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The Great Pumpkin: Creative Post-Halloween Uses
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
Halloween just past last weekend. How many of you have some form of pumpkin decorating your house; maybe a jack-o-lantern? I’ll bet some of you wonder if there are better ways of disposing of poor, old jack once he goes rotten, year after year, rather than throwing him in the trash (unless you are in San Francisco). Well, you are in luck! Here I have compiled a list of some creative ways people deal with their leftover pumpkins and a bit of lore, too.
- Cooking
This is probably the most common (and obvious) use of the pumpkin. If you have yet to carve yours out, don’t throw those guts away! Most parts of the pumpkin are actually edible, including the seeds and the shell. When ripe, pumpkins can be boiled, baked, steamed or roasted, as well as mashed, pureed or turned into pumpkin soup. And let’s not forget the big holiday favorite: pumpkin pie. Be sure to look online or through your cookbooks for recipes, and if you plan to use anything other than seeds for cooking, make sure the pumpkin is not rotten before using it! - Chucking
Yes, Pumpkin Chucking is becoming quite the fun way of disposing of your unwanted pumpkins. This fun activity involves teams working to build the best pumpkin launcher/destroyer. The purpose of the event is to throw the pumpkin as far as possible. In the past, devices such as catapults, trebuchets, ballistas and even air cannons have been used for this crazy event. If you do decide to have your own chucking event, be sure you take it to a large field. I highly doubt your neighbors would want pumpkin chunks hurling through their windows. - Pumpkin Festivals
Many places the world over hold pumpkin festivals, including the US and Ireland. Usually the big deal with these events is the pumpkin competitions, to see who can grow the biggest and best pumpkin (which is not much use if you’ve already carved yours out). Ireland’s event includes entertainment and parades, or you can attend the Pumpkin Fest in New Hampshire which has fireworks and is trying to break the world record for “largest number of lit jack-o-lanterns in one place”. - Garden and Composting
Of course, we can’t forget the other obvious use of pumpkins: gardening! If you haven’t gotten rid of the seeds yet, you can wash (in plain water, no soap needed) and save the seeds for planting next year. You can also put the pumpkin in your compost pile. Pumpkins make excellent fertilizers for gardens, which would be quite the coincidence if you are also growing pumpkins In your garden.
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
And as promised, here is a bit of lore on pumpkins; in particular, jack-o-lanterns. The tale of the jack-o-lantern has many variations, one of which comes from Ireland, and tells of a shrewd, lazy farmer known as Stingy Jack, who tricks and bargains with the Devil, only to be doomed to wander in darkness once he died. That is, until the Devil gave him an ember that would never burn out. Jack carved out a turnip, placed the ember inside, and has endlessly wandered the Earth since; hence becoming known as “Jack of the Lantern” or “Jack-o-Lantern”. An African-American version of the legend claims that Jack (known as Big Sixteen) killed the Devil and was refused entry to hell by the Devil’s widow.
Yet another piece of folklore states that the “jack-o-lantern” simply refers to a night watchman or a man with a lantern. The earliest use of this term was in the mid 17th century, and later it was used in reference to will-o’-the-wisps (a type of faerie or ghost light seen over bogs, swamps and marshes). Today, the scary faces people carve out of pumpkins are actually in reference to ghosts and spirits like Stingy Jack. In olden times, it was believed that the faces and symbols of a “damned soul” carved onto pumpkins and similar foods would scare unwanted spirits away.
Whatever your intentions are for your pumpkins this Halloween, make sure you turn your Halloween into a Hallogreen!
By Heidi Marshall
Tags: halloween, jack-o-lanterns, pumpkins, Recycling
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Ah, well, I am not sure what biodegradability has to do with pumpkins… As for why companies market their products a certain way, I can’t really speak for them because I don’t know their reasons for why they do what they do. If you are curious about a particular company, I would suggest contacting them specifically.
Also, there is no mandatory rule or law that requires a business to put biodegradability information on their label. Therefore, unless they actually feel like adding that information, it most likely won’t be found on their products. And what they DO put on about biodegradability is up to them (they can put as much or little information as they wish).
To label an item as “eco-friendly” there are usually a number of things considered in regards to the item itself. Is it made from recycled material? Can it be recycled in the future? Was it made/shipped locally or did it come from another country? What other impacts on the environment did it have? Did it come from a factory that uses polluting fossil fuels or sustainable energy? And so forth.
The thing about eco-friendly or green items is, while companies may make and market them, it is up to YOU what is done with them once you purchase the item. Will YOU recycle it? Will YOU add it to a compost pile? Will YOU take it to a local recycling, composting or similar facility to be disposed of properly (i.e. not a garbage dump or landfill). It is not up to the business what you do with a “green” item once it is in your possession. How you handle your carbon footprint and eco-responsibility is all on you. Items can biodegrade, it just depends on how you dispose of them.
I’m very interested in this topic. I have a few questions that I’m wondering if you can answer. Why are some things (like corn-based disposable plates and stuff) marketed as green because they’re “biodegradable”? Technically speaking, most things are biodegradable (it just may take 500 years), so are their any standards put in place for that claim? Shouldn’t things that claim to be biodegrade have a label that says how long it takes? Also, whether it’s a corn-based disposable plate or a Styrofoam plate it won’t biodegrade at all once in a landfill, so why would I pay extra for the “eco-friendly” choice? Are these products sold with the intention of their being composted?