Food October 18, 2026

Give Your Pumpkin an Afterlife

Food scraps make up about a quarter of what goes into U.S. municipal landfills, producing 58 percent of the methane gas escaping from them.

Whatever pumpkin ends up on your porch this month is going to get eaten. The only question is by whom: your family, a farmer’s pigs, the worms and microbes in a compost pile, or the oxygen-starved bacteria buried in a landfill. Only that last group turns a pumpkin into methane.

But before we get to the pumpkin details, many of you have switched to Sustainable Practice membership for more benefits, and we want to make sure all of you know about those benefits! You’ll still get One Step This Week, but we are offering much more! Expand your positive impact on Earth by becoming a Sustainable Practitioner today! www.sustainablepractice.life

Perhaps you sealed last year’s jack-o’-lantern’s fate by sliding it into a trash bag. You can have a plan for this year’s gourd before it leaves the farm stand.

This step is on the Food pathway, which covers how we meet one of our most basic needs: sustainable eating, growing, and food system practices, from the field to the table to the compost bin. A pumpkin is a seasonal reminder to practice the whole loop: buy food you intend to use, eat what you can, and return the rest to the soil.

Why your porch pumpkin matters to our planet

In 2022, U.S. farms harvested about 2 billion pounds of pumpkins destined to be sold whole, mostly for decoration. Environmental scientist Robert Czubaszek of Bialystok University of Technology estimates that if those pumpkins ended up in landfills, they would release pollution comparable to the yearly emissions of more than 45,000 cars.

Pumpkins heading to the landfill are part of a much larger pattern. The EPA estimates that food makes up about 24 percent of the trash in municipal landfills, but because food is completely biodegradable, it produces about 58 percent of the methane those landfills release to the air. Composted pumpkins, unlike landfilled pumpkins, break down with oxygen and release very little methane. The same pumpkin travels a different pollution path depending on whether it gets buried under a landfill cap.

The main challenge: a pumpkin with a plan

Start at the farm stand. If you want a pumpkin you can eat, look for a pie pumpkin. These are usually smaller than jack-o’-lantern types, with sweeter, denser, less watery flesh. But large jack-o’-lantern varieties are edible too, and cook up with fairly good results. Many heirloom pumpkins sold for decoration, like Long Island Cheese, Jarrahdale, and the red-orange Cinderella, also make good cooking squash.

Then think twice about the knife. Cornell horticulturist Steve Reiners says a healthy, uncarved pumpkin can last 8 to 12 weeks, while a carved jack-o’-lantern typically lasts only 10 days. So an uncarved pumpkin on your steps today can be soup in November. Put a scarf or other decorations on it, but leave your pumpkin whole if you’d like to eat it later. Extension educators advise against cooking a pumpkin after you've carved and displayed it. Just as your skin protects you from infections and disease, a pumpkin’s unbroken skin does, too.

Give every Halloween pumpkin you buy a sustainable destination for November 1:

Your kitchen. Roast the flesh for soup, curry, or pie, and roast the seeds for a snack.
A compost pile. Chop it up so it breaks down faster, and pull out the seeds unless you want a pumpkin patch next summer.
A farm. The nonprofit Pumpkins for Pigs connects donors with farms and sanctuaries across the United States and Canada through a searchable map. Skip bleach “preservative” sprays, which make pumpkins unsafe for animals.
A community collection. Many towns run post-Halloween pumpkin smashes or compost drop-offs. Remove candles, wax, paint, glitter, and stickers first, since decorated pumpkins can’t be composted.

Find your next step

Every reader is somewhere different on the Food pathway, so here are two side challenges. Pick the one that feels like a stretch, not a strain.

If meatless meals are new to you, start with a blend. Take a fall recipe you already make with ground beef, like chili, shepherd’s pie, or meatballs, and swap a third to half of the meat for cooked lentils, beans, or finely chopped mushrooms. Researchers at the World Resources Institute calculated that replacing just 30 percent of the beef in Americans’ burgers with mushrooms would cut about 10.5 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, equal to taking 2.3 million cars off the road. Burgers are only about a third of the ground beef we eat, so blending into chili and pasta sauce multiplies the effect.

If you already blend, build a meal around squash. Winter squash is in season through fall and winter and, according to the USDA, keeps on a countertop or in a pantry for several months. Pair it with beans for protein: roasted delicata with black beans and rice, butternut and chickpea curry, or a stuffed acorn squash. The climate math is lopsided in your favor. In the largest analysis of food footprints, Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek found that beans and other pulses averaged under 1 kilogram of greenhouse gas per 100 grams of protein. Beef from beef herds averaged about 50, and even the median beef producer emitted about 25.

Bring someone with you

Some of the most valuable steps on this pathway happen at other people’s tables. Stanford psychologists found that people are moved less by being told what most people do than by hearing what people are starting to do. When a café sign said some people “are starting to limit how much meat they eat,” lunch customers ordered a meatless meal twice as often (34 percent compared with 17 percent) as those who read that some people simply “limit how much meat they eat.”

So say it out loud. Tell your sister you’re starting to cook a pumpkin instead of tossing it. Bring a half-lentil chili to the Halloween potluck and mention it. Ask your neighbors whether anyone wants to share a run to the farm that takes pumpkins.

Your one step this week

Before October ends, decide where every pumpkin in your home will go on November 1, and make that plan easy to follow: buy an edible variety, carve as little as you need to, and look up your nearest compost drop-off or Pumpkins for Pigs farm now, before the porch fills up. Then, wherever you are on the Food pathway, take one more step: blend one familiar recipe, cook one squash-and-bean dinner, or invite one friend or family member to try either with you.

A pumpkin is a small thing, but it gives you a simple way to practice what the Food pathway asks of all of us: buy food on purpose, eat what you can, and send the rest back to the soil instead of the landfill. Sustainable Practices: Your Handbook for Effective Action and www.suspra.com map the full Food pathway, and the One Step articles below will help you keep going after the last trick-or-treater goes home.

Sustainable Practice empowers you to protect our planet in practical ways. Share this article with whoever buys the pumpkins in your house so this year’s jack-o’-lantern gets a second act instead of ending up in a trash bag.

References and Resources

Quantifying Methane Emissions from Landfilled Food Waste — U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (food is about 24 percent of municipal landfill waste but produces about 58 percent of landfills’ fugitive methane; landfills are the third-largest human source of U.S. methane)
Pumpkins – Spooky Good Eating! — Nebraska Extension, Sarah Browning (pie pumpkins are smaller, sweeter, and denser; jack-o’-lantern types cook with fairly good results; don’t cook a carved, displayed pumpkin; heirloom varieties suited to cooking)
How Long Does A Pumpkin Last? — NPR, The Salt (Cornell’s Steve Reiners: uncarved pumpkins last 8 to 12 weeks, jack-o’-lanterns five to 10 days)
Eco Living – Feed your pumpkin to livestock to keep it out of the landfill — Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (compost or donate pumpkins; remove glue, stickers, lights, candles, glitter, paint, and wax first)
Pumpkins for Pigs: Find a Donation Site — Pumpkins for Pigs Foundation (searchable map of farms, sanctuaries, and rescues that accept pumpkins for feed)
This Flavor-Packed Burger Saves As Many Emissions As Taking 2 Million Cars Off the Road — World Resources Institute (replacing 30 percent of beef in U.S. burgers with mushrooms would cut 10.5 million tons CO2e a year; burgers are about one-third of ground beef consumed)
Winter Squash — USDA SNAP-Ed Seasonal Produce Guide (in season fall and winter; stores on a countertop or pantry for several months)
Greenhouse gas emissions per 100 grams of protein — Our World in Data, from Poore and Nemecek (2018), Science (other pulses about 0.84 kg CO2e per 100 g protein; beef from beef herds about 50)
Less meat or sustainable meat? — Our World in Data, Hannah Ritchie (median beef footprint of about 25 kg CO2e per 100 g protein)
Change behaviors by changing perception of normal — Stanford Report, on Sparkman and Walton (2017), Psychological Science (a “starting to limit meat” message doubled meatless lunch orders, 34 percent vs. 17 percent)