Elgin residents can drop off pumpkins for composting Saturday from 9 a.m. until noon — or until the collection container is full — in the city parking lot on the southwest corner of Grove Avenue and Kimball Street.
This will be Elgin’s first pumpkin collection. The event is free and open to Elgin residents only, with proof of residency required.
Elgin’s Sustainability Commission is hosting the event in cooperation with Waste Management, SCARCE (School & Community Assistance for Recycling & Composting Education) and Kane County Recycling.
“It’s a collaborative effort across communities to keep pumpkins out of landfills and also educate residents on the benefits of composting,” Molly Center, liaison to the Sustainability Commission, said.
In 2014, Wheaton, Elmhurst and SCARCE hosted its first pumpkin recycling collections. Those efforts composted 9.31 tons of pumpkins and helped to improve composting laws in Illinois. Carrie Horak, environmental educator at SCARCE said that last year, the collection expanded to 16 locations throughout the suburbs, receiving a total of 26.5 tons of pumpkins.
The SCARCE website offers reasons to keep pumpkins out of the landfill. Those include that pumpkins are full of nutrients that are good for the soil. They also are 90 percent water, so composting also returns moisture to the ground.
Keeping pumpkins out of landfills reduces the amount of methane gas produced at such sites, according to SCARCE.
At the collection in Elgin, Center said volunteers will be available to help transfer pumpkins from vehicles to the collection container.
Participants should enter the parking lot on Grove Avenue and exit on Kimball Street. Only pumpkins will be accepted, and all decorations and candles must be removed, Center said.
