How To Reuse & Recycle Pumpkins After Halloween

Don’t let your pumpkin go to waste after Halloween. Proper right here are seven clever strategies to reuse and recycle pumpkins after Halloween to help steer clear of meals waste.

Are you aware that in all probability essentially the most ghoulish issue about Halloween isn’t the spooky ghosts or the creepy Halloween costumes? And it’s undoubtedly not the ghouls or the black cats. It’s actually the meals waste associated to this sooner or later in our calendar.

Based mostly on evaluation, throughout the UK alone, better than half of the 24 million pumpkins carved for Halloween in Britain will not be eaten, and over 2 million gained’t be recycled.

What’s further, 60% of people who buy pumpkins to carve say they eliminate the within flesh. Within the meantime, 80% say they don’t take into consideration a pumpkin’s main objective as a meals merchandise. It’s truly a frightening picture.

7 Strategies To Reuse and Recycle Pumpkins After Halloween

The good news is that there are strategies to cut back meals waste associated to the spooky season. Listed below are seven zero-waste strategies to recycle and reuse your pumpkin after Halloween has handed:

1. Cook dinner dinner It

Pumpkin flesh might be utilized in a variety of different methods to create a variety of tasty treats. The innards might be utilized to make delicious soups, stews, pies, purees, risotto, muffins, bread, cookies, curries and further. The one prohibit is your creativeness!

Get busy on web sites like Pinterest or BBC Good Meals, and likewise you’ll uncover a bunch of pumpkin recipe inspiration for almost any type.

Nonetheless, Halloween might be an especially busy time – significantly if in case you’ve gotten children. Within the occasion you’re too time-poor to utilize up the flesh immediately, then there’s no should bin it! Pumpkins might be frozen merely. Merely dice the flesh, pre-freeze it on a baking tray, after which swap it to a tub or freezer bag for use later.

2. Roast Your Pumpkin Seeds

Are you aware that like butternut squash seeds, it’s possible you’ll roast pumpkin seeds to make a tasty zero-waste snack? Oh certain! These seeds are stuffed with protein, healthful fats, and magnesium, making them low-waste and super good for you.

All you need to do is rinse after which dry your seeds, sooner than roasting them throughout the oven with some oil, paprika and salt for spherical 12 – quarter-hour. Eat them as they’re, or sprinkle them in soups or salads to make a deliciously healthful crunchy topping from one factor that will in another case go to waste.

3. Go away The Seed For The Birds

Within the occasion you’re not a fan of consuming pumpkin seeds, then there’s no should bin them. As an alternative, it’s possible you’ll recycle them by feeding the pumpkin seeds to the birds. They will admire this high-fat take care of no end!

As regards to feeding birds, you don’t should roast the pumpkin seeds throughout the oven. Merely allow the seeds to dry out on a plate in a sunny or warmth spot after which pop them in a hen feeder in your yard. Alternatively, mix with present birdseed to bulk it out.

A phrase of warning though: don’t add any salt or seasoning to the seeds, as this can be harmful to birds.

4. Plant The Seeds

Once you’ve received a yard, then another choice is to keep away from losing the pumpkin seeds for planting subsequent yr. Don’t plant the seeds instantly though – pumpkin seeds have to be sown in late May to June time.

To keep away from losing your seeds, rinse the pumpkin seeds in water to remove the pulp. Subsequent, decide the most important seeds – these often are likely to germinate.

Once you’ve picked out your seeds, space them out on some toilet paper or associated, and go away them to dry in a cool spot for spherical each week. As quickly as dry, pop them in a labelled envelope and retailer them in a cool dry place until planting time subsequent yr. Free pumpkins for subsequent Halloween!

5. Make Crisps

It’s a little-known incontrovertible fact that the pores and pores and skin of the pumpkin is edible. Probably the greatest methods to utilize the pores and pores and skin, personally, is to make tasty crisps from it!

Hubbub says to peel your (unpainted) pumpkin, after which pop the pores and pores and skin side down on a baking tray, sooner than cooking for 8 minutes, until dry. Take the tray out after which very frivolously coat the peelings with oil, sooner than sprinkling with salt and a pinch of paprika or associated. Then pop the tray once more throughout the oven for 10 minutes or until crispy and frivolously browned.

It’s a great way to recycle the pores and pores and skin – proving that no part of a pumpkin should go to waste!

6. Compost Your Pumpkin

After Halloween has been and gone, don’t overlook to compost the pumpkin in your meals waste bin or compost heap. Every last little little bit of your pumpkin is compostable – from the outer pores and pores and skin to the flesh and seeds. Put it in your meals waste bin full, or in case you’re composting at home, chop it up into small bits to help velocity up the decomposition course of.

The one caveat is which you’ll be able to’t compost your pumpkin if in case you’ve gotten painted it. Whereas painted pumpkins can look pretty, many paints are made with plastic or completely different chemical compounds you don’t want in compost. This leaves you unable to recycle your pumpkin in a compost bin or heap.

Painted pumpkins must solely ever be disposed of in a standard waste bin, so I’d on a regular basis advocate leaving your pumpkins unpainted.

7. Make A Pumpkin Chook Feeder

It might actually really feel sustainable to recycle your pumpkin by popping it in your nearest woodland for creatures to munch on. Nonetheless, this isn’t suggestion. Based mostly on the Woodland Perception, pumpkins might make hedgehogs and completely different woodland animals critically ill.

It is as a result of if hedgehogs eat an extreme quantity of of the pumpkin’s fibrous flesh, then it might truly go away them with upset stomachs and diarrhoea. Hedgehogs ought to purchase weight to have the power to outlive the prolonged hibernation interval. Proper now, correct sooner than hedgehogs retreat into hibernation for the winter, an upset stomach could present to be lethal.

The Woodland Perception counsel in its place that you just make a pumpkin hen feeder. The make it, they’re saying it is best to fill your pumpkin with birdseed, and place it on a hen desk. Maintain it clear, and pop it in your compost bin when it begins to rot to steer clear of harming the birds.

Hopefully, now you might have a ton of ideas on one of the best ways to recycle and reuse your pumpkins after Halloween! I consider if we’ve realized one thing from this, that it’s not at all paint a pumpkin!

Do moreover attempt my guides on one of the best ways to have an eco-friendly Halloween and sustainable Halloween decorations it’s possible you’ll make, for further spooktacular ideas!