You won’t be able to escape them. They will haunt you in the supermarket, they will follow you around the greengrocers, and you’ll be chased into fields full of hundreds them — yes, we’re talking about pumpkins. Come October, people go wild for the squash, which has become a big part of the Halloween tradition the world round.
An estimated 10 million pumpkins are grown in the UK every year, with 95 per cent hollowed out into lanterns for Halloween. Experts say that every October, the UK wastes around 18,000 tonnes of perfectly edible pumpkin as a direct result of the holiday. That’s the equivalent weight of 1,500 double decker buses, or enough to make a bowl of soup for every person in the country. Martin Goss, a Colchester council representative responsible for waste says: “Each year, more and more pumpkins are being used for Halloween decorations, and it’s important that these don’t become a Halloween nightmare and end up in a landfill. To avoid this, we’re asking Colchester residents to recycle their pumpkin leftovers by cutting them up and placing them in with their weekly food waste or, if they are too large, place them on top or next to their caddy.” Goss’s message is one that needs to be followed by the rest of the UK.