our state,” McKean said.
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