Overview
- Colchester Council asks residents to cook, compost or recycle pumpkins via weekly food waste collections.
- If a pumpkin is too large for the caddy, residents are told to leave it whole beside the container after removing candles.
- Collected food waste in Colchester goes to an anaerobic digestion plant that produces biogas for electricity and fertiliser.
- A reported survey indicates about 40% of UK consumers buy pumpkins and roughly two-thirds discard carved ones, contributing to an estimated 18,000 tonnes of waste annually.
- Reuse advice ranges from composting, burying pieces, using planters, harvesting seeds and cooking the flesh, while experts caution against leaving whole pumpkins to rot, placing them whole in compost or feeding wildlife.