Pumpkin recycling helps keeps landfills clean

Clay County's take Jack Back event turns waste into fertilizer

MOORHEAD, Minn. — Don’t know what to do with your rotting pumpkins?

Clay County may be able to help.

Clay County’s “Take Jack Back” pumpkin recycling event is helping keep the harvest decorations out of landfills by composting them at a local farmstead in Moorhead.

If you choose to recycle the Halloween decorations, make sure the pumpkins are free from paint, candles and other non recyclable materials.

“We go through hundreds and hundreds of pounds of pumpkins that end up getting composted, so they use a certain type of seed during the composting process that helps break everything down and help get those nitrates back into the soil, pumpkin is a very very good fertilizer for a lot of the farming industries.” Clay County Plastic Bag Task Force Project Manager, Darla Lewandowski said.

The event will go until November 13.

Clay County has three recycling locations. For more information on where you can go to recycle your pumpkins click here.