What should you do with your fabulously carved pumpkin? Definitely don’t toss it in the trash!

trashing pumpkins, and thus sending them to landfill, can release harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“Everybody throws them out from Halloween to right after Thanksgiving,” says Kay McKeen, executive director at Scarce, an environmental education non-profit. “It’s a huge burst of methane gas that’s going into the landfill all at one time.”

Why shouldn’t you trash your pumpkin?

When pumpkins are sent to landfill, they release methane, a potent greenhouse gas that, over a 20 year period, is around 80 times more powerful at trapping heat in the atmosphere when compared to carbon dioxide.