What’s spookier than food waste? ABCompost teaches students how to be sustainable during the Halloween season.
Pumpkin season has rolled around, which means a lot of carving but also a lot of waste. What to do with the leftover insides? Catherine Rokakis, co-founder of Concordia’s ABCompost and Concordia Greenhouse Compost Program coordinator, thought of a way to make this fun fall activity a sustainable one as well.
“There is a lot of waste that comes with Halloween,” said Rokakis. “Costumes, candy, there’s always some sort of waste generated through this holiday, including pumpkin carvings.”
She explains that we often don’t give a lot of thought to the aftermath of the pumpkin carving.
“‘What do I do with the insides after I carve out the pumpkin? Do I throw it in the trash?’ Well, that means it will end up at the landfill, will produce methane gas and will contribute to climate change,” said Rokakis.
On Oct. 29, ABCompost collaborated with Concordia Greenhouse and hosted a sustainable pumpkin carving workshop on the seventh floor of the Hall building, in the Greenhouse’s temporary location. It was a “pay what you can” event, and the organizers provided all carving material as well as the pumpkins to the students who signed up.
Participants then disposed of the excess produce and the carving leftovers in vermicompost bins, which are filled with worms that eat food waste. ABCompost gives the compost product to the Loyola community gardens.
Claudia Del-Fabro, a student at Concordia, stopped by to carve a pumpkin.
“It’s really cool,” she said. “Being able to do something fun and being sustainable at the same time while feeding the worms is awesome.”
The workshop was held within Concordia’s sustainability month, which took place throughout October.
Isabella Curiel-Ploumis co-founded ABCompost along with Rokakis. The group is a zero waste Concordia initiative which aims to localize compost production and teach the Concordia community about sustainability and vermicomposting.
“It’s a composting initiative that we started on campus,” said Curiel-Ploumis. “We saw there was a lack of a waste processing group on campus, and we wanted to close the loop of the food system.”
Rokakis and Curiel-Ploumis bought 20 pumpkins at the Atwater market, which they then put to the disposal of students who were interested in getting creative.
“Since joining the Greenhouse, we have access to more resources, more funds, more hands,” said Curiel-Ploumis.
