When your pumpkin expires, take it to one of these New Hanover or Pender locations
All hail the Great Pumpkin.
This month countless cucurbits grown by hard working farmers will be sacrificed to celebrate the harvest season between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Folks are really getting inventive with their pumpkin carving skills, using pressure washers and chickens according to the latest online reels. What’s exciting is how people have really embraced the diversity of the genus Cucurbita, which includes everything from pumpkins to winter squashes and zucchini to ornamental gourds. The fruit is a type of berry called a pepo and has a hard rind. There are some fantastic pumpkins out there in all different colors, sizes, textures, and shapes. The weirder and wartier the better. Some of my favorite looking tendrilled annual vines belong to Cucurbita maxima also known as Hubbard squash or Turban gourd, which can produce really large fruits and has a mild flavor that can be fried, baked, or added to pastas and soup.
Of the more than 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkin produced in the United States annually, most will be sold in October, and more than half will be tossed in the trash by the end of November. It’s an inglorious end to such an honorable fruit, being left to rot in the landfill taking up valuable space and making methane that hurts us all by impairing air quality. Instead, let’s do our part to honor our farmers and the fruits of their labor by valuing the pumpkin through the return of nutrients back to the land as animal feed or compost.
After Halloween and Thanksgiving, there are two separate windows where pumpkins are being collected: Nov. 3-10 and Nov. 23-Dec. 4. Please remove decorations, candles, googly eyes and plastic, and use only bio-based paints. There are five different locations in New Hanover County where you can drop off your carved or intact pumpkins:
New Hanover County Arboretum at 6206 Oleander Drive in Wilmington. Enter off of Bradley Drive and follow the arrows to drop off pumpkins in marked collection trailer.
New Hanover County Landfill at 5210 U.S. 421 N. During regular business hours, inform staff at weigh house of pumpkin drop off for food waste composter to waive fee.
New Hanover County HazWagon (Space is limited). HazWagon accepts food waste (i.e. pumpkins) and operates 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday at Ogden Park in Wilmington (near baseball fields); Wednesday at Wrightsville Beach Town Hall; Friday at Mike Chappell Park; and on the first Saturday at Kure Beach Town Hall.
Wilmington Compost Company at 7336 N.C. 210, Rocky Point. Free pumpkin drop off in Pender County 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
University of North Carolina Wilmington's Wagoner Dining Hall at the College Road campus. During regular business hours, drop off in collection bin located in lobby.
Thanks to our partners the Coastal Composting Committee, Wilmington Compost Company, UNCW Dining Sustainability, New Hanover County Recycling and Solid Waste, the New Hanover County Arboretum, and the NC Cooperative Extension for making our fifth annual pumpkin collection possible. Our goal is to reduce food waste by diverting organics to their best highest use possible, and to avoid landfilling, incinerating, or sending organic material down the drain. For more information about the preferred pathways to divert food waste to its best use, check out the EPA’s brand-new Wasted Food Scale.
If you are more of a DIY gardener, check out the NC Cooperative Extension’s resources on composting at home: https://composting.ces.ncsu.edu/home-composting/. Here you can find videos and factsheets about setting up compost bins in the yard or setting up worm bins for composting indoors. For hard copy factsheets, you can visit the Plant Clinic which is open from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday located at the New Hanover County Arboretum. Here you can learn about compost’s value as a soil amendment used to build soil health and nutrition, increase water retention, and reduce soil erosion.
Looking for waste diversion volunteer opportunities with bigger impact? Check out the Garbage to Gardens (G2G) program. This partnership between New Hanover County Recycling & Solid Waste, NC Cooperative Extension, and the New Hanover Soil and Water Conservation District is looking for more schools interested in diverting organic waste and recyclables from cafeterias and the classroom. Participating schools like Winter Park Elementary School and DC Virgo Preparatory Academy consistently only have one bag of trash after every grade has lunch because of the waste diversion routine. Schools like Myrtle Grove Middle School diverted a total of 325 pounds (~200 gallons) of organic waste from the landfill to be composted during their first week of G2G and plan to start a waste diversion club. The school garden at DC Virgo received compost that was generated with the school’s own food waste, and that same garden is where greens and garlic are now being planted thanks to the help of some NC State Extension Master Gardener volunteers. Student, parents, staff, or volunteers interested in adopting this program and teaching children about resource conservation can contact the G2G Program Coordinator, Sara Dousharm with New Hanover County Recycling & Solid Waste at sdousharm@nhcgov.com.
Matt Collogan is the consumer horticulture agent at the NC Cooperative Extension New Hanover County Center located at the New Hanover County Arboretum, 6206 Oleander Drive in Wilmington. The gardens are free and open daily 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Reach Collogan at mecollog@ncsu.edu.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Where to drop off pumpkins in Wilmington NC
