Half-a-Ton of Pumpkin Guts

Nothing better to do on a Friday afternoon than smash a ton, more like half a ton, of pumpkins! Today the board members got together to hold a pumpkin smash event.

Organic waste in landfills is the third largest contributor of methane into our environment. By smashing and composting the pumpkins, we helped reduce methane emissions. After picking up more than 120 pumpkins from community members, the board members got to smashing. We ended up finding that the most effective, and might I add, fun, technique was dropping pumpkin from a ladder.

I found it somewhat satisfying to smash a pumpkin to bits and watch the number on the scale grow. The board members jammed to music and worked hard for multiple hours before finally shoveling that last bit of pumpkin into the composting bags. We ended up with 1,230.7 pounds of pumpkin guts, half a ton of organic waste kept from landfills!

Finally, we spread out the compost into a handful of private composting bins and multiple communal composting sites. Our pumpkin smash event was well worth the back pain and pumpkin-car-stench. We hope to hold a large pumpkin smash next year open to the whole community!