Halloween's dirty secret: pumpkin food waste

Beth Barnett • Oct 25, 2021

Welcome to our Climate Horror Stories for Halloween 2021!

It’s that time of the year again: the supermarket shelves are stocked with multi-packs of sweets, Instagram is inundated with spaniels dressed as spiders, and small children wear sheets over their heads and get hyped on sugar: you guessed it, it’s Halloween!

But this glorious celebration of all that’s ghoulish and grim has a dirty secret (and it ain’t so little). Every year in the UK, as we happily decorate our homes ‘for fall’ we purchase a mind-blowing 10 million pumpkins. Of those, 95%* are used as Halloween decorations and then thrown away, adding an enormous 18,000 tonnes of food waste to the teetering pile we produce each year.

*The other 5% are either eaten or turned into horse-drawn carriages. We’re not sure.

Almost 40% of us buy a pumpkin just to carve it out into a lantern before chucking it straight into landfill. And while it’s understandable to think that as a natural substance, surely a pumpkin would rot wherever it ends up, unfortunately it’s not that simple. By putting a pumpkin to landfill, we’re just adding to those notorious gases like methane, changes in oxygen levels and temperature in landfills mean our foods can’t decompose naturally like they would in a compost heap.

Another thing to feel guilty about I hear you say? And what if you can already hear your children’s plaintive cries when you announce you’ve become a Halloween grinch? Never fear! Here at Avery and Brown we’ve come up with some tips to help you avoid adding to the problem, while still maintaining a squash-filled All Hallows Eve.

Avery & Brown's Top Tips

The easiest change is to put your used pumpkin onto a compost heap, or into your food bin rather than into your general waste. Alternatively, you can chop some of it up and leave it out for the birds and squirrels.

Better still, make use of it! Once you’ve decorated your doorstep for the night, why not turn it into something tasty? Apparently 1 in 7 of us don’t regard pumpkins as food, which isn’t surprising considering the way supermarkets often divide pumpkins into carving/edible versions. Don’t be fooled, it’s just a marketing ploy – even if it’s labelled a carving pumpkin, it can still be turned into something delicious.

Here are our top recipes for your pumpkin carving 'leftovers':

There are hundreds of ways to devour your pumpkin – from soups to curries to jams. Anything you already make with butternut squash, or sweet potatoes? Just substitute with a pumpkin
Thinking about channelling your inner American? Then try out this amazing pumpkin pie recipe that will make use of the flesh
Don’t forget about the seeds! You can roast them with salt and pepper to make a tasty snack, or topping on salads/roast veg. Check out this how to from Jamie Oliver
If you’re into your home brewing, one of our favourite breweries Toast have come up with an awesome recipe for using up your old pumpkins and bread to make a delicious beer

If you’re thinking, "eeew that’s gross: it’s covered in candle wax and my children’s sticky fingers, and it’s been outside for two days", well... fair enough.

As an alternative, why not buy a more permanent version. Papier-mâché pumpkins, like this one from Hobbycraft mean the kids can still have loads of fun painting them and you can keep them for next year! If you’re after something more sophisticated, you can buy ceramic pumpkins like this one. Send us your tips for avoiding pumpkin food waste and any pictures from your experiments!

Stay tuned to here on Outpost and over on our social channels - we'll be publishing a new Climate Horror Story every day this week in the run up to Halloween!

References and further reading:

Hubbub, Pumpkin rescue
World Economic Forum, 'Are pumpkins a problem for the planet?'
The Guardian 'Halloween food waste'

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