Eco-friendly ways to use up your Halloween pumpkins or neeps

Halloween has come and gone – but how many of you still have pumpkins or neeps hanging around?

Now it’s time to take down decorations, finish off any sweets you resisted eating and put away the costumes until next year.

But have you thought about what you are going to do with the pumpkins – or neeps – that you’ve carved?

Why you shouldn’t chuck them out

The experts at Zero Waste Scotland say that around eight million pumpkins are binned every year in the UK, and annually around 18,000 tonnes of edible pumpkin waste is produced.

And around 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are caused by food waste.

It’s also a bad idea to leave your pumpkins in the woods to rot, as ghoulish as that may look. The discarded pumpkins can actually endanger local wildlife.

Although some may think leaving their old pumpkins in a forest might aid local flora and fauna, it can actually be the opposite.

The rotting gourds can interfere with the natural nutrients in a wild woodland, and they can even attract urban rats, creating trouble for unsuspecting woodland critters.

So here are four eco-friendly tips for using your pumpkins and neeps that don’t have an eery environmental impact.

What’s cooking, gourd-looking?

Cooking is the simplest (and tastiest) way to use up your pumpkins and neeps.

Lacking ideas? There are loads of pumpkin recipes you can try out.

Here are a few more of our recipe ideas:

• Pumpkin ice cream
• Mini pumpkin pies
• Pumpkin curry

As for neeps, if you have managed to carve one then you are clearly a true Scot. Why not celebrate Burns night early?

Just make sure to catch your neeps and pumpkins before they go mouldy.

If you carved your pumpkins in advance of this weekend, they may not be safe to eat.

So if your creepy creations are already looking a little cadaverous, why not compost them?

Composting at home is a great way to reduce waste and add nutrients to your garden.

If you don’t have a compost bin, check your local recycling centre or community gardens to see if they collect old pumpkins for composting.

Unlimited supply of pumpkins?

Theoretically, if you save the seeds from your pumpkins and plant them ahead of next Halloween, you will never need to go out and buy pumpkins again.

Late May or early June is the best time to plant your pumpkin seeds.