Every jack-o’-lantern left on the curb this week is about to become a methane machine, and there’s a simple fix sitting in most backyards already.
Quick Take
- Americans throw out more than 1 billion pounds of pumpkins each year, and most end up buried in landfills.
- Buried pumpkins rot without oxygen, a process that produces methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide.
- Cities and counties across the country now run free pumpkin drop-off and composting programs instead of letting them hit the trash.
- Composting works at home too, but candles, paint, glitter, and stickers have to come off first.
What Actually Happens When A Pumpkin Hits The Landfill
Pumpkins look harmless once Halloween ends, but their disposal has a real environmental cost. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explains that when food and other organic material breaks down in a landfill without oxygen, bacteria produce methane. Landfills pack waste so tightly that air can’t reach much of it, so that rotting pumpkin isn’t just decomposing quietly. It’s actively generating gas.
Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy puts a number on the scale of the problem. The agency says Americans dump more than 1 billion pounds of pumpkins into landfills every single year. That volume matters because landfills are already the third largest human-caused source of methane in the country, according to the EPA’s own composting guidance. One pumpkin seems small. A billion pounds of them is not.
Local Governments Are Building The Off-Ramp
Local and regional governments aren’t waiting around. Clark County, Washington, told residents this fall that pumpkins in landfills produce methane described as at least 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and it pointed people toward 18 free year-round composting hubs along with curbside and backyard options. Peel Region in Canada updated its waste-sorting guidance to let residents toss pumpkins into green organics carts, yard-waste pickup, or home composters.
TIME reported that curbside composting, apartment drop-off bins, and dedicated pumpkin collection events are now common enough that most people have some option nearby. One composting expert cited in that reporting pointed out that fall is actually an ideal time to start a compost pile, since fallen leaves and grass clippings are already available to mix in with pumpkin scraps. In Arkansas, the Boston Mountain Solid Waste District set up its own seasonal pumpkin drop-off locations this October, showing the trend isn’t limited to coastal or urban areas.
The Simple Rule Before You Compost
None of this works if the pumpkin is still wearing its decorations. Every program reviewed required the same basic step: pull off candles, wax, paint, glitter, stickers, and glue before the pumpkin goes anywhere near a compost bin or organics cart. Contaminated loads can get rejected at processing facilities, so a little prep work at home keeps the whole system running the way it’s supposed to.
The climate math backing this up is well established, even if the exact size of the benefit depends on local conditions. The EPA’s broader food-waste research found that an estimated 58 percent of methane escaping from municipal landfills comes from decomposing food and organic waste, not other kinds of trash. Composting doesn’t just avoid that methane. It produces material that can improve soil health, something the EPA separately credits with helping gardens and farms hold moisture better.
Why This Matters Beyond One Holiday
Pumpkins are a small, visible example of a much bigger national habit. Food and organic waste make up a huge share of what Americans bury every year, and landfilling remains one of the least efficient ways to deal with it, according to the EPA’s own wasted-food hierarchy. Halloween gives households an easy, once-a-year reminder to break that habit, even if just for one orange gourd sitting on the porch.
For families who want to act, the options this week are low effort. Check with the city or county for a drop-off hub, see if curbside organics pickup accepts pumpkins, or simply smash it up and toss it in a backyard compost pile with fall leaves. It beats letting a jack-o’-lantern spend the next few decades quietly adding methane to a landfill.
‼️ @MSU_Recycling has its annual Pumpkin Plop Nov 1-15. Drop off your pumpkins for compost 7 days a week! 🎃
👉Or learn how to compost your pumpkins at home with @MichiganEGLE: https://t.co/0abskCv9kD #MSURecycling #Halloween #MSUWaterAlliance #Michigan #EGLE #Composting pic.twitter.com/KzfY2urfuP
— MSU Water Alliance (@msu_alliance) October 30, 2026
Sources:
time.com, peelregion.ca, michigan.gov, wral.com, nwaonline.com, laist.com, epa.gov
