City of West Chicago issued the following announcement on Oct. 1.
“Don’t Trash Your Pumpkins – Compost Them” is an annual effort by communities in Illinois to divert pumpkins from landfills by providing locations for residents to drop-off jack-o-lanterns to be composted. It is held each year the Saturday after Halloween. This year, the First United Methodist Church of West Chicago, 643 E. Washington Street, is teaming up with the West Chicago Environmental Commission to host such an event on Saturday, November 3, 2018, from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
In 2014, Wheaton, Elmhurst and SCARCE hosted the first pumpkin recycling collections. This collection composted 9.31 tons of pumpkins and helped to improve composting laws in Illinois. By 2016 the Pumpkin Collection grew to over 31 sites across the state. To date, the Pumpkin Collection has diverted over 93 tons of pumpkins from landfills.
Why Keep Pumpkins Out of the Landfill?
- They are full of nutrients that are good for the soil
- They are 90 percent water – good for our soil, bad for our landfills
- Most of the pumpkins processed in the U.S. are grown in Illinois – keep the water and nutrients here!
- Decomposing organics make landfills the third largest producers of methane – a greenhouse gas
- Composting returns nutrients and water back to our earth
To learn more about reducing valuable resources from being sent to the landfill, and also how to correctly compost pumpkins by removing contaminants such as candles, stickers and any sort of decoration before composting, visit the SCARCE website at www.scarce.org.
Original source can be found here.
Source: City of West Chicago
Alerts Sign-up