Green your Halloween this year at the Park District's 2026 Pumpkin Smash!

- Free pumpkin composting event

- Saturday, November 7

- 9 am - 12 pm

- Ron Ory Community Garden Plots, 811 S. West St., Naperville

• Bring your jack-o-lanterns and pumpkins for composting into the soil at the Garden Plots.
• Please remove candles, metal and any decorations prior to arrival.
• First, visit a weighing station before smashing them yourself or we will smash them for you!

WHY COMPOST PUMPKINS?

Composting is nature’s way of recycling with many benefits:

• Avoids landfill greenhouse gas emissions from decomposing organics (currently, landfills are the 3rd largest producers of methane in the U.S.!)
• Produces a useful, nutrient-dense soil amendment
• Pumpkins are 90% water which is great for our soil, not so good in our landfills

Starting in 2014, S.C.A.R.C.E., plus the cities of Wheaton and Elmhurst, began hosting this event the first Saturday after Halloween.

• Now there are over 125 sites hosting annual events
• Together these sites have composted over 1618.3 tons (3,236,600 lbs) of pumpkins
• Reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 1189.4 tons of carbon dioxide
• Diverted 347,544.7 gallons of water from landfills

Don't Trash It, Smash It!