Philippa Forrester leads call for Halloween pumpkin amnesty

Over one million pumpkins are sold every year in the UK and TV presenter Philippa Forrester has joined forces with the Recycle Now Home Composting campaign to get everyone in Gloucestershire to home compost their pumpkins this Halloween.

Halloween falls on Tuesday 31st October, and families are already carving up pumpkins into scary jack-o'-lanterns to celebrate. Once the 1st of November arrives and Halloween is over, hundreds of thousands of ornately carved pumpkins, not to mention all the pulp inside that is scraped out and goes straight into the bin, may end up on a landfill site.

Philippa Forrester, former presenter of TV Tomorrow’s World and Robot Wars and mother-of-three, said:

“Kids love Halloween and carving up your pumpkins is great fun. What’s not so fun is just chucking all our waste into the bin once Halloween is over.”

“If you’re anything like me, you’ll know how important it is that we do everything we can to help the environment for our kids’ futures”

The seeds and pulp that you spoon out of your pumpkin can go straight into the compost bin as soon as you have scraped them out and then once Halloween is over, you can add the carved shell. So that it breaks down in time to give next summer’s garden a great boost, don’t forget to break it up into pieces before adding it to your compost bin.

If you've never made a pumpkin lantern before, you can follow our easy step-by-step guide. The seeds and pulp that you spoon out of your pumpkin can go straight into the compost bin as soon as you have scraped them out. As an alternative, why not use our recipe to make a delicious pumpkin soup to keep you warm on Halloween? Then, once Halloween is over, don't forget to compost the carved shell. So that it breaks down more easily, break it up into pieces, before adding it to your compost bin to give your garden a great future boost!