Recently, a crowd of local kids descended on a local farm with baseball bats and hammers to smash nearly 6,000 pounds of pumpkins.
Were they hoodlums? No — climate champions!
Nearly 500 pumpkin-toting people attended the Great Pumpkin Smash at Codman Farm in Lincoln to compost their pumpkins by feeding them to pigs.
When organic material like pumpkins goes into a landfill, it produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Municipal landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions, according to the EPA.
By feeding pumpkins to the pigs instead, community members avoided adding to the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins carted away to landfills every fall in the U.S.
Co-sponsored by Codman Community Farms, Lincoln and Concord chapters of Mothers Out Front, Weston Community Children’s Association, and Sustainable Weston Action Group, the event also included a raffle, composting tips, face painting, and ice cream — perfect for an unseasonably warm day!
Pumpkin smashers of all ages learned how they can make a difference every day by composting their kitchen and yard waste, doing their part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The pigs would surely agree — it was a great afternoon!