What to Do With Old Pumpkins After Halloween (Besides Trashing Them)

A jack-o’-lantern turns to slime about a week after you carve it. Then you’re standing on the porch holding a trash bag, wondering if that’s really the only move. It isn’t.

What you can do depends on three things: whether it’s carved, whether you painted or decorated it, and whether it’s still firm. The checker below takes about ten seconds.

Find the right move for your pumpkin

What should you do with your pumpkin?

Answer three questions. Tap as many as apply on the last one.

1. What shape is it in?

Firm and freshGetting softRotten or moldy

2. What did you do to it?

Nothing, uncarvedCarved onlyPainted, glittered, waxed, or bleached

3. What do you have nearby?

A compost pileA food scrap programSomeone with chickens or pigsNone of these

Pick an answer for each question.Your options show up here, best one first, with the reason and a source.

Ranking follows EPA’s Wasted Food Scale. Local rules for composting programs and feeding wildlife vary, so check yours.

How many pumpkins are we talking about?

USDA’s Economic Research Service puts 2024 US production at 1.44 billion pounds. About 85 percent of pumpkin acreage goes to the fresh and ornamental market, which covers decorations and pumpkins sold to eat fresh, instead of canned puree.

You’ve probably seen the claim that more than 1 billion pounds of pumpkins rot in landfills every year. News stories, including this AP piece, credit the Department of Energy. We couldn’t find that number in DOE’s Halloween article, and USDA’s figures cover what farms grow, not what gets thrown out. Call it a ballpark.

The part that holds up is the methane. EPA says that food waste is about 24 percent of what goes into municipal landfills and about 58 percent of the methane that escapes from them. Buried under other trash, food rots without oxygen, and that’s what makes methane.

The pumpkin ladder

EPA’s Wasted Food Scale ranks what to do with wasted food from best to worst. Here’s where pumpkins land on it.

Eat it, if you got to it in time

An uncarved, unpainted pumpkin that’s still firm is food. Cook it, puree it, roast it. Michigan State Extension recommends buying pie pumpkins for cooking, since jack-o’-lantern varieties are stringy and not very meaty.

Carving changes that. Once it’s cut open and has sat at room temperature for more than two hours, MSU treats it as a risky food. Cold porch nights don’t fix that, because it still warms up in the sun during the day.

The seeds are the exception. MSU says seeds from any pumpkin can be dried and roasted, so scoop them out first and save the snack.

Compost it

This is the best fit for most carved pumpkins. New York’s DEC has simple tips. Smash the rind and guts, mix them into the pile with plenty of carbon like leaves, wood chips, or twigs, and take out any candles, wax, or lights first.

Nothing painted or glittered goes in. If you pull the seeds first, you won’t get pumpkin vines sprouting out of your compost next summer.

No pile? Check for a food scrap program in your town. The ILSR composting map and the BioCycle drop-off locator both map community composters and drop-off sites, and some towns run pumpkin smash events after Halloween. New York’s DEC keeps a list of local smash events.

Feed it to animals

Chickens and pigs are the most reliable takers. Kansas State Extension says pumpkins can go to livestock and poultry, but not if it was soaked in bleach, has candle wax on it, or was painted. Rotted pumpkin is out too, according to University of Illinois Extension.

Chickens need it smashed open or cut into chunks. Animals that aren’t used to pumpkin should get small amounts, so their stomachs can adjust.

Zoos and wildlife rehab centers sometimes take pumpkins too, but they want them fresh. The Illinois wildlife clinic director quoted in that same piece warns that moldy pumpkins can be dangerous. Call first. Don’t just show up with a bag of porch pumpkins.

Skip the myth that pumpkin seeds deworm livestock. The vet quoted by Illinois Extension says the research is unclear on whether they work.

What about wildlife in your yard?

Squirrels, raccoons, deer, foxes, and mice will eat a pumpkin you leave outside. The US Fish and Wildlife Service says as much, so expect visitors.

That doesn’t make it safe. A painted pumpkin can be toxic to wildlife, per FWS. A wildlife specialist quoted by Illinois Extension says that if you share at all, it’s probably best to share with birds only. Baked seeds without salt, set out in a feeder, are the safer bet.

Deer are a bigger problem. Some states restrict feeding them, including Michigan and New York, and you can read more about why in our piece on feeding wild deer.

And don’t dump pumpkins on someone else’s land or in a nature preserve. Illinois Extension calls that littering, and we covered the wildlife side in why leaving pumpkins in nature backfires.

Before any of it goes outside, strip off the plastic, metal, and candles. The University of Illinois Wildlife Medical Clinic treats animals every year that get tangled in fall decorations, and fake spider webs are part of that problem too.

If it has to go in the trash

Sometimes it’s painted, glittered, or already a puddle, and nobody nearby takes it. Fine. Pull off the wax, lights, and decorations, and put it in the trash.

If raccoons keep raiding your bins afterward, we have a guide on what actually keeps them out.

Next year

Buy pumpkins that are fully ripe. Kansas State Extension says unripe ones rot faster, and a hollow thump and hard, solid-colored rind are signs of a mature one.

Carve close to Halloween, since carved pumpkins last only a few days up to a week before noticeable rot, and skip the real candle. K-State says the heat speeds it up.