Event provides opportunity to teach about benefits of composting at home Pumpkins’ final role? It’s at pumpkin roll.
Since the 1970s, “stop, drop and roll” has served as an easy-to-remember fire safety technique taught to children by emergency personnel in schools and the likes of Dick Van Dyke via public service announcements.
But for the past few years, the Forest Preserve District of Will County has been borrowing the slogan to encourage people to properly dispose of their Halloween pumpkins through a fun activity.
The district is inviting families to bring their pumpkins on weekends in November to Plum Creek Nature Center in Crete Township for composting. Before leaving the pumpkins in their final resting place, the nature center has games and activities in store, including a pumpkin roll down a 40-foot hill.
Kate Caldwell, Plum Creek’s composting expert, said children these days already have a “heightened awareness” of environmental issues. But it never hurts to make sure they are outside, having fun with plants and learning important lessons baked into the entertainment.
“People make up all kinds of games on the hill,” Caldwell said. “It’s just fun. It’s good exercise.”
In addition to the pumpkin rolling, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays, Caldwell said people can take their pumpkins out on the zombie trail or have some fun using them in a makeshift bowling alley. As much as Plum Creek wants to welcome families to compost pumpkins there, the real lesson is that they could be doing the same thing at home.
“The best thing you can do is compost your pumpkin in your backyard,” Caldwell said.
The big message is to avoid sending pumpkins to the landfill, one way or another. Landfills don’t even want them, Caldwell said, because pumpkins are 90% water weight, and that water can cause toxins to leach out.
“It’s bad for the landfill,” she said. “So, if you care about landfills, don’t put the pumpkin in the landfill. If you care about the planet, because it has all this water, it’s really good to just let the pumpkin sit in your backyard when you’re done and just let the water go back into the soil, and also let the nutrients from the plant of the pumpkin go down back into the soil and then you have a healthier backyard.”
Katheryn Hickey-Scott, of Beecher, brought her daughter Joliene Scott to Stop, Drop and Roll for the first time Sunday.
“I saw the pumpkin-smashing thing and figured she’d like to roll it down the hill,” Scott said. “It beats just throwing them away.”
Jim Simantirakis, of St. John, Indiana, and his family came to the nature center Sunday because the weather was “beautiful.” They learned some valuable lessons about composting while there. Simantirakis took the opportunity to ask Caldwell questions about the process and how it can help at home.
“I learned about my garden so I can make it better for next year,” he said.
Plum Creek started a compost trail circa 2015 for the purpose of disposing of school lunches in a better way. Caldwell said a lot more can be composted than people often consider.
“Anything organic has no business in the landfill, because it has a place to go,” she said. “It can turn back into compost, which is vital to helping the world.”
Composting food and plants instead of throwing them away puts their nutrients back into the soil.
“It’s one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself and the planet,” Caldwell said. “It is creating rich topsoil. … We need to try, in all of our actions, to get our soil healthy.”
With more holidays on the way, Caldwell emphasized that making smart choices for the planet should not start with the question: How do I dispose of this?
“When you’re having the holidays, start from the beginning of the game and go to the end game,” she said. “The beginning of the game is: When you are thinking of the holidays, think ahead of time what you don’t want to buy.”
She encourages people, as much as possible, to use what they already have on hand. Reusing things to create holiday gifts and decorations prevents the creation of new waste the planet cannot handle, Caldwell said.
“And then the end game is: If you do have waste, make sure you’re contemplating everything before you just throw everything into the landfill,” Caldwell said. “See if you can use some of the items, if some of the items are recyclable. For the most part, the answer is just reuse. Reuse things over and over again. Stop buying things.”
While Caldwell wholeheartedly endorses composting, the forest preserve district has been reminding people that simply tossing pumpkins into preserves is not OK. In fact, it is illegal in Will County, and people caught doing it can be ticketed. One of the major problems is that wildlife species have specialized diets. The wrong foods in their ecosystem can cause a variety of problems.
Other opportunities to dispose of pumpkins properly can be found at scarce. org/pumpkins.