Tips To Have A Sustainable Halloween
Halloween seems to become more popular each year, with increasing numbers of families joining in on the festivities, it’s a time to get creative and showcase your spooky side.
Pumpkins are a natural and iconic part of Halloween, but there are also many elements of Halloween celebrations which highlight ecologically unfriendly practices. To help you have a more sustainable Halloween, we’ve put together some useful tips!
Carving a pumpkin for Halloween has become a time-honoured tradition, starting in Ireland, and moving to the United States via Irish immigrants, it is nearly impossible to not see one adorning a doorstep on a late October evening.
However, the use of pumpkins during Halloween has become a large source for food waste, with an average of 18,000 tonnes being sent to landfill each year, but there are ways to prevent this.
Food
It’s all too easy to forget that Pumpkins are food, with a large variety of dishes being able to be made:
• Roasted pumpkin seeds are one of the easiest quick snacks to make and taste delicious! Simply use the seeds from the pumpkin and place on a baking tray in the oven. Cook with salt or sugar depending on your preference.
• Pumpkin Pie is another popular dish, utilising the flesh of the pumpkin as a pulp to make the pie filling.
• Pumpkin pie leather (also known as pumpkin fruit leather) is made by dehydrating the pureed pumpkin, a great snack while on the go!
• Pumpkin soup is a nice and simple dish to make, and perfect for the colder months.
Composting
Pumpkins make ideal compost fodder, just make sure to reduce the pumpkin into smaller pieces before composting, this will speed up the decomposition process. This is even more important when placing pumpkin waste in to a wormery, as too much food at once can cause problems for the worms. It is imperative to remove any traces of candle wax from the pumpkin before composting. You can even organise a pumpkin smash, turning a laborious chore in to a fun filled activity for the kids!
Most Halloween treats and sweets can also be composted but it is ideal to always use them if you can, pass them on to friends, or donate them if you can’t eat them in your own household.
Growing
Pumpkins are filled to the brim with seeds, and if you’re not looking to compost or eat them, why not grow them?
• Take the biggest seeds you can find and aim to keep around three times the number of pumpkins you are looking to grow, this will give the plants a better chance to grow.
• Dry out the seeds for roughly one week, before storing them in a cool, dry place. Pumpkin seeds are typically sewn in the latter half of April, starting with indoor growth, and then planting outdoors later.
Utilising the benefits of Pumpkins isn’t the only way to have a sustainable Halloween, you can also adopt an eco-friendly attitude to Halloween costumes and decorations.
