Hundreds of people love pumpkin carving, but the effects it has on the environment and animals are problematic.
At the grocery store, there are bins of pumpkins, and sometimes they sell paint and plastic carving tools to decorate the pumpkins. This marketing tactic gets people to pay for the product. As enticing as it is to pay for the carving tools, it harms our environment because most people throw away the tools when done, leaving plastic waste in the dumps.
Instead of paying for those products, you can be more environmentally friendly by using what you have at home. All you need is a sharp knife and a spoon. This helps the environment by not releasing more plastic that animals could eat and die from.
Some people tend to paint their pumpkins, but this is one of the worst things you can do for the environment, especially if you don’t carve out the insides of the pumpkins. A main problem is animals eating the pumpkins, but if an animal eats a painted pumpkin, they have to digest the chemicals from the paint, which could make them seriously ill or even kill them.
When animals digest paint they can get gastrointestinal upset, causing them to throw up. With enough paint digestion, there can be worse side effects. According to ecopaints.net The Danger Of Paint Fumes For Pets
Houses all over the U.S. buy pumpkins during Halloween but many people just throw them away weeks after. According to newsweek.com, Scientists Reveal Why You Should Never Throw Out Halloween Pumpkins on average, about 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkin are wasted in the US. This means there are thousands of pumpkins in land waste and once pumpkins decompose they produce the greenhouse gas methane.
Methane is one of the greenhouse gasses that is contributing to climate change. This means that Halloween pumpkin waste is a field day for this gas to be released into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases raise the temperature of the atmosphere which in turn causes changes to ecosystems.
There are pumpkin farms that just grow pumpkins for Halloween. According to ohioline.osu.edu, Growing Giant Pumpkins in the Home Garden Every pumpkin needs at least 1 inch of water to grow and be healthy. That’s a lot of water for one farm.
It is not just pumpkins, there are a multitude of Halloween decorations that end up in the waste stream. For instance, there are fake spiderwebs, tombstones, skeletons, etc you can only use things like spiderwebs once. The foam and plastic tombstones/skeletons last longer than the spiderwebs but they break easily causing you to throw them away, adding to the waste which is also bad for animal consumption.
Many people buy these things to show their artistic ability and to be festive for the celebration of Halloween. You can still show your artistic side without having to pay and contribute to the mass waste. You can use materials like wood to make tombstones or whatever you like. You can make cool things out of tin cans and other resources. There are many DIY hacks to make your Halloween decorations both cool and environmentally safe.
If you do decide to use pumpkins you should make sure to put all the pumpkin guts to use. You can make roasted pumpkin seeds or pumpkin bread.
The only ingredients needed for pumpkin bread are baking soda, eggs, flour, baking powder, pumpkin, butter, salt, oil (vegetable, olive), cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg. You can visit Natasha’s kitchen for more information on the recipe.
