The fate of the jack-o'-lantern
Halloween is over and there is now 1.5 billion pounds of carved pumpkins rotting on people’s front porches.
About 98% of pumpkins grown are used for decoration and jack-o'-lanterns. The remaining pumpkins are processed and canned as food. Think about that for a second. In the United States alone, we purchase 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkin just to decorate — and then that is it. We don’t need them any longer and most of them get thrown into the trash. Are pumpkins an environmental problem? Let’s take a look.
Environmental impact
All plants absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen, so growing pumpkins in the first place is a positive for the environment. Plants also help keep our atmosphere a bit cooler, another positive.
Of course, those pumpkins required water and gas to grow and be delivered to their final destinations, so that is a negative. However, as products go, using pumpkins as decoration and enjoyment is not that big of an environmental hit.
However, we can make it even better by not throwing those pumpkins away. Instead, the pumpkins can be fed to animals or composted. Both provide much greater environmental benefits than throwing them away.
Trash vs. compost
When you throw a pumpkin away, it is going to rot in a landfill. So it seems pretty similar to composting — but it’s not.
When something rots in a landfill, methane is released. Methane is a much greater atmospheric warming gas than even carbon dioxide. In contrast, when a pumpkin is slowly turned into soil through composting, far less greenhouse gases are released and instead of taking landfill space, your pumpkin can be turned into valuable soil.
A step-by-step guide
1. Enjoy Halloween and those jack-o'-lanterns.
2. If you have chickens, they would love to eat the remains of the jack-o'-lantern. Just be sure to make sure the pumpkin is not molding or rotting already. Deer or other wildlife will also feed on fresh pumpkin.
3. For all remaining old pumpkins, take them to a place in your garden, smash them into smaller pieces, and then cover with a layer of leaves. The leaves are important for the composting process. If you leave the pumpkin sitting out in the open, then it will rot and produce a lot of methane. However, the layer of leaves gets the composting process started and reduces the emission of the greenhouse gases.
The good news is that using pumpkins for decoration is not too hard on the environment, and it is far better than using plastic decorations. Just make sure you take that last step and compost those jack-o'-lantern remains so those pumpkins can help create a rich soil for other plants next year.
Mike Szydlowski is science coordinator for Columbia Public Schools.
TIME FOR A POP QUIZ
1. Out of every 100 pounds of pumpkins grown, how many pounds are used for food?
2. What should you check before feeding animals pumpkins?
3. How is composting different from letting something rot?
4. Why is methane harmful to our atmosphere?
5. Which is better: decorating with pumpkins or fake Halloween decorations? Why?
LAST WEEK’S POP QUIZ ANSWERS
1. Why do some plants produce fruits?
Plants produce fruits to attract animals to take the fruit and spread their seeds farther away from the parent plant.
2. What happens if a plant drops all of its seeds directly below it?
All of those plants would have to compete with the parent plant and many would not survive.
3. Besides fruit, what are other ways that plants can spread their seeds away from itself?
Many plants have seeds that can easily be carried in the wind.
4. Why has the spread of Osage orange trees slowed down?
No animals currently eat the seed as those animals are now extinct.
5. Do you think Osage orange wood floats or sinks in water? Why?
Osage orange wood sinks in water because it is the densest of all wood.