The Importance Of Composting Pumpkins
We all love decorating with pumpkins for Halloween and Thanksgiving, but it is important to dispose of your pumpkins sustainably. In Chicago alone, over 500,000 tons of organic waste gets sent to landfills annually.
When pumpkins decompose in a landfill, they release methane gas. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG), second only to carbon dioxide (COâ‚‚) in terms of global emissions caused by human activity. Composting your pumpkins in Chicagoland with WasteNot curbside collection service ensures the nutrients from your pumpkins get turned into finished compost - not methane.
While methane makes up roughly 11% of worldwide GHG emissions, its impact on climate change is significant: methane traps over 28 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Every 100 pounds of pumpkin (10-12 pumpkins) that ends up in a landfill produces about eight pounds of methane. If you have 2-3 pumpkins, composting them with WasteNot will offset about 1-4 lbs of methane.
WasteNot members can easily add the pumpkin pick-up service to your regular collection schedule through the WasteNot Shop.
