Around 17 million pumpkins are bought for Halloween each year, but only 20% are used for anything afterwards. Millions of pumpkins will then be discarded as food waste.
Recently there has been a lot of misinformation on social media on how to dispose of them, including encouraging people to leave them in woodlands, parks, nature reserves and countryside areas.
We ask visitors not to dump their unwanted pumpkins, as leaving them to rot on the woodland floor is not a form of natural recycling or suitable wildlife feeding because:
- Pumpkins aren’t a naturally occurring substance in our woods and heaths; they’re an introduced cultivar originally from North America, so aren’t a part of the diet of the wildlife found here. Animals that consume the rotting waste can become ill. Pumpkin flesh can cause severe illness in hedgehogs, right as they’re about to enter hibernation.
- Large amounts of fleshy rotting food can act as ‘honeypot’ areas, drawing in large numbers of urban rats, spreading disease among wildlife and pets.
- Pumpkins are often painted or decorated with paint or objects like lights/candles; these are harmful to wildlife if eaten, and polluting to the environment.
- The build-up of unnaturally occulting biomass such as pumpkin flesh in the environment can over time, change the delicate nutrient and PH balances in the soils, endangering fragile native woodland and heathland plant communities. Such woodland and heathland plants have evolved and adapted specifically over a long time to their natural environments and any changes can ultimately endanger them and the insects that rely on them.
- The dumped food waste then has to be cleared up by the countryside team staff.
Pumpkins can be composted at home or used for a variety of recipes. For information on Elmbridge Borough Council’s food waste collection service, please visit Food waste collection.