South Gloucestershire Council

Published: 30/10/2014

Busy carving your Halloween jack-o’-lantern and not sure what to do with the insides or the pumpkin afterwards?

We are encouraging South Gloucestershire residents to recycle their pumpkins once the Halloween celebrations are over.

Pumpkins make an excellent addition to a home compost heap and can be used in a number of tasty recipes, but can also be recycled with our weekly household food collection service. Residents need only remove candles and tea lights before carefully cutting up the pumpkin and placing it inside their food waste bin.

South Gloucestershire residents can now use ordinary plastic bags to line their food recycling caddies, thanks to new mechanical sorting techniques that separate the bags from food waste. It is hoped that the small change will help promote a big increase in food recycling habits, by making it easier and cleaner to use kitchen caddies.

About a fifth of the waste placed in domestic black bins is food that could be recycled. It costs an extra £57,000 to dispose of the 1,000 tonnes of food waste we throw away in South Gloucestershire every month. If you recycle your food waste using the food bins it goes to an anaerobic digestion plant which converts it into fertilizer and electricity.

For more information and to watch our video of the food waste recycling process in South Gloucestershire visit www.southglos.gov.uk/foodrecycling

There is also still time to visit us at one of our food waste recycling roadshows:

• Yate Town Centre, 31 October, 9am to 4pm
• Willow Brook Centre, 1 November, 10am to 5pm
• Bradley Stoke Leisure Centre, 3 November, 9am to 6.30pm