Ready to toss out your pumpkins? Here's how to keep them out of the landfill

The U.S. produces lots of pumpkins each year — more than 2 billion in 2020 alone. But that year, only one fifth were used for food, which means Americans are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the gourds annually, just to toss them in the trash when Halloween ends.

So they end up in landfills, which were designed to store material — not allow them to break down. The lack of oxygen in landfills means organic matter like pumpkins produce methane gas, a greenhouse gas that's harmful for the climate.

Videos about how to responsibly dispose of your jack-o'-lanterns have been making the rounds on TikTok. Marne Titchenell, a wildlife program specialist for Ohio State University Extension, has noticed the popularity of the topic, and even told NPR that her second grader was sent home with an article about composting pumpkins.