Pumpkin smashes this weekend offer fun, with a lesson on sustainability

Unsure what to do with your leftover decorative pumpkins or jack-o-lanterns from the Halloween season? There's a social and sustainable way to get rid of them this weekend.

Several pumpkin smashes are happening across the Chicago area on Saturday. Participants smash pumpkins and throw them into a compost container. No time to smash your own? Residents can also stop by and drop their pumpkins off and let others do the work.

It's a fun activity for families, organizers say, but it's also a way to learn about composting and sustainability.

Kay McKeen is the founder and executive director of SCARCE, an Illinois-based organization that promotes sustainability and conservation. At this point in the fall season, compost facilities are often getting dry leaves, but for composting to be successful there needs to be a mix of wet and dry materials.

Pumpkins are 90% water, McKeen said, making them a perfect item to throw into the compost heap. Composting also helps curb the decomposition of pumpkins into methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

At the smashes, which SCARCE has helped organize since 2014, participants learn about the basics of composting, such as the need to remove contaminants like stickers from food when doing so. For pumpkins, that means removing googly eyes from those that have been decorated for the season, as well as taking out candles from the inside of carved ones.

"We're teaching our goal of reducing contaminants in food scrap composting, but we're doing it in a family fun way," McKeen said.

Charlie Wein, director of marketing and communications for the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce, said for the past few years the chamber has hosted or sponsored pumpkin smashes that has drawn hundreds of attendees.

This year, the chamber's event will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at 6040 N. Clark.

So many people have leftover pumpkins at this time of year and assume they decompose on their own since it's an organic material, he said. Events like this offer lessons they can take beyond pumpkins and apply to other foods.

"And then of course it's just fun," Wein added. "How many times in the year do you get to sort of do something like that that is also eco-friendly and sustainable?"