Roosevelt Island Pumpkin Smash Saturday November 4, Turn Landfill Waste Into Compost For NYC Parks & Green Space Hosted By NYC Compost Project By Big Reuse - Pie, Apple Cider And Coffee Too

Come join your friends and neighbors for Pumpkin Smashing Time on Roosevelt Island this Saturday, November 4.

Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn Founder Christina Delfico reports:

The Smash is on! Save that mushy Halloween pumpkin. Don’t let it haunt the landfill.

Thanks to our weekly food scrap drop partners, NYC Compost Project hosted by Big Reuse, we invite you to join us for the Free Pumpkin Smash 2017 this Saturday, November 4th from 11 am - 2 pm

Thanks to Manhattan Park join us on Manhattan Park’s lower lawn

between buildings #20 and #30 down by the river. Across from the Post Office and alongside the East River facing Manhattan’s Skyline.

This Saturday, the 2017 Pumpkin Smash on Roosevelt Island becomes part of the Department of Sanitation’s official citywide efforts to reduce landfill waste. This is historic and it is happening right here, be a part of it!

Join NYC #CompostProject @BigReuse for #PumpkinSmash2017 on Roosevelt Island, Manhattan Park Lower Lawn on Sat Nov 4, 11a-2p. pic.twitter.com/E0qm1mD3BG

— NYC zerowaste (@NYCzerowaste) November 1, 2017

This event is made possible by RIOC, NYC Compost hosted by BigReuse, Manhattan Park, Roosevelt Island Garden Club and iDig2Learn

In Collaboration with 217PTA, RI Parents' Network, Island Kids, Girl Scouts, Gristedes, Wengerd Farm, RIRA, RIYP, NYC Ferry Operated by Hornblower, Cornell Tech and RI Explorers

Children, families and anyone with a pumpkin, squash or gourd to recycle

for compost can come smash pumpkins,

eat pie and drink apple cider from our Wengerd farm market and enjoy coffee donated by Gristedes.

And you may donate your gently used Halloween costume.

NYC Ferry Operated by Hornblower will give away one 30 Day Ferry pass!

Cornell Tech student volunteers will join the fun.

And in the spirit of reducing our waste footprint, we invite you to bring your own coffee mug or reusable water bottle.

Note: There will be a 5K race around the island’s perimeter so please enter from Main Street.

We hope everyone will learn that plant based materials, like pumpkins, can be composted and returned to the earth rather than trashed and trucked to landfill.

Since 2015 when Roosevelt Island Gardeners Julia Ferguson

and Anthony Longo

had a vision to compost more food scrap waste on Roosevelt Island. They knew food scraps could become compost and return to the soil on our little island patch Earth.

In 2015 early adopters including RIOC, 217PTA leaders Olga Seliger and Natalia Starkova, Girl Scout leaders Aiesha Eleusizov and Janine Schaefer, iDig2Learn agreed to make this happen. Since November 2015 Leah Retherford, Devin Reitsma and Erycka de Jesus continue to be our Big Reuse local partners every Saturday from 9AM to 2 PM collecting islander’s food scraps.

Any resident or student can drop their scraps weekly in the green bins just next to the Saturday Wengerd Farmers market. Big thanks to current PTA president Erin Olavesen and 217 Sustainability Coordinator, Ursula Fokine and leaders from RI Parents' Network, Island Kids, Girl Scouts, Gristedes, RIRA, RIYP, NYC Ferry Operated by Hornblower, Cornell Tech and RI Explorers for supporting this effort.

Congratulations! Islanders have dropped more than 50,000 pounds of food scraps since 2015. That is over 25 tons of scraps or visually the equivalent of 13 SUV’s filled with banana peels. Locally, just under the Queensboro bridge in Long Island City NYC Compost Project hosted by Big Reuse has processed our banana peels, coffee grinds, egg shells, bread and even mango and avocado pits into compost. Throughout the year that compost is returned to school garden projects, the community garden, island tree pits and our residents.

This weekly food scrap drop effort lives on with this annual Pumpkin Smash event, so bring your mushy pumpkin, squash, gourd or your smile this Saturday, November 4th, 2017.