West Hartford's Great Pumpkin Dump Begins

TOWN OF WEST HARTFORD

WEST HARTFORD, CT — Halloween is over and those bright, orange pumpkins are now evolving from colorful autumn decorations to rotting, brown piles of organic waste.

What to do?

In West Hartford, the Department of Public Works has put out an organics barrel at two locations to collect pumpkins through Sunday, Nov. 27.

"If you can’t compost in your backyard, please drop off your pumpkins in this pumpkin container," wrote the town in an announcement.

The barrels are located at two sites in West Hartford:

• West Hartford Department of Public Works, 17 Brixton St., West Hartford.

• Westmoor Park, 119 Flagg Road, West Hartford

Residents are urged not to feed the farm animals at Westmoor any pumpkins, as that isn't part of their diet and could cause harm.

There are also a few ground rules about the collection. They are: No plastic bags, trash or recyclables in the organics container; Remove all candles from any Jack-O-Lanterns; Painted pumpkins are allowed; and consider organizing a neighborhood carpool to get rid of all pumpkins there at once.

The so-called "pumpkin barrels" were actually put out on Tuesday, Oct. 31, Halloween, but pumpkin recycling is more of a pre-Thanksgiving pastime than a Halloween tradition.

According to the town, "composting pumpkins is a great opportunity for West Hartford residents to reduce the amount of trash that is sent to incinerators and, increasingly, out of state."

Collected pumpkins will be sent to Quantum Biopower in Southington and turned into compost and biofuel.

"When food waste and organics are shipped to incinerators it takes more energy to burn because of the heavy weight," wrote the town.