Halloween Waste - Its SCAAAAARY!
Hope everyone had a creeeeeeepy Halloween! Just came across a great article discussing the large quantities of waste that Halloween can create. It really hit home for me since this was something I was thinking about a lot yesterday as I looked at the pile of individially wrapped mini chocolate bars and chips (contributing to the nutrition of our nation’s youth, I know!!!) we were handing out to all the neighbourhood kiddies when not opening and eating them ourselves!
For starters - DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT THROWING OUT THAT JACK-O-LATERN, especially not if you have a worm bin - this is the stuff that dreams are made of as far as composting worms are concerned! They absolutely love chowing down on decaying members of the cucumber family (squash, pumpkins, watermelons, cantelope etc). Even if you don’t have a worm bin please be sure to put your pumpkin in your normal composter, or break it up and bury it on your property somewhere if you don’t even have a composter!
So what do you do with all the wrappers, boxes etc? Good question, and I guess it depends on how creative/concerned you are.
I’m continuing to shred all my cardboard boxes for my winter composting extravaganza (expect an update on that very soon), and I’ve even devised a plan to deal with all the wrappers and plastic bags etc that I have lying around. As mentioned, I will be insulating my outdoor compost bin this year so as to fend off Old Man Winter. Originally thinking I’d use the KISS principle and simply go get some polystyrene insulation and attach it to the outside of the bin. Well aside from being just plain WRONG from an environmental standpoint (I’m still learning), I realized there were lots of other possibilities. We have a large collection of plastic bags jammed into various closets and crawl spaces around the house, much to my wife’s dismay(I’ve switched to grabbing cardboard boxes at the grocery store, I promise!).
It suddenly occurred to me that all this plastic could be put to good use in the form of an insulation blanket for my composter! Ever since that ‘ahah’ moment I’ve taken things even further by collecting ALL plastic packaging that comes into the house, rather than throwing it out (well ok, NOT the plastic that meat is wrapped in). I’ve been blown away by just HOW much space I am now saving in my garbage!
Anyway, once again I will be providing a composter update soon, so I’ll talk in greater depth about my plans then!
In the meantime, be sure to check out the Halloween waste article: Waste generated by Halloween can be frightening
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This Just In…
Right after finishing my post I came across an interesting blurb released by our regional waste management division - it REALLY put the pumpkin-waste issue in perspective!!
Region of Waterloo is encouraging residents to compost Halloween pumpkins.
An estimated 50,000 pumpkins are used to celebrate Halloween in the region, and contribute about 200 metric tonnes of waste to the regional landfill site. Staff asks residents instead to compost their pumpkins, after removing candles and cutting up the pumpkin.
Imagine how many waste pumpkins there must be in North America right now?!!
Anyway - needless to say, there is no good reason for throwing out your pumpkin.
Technorati Tags: compost, composting, pumpkins, jack-o-lantern, halloween, garbage, waste, packaging
Written by Bentley on November 1st, 2006 with
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