Fall—a season of colorful leaves and pumpkin décor. But what happens when the season is over? In an effort to keep decaying pumpkins out of landfills, the University of Illinois Extension will host its annual Pumpkin Smash on November 7, says Wendy Ferguson, communications and marketing coordinator.
“We will have the Pumpkin Smash out at Veterans Park, as we have in the past. That keeps pumpkins out of landfills, where they can decompose and add to the methane in our atmosphere,” says Ferguson. “What we’ll do is smash them in a number of different ways, and then they will be carted away to be composted rather than just dumped into a landfill.”
The Pumpkin Smash is a project in collaboration with SCARCE, an Illinois environmental nonprofit. Since the effort began in 2014, greenhouse gas emissions from landfills have been reduced by nearly 1,200 tons of carbon dioxide.
