Compost your Halloween Pumpkins

Before throwing away your Halloween pumpkin, bury it in your backyard!

The Santa Barbara County Public Works Department is encouraging people to compost their pumpkins rather than throwing them into the trash after Halloween. Food scraps deposited into landfills generate methane gas.

“When you compost this material in your own backyard, you divert organics from landfills and create a nutrient-rich soil amendment that is great for your garden,” said Sam Dickinson, Compost Program Specialist.

If you need a contained way to compost in your backyard, you can pick up composting bins at wholesale prices at these three locations:

South Coast Recycling and Transfer Station at 4430 Calle Real in Santa Barbara North County Public Works Building at 620 West Foster Road in Orcutt Santa Ynez Valley Recycling and Transfer Station at 4004 Foxen Canyon Road in Los Olivos

The County would like to remind residents that the green waste recycling bin is for grass, leaves, flowers, and other yard materials, but not your pumpkins.

For information on composting, click here.