Published date: 12 November 2015

The Pumpkin Rescue Festival is coming to north London!

Over a million pumpkins are bought in the run up to Halloween – do your bit to reduce food waste at north London’s Pumpkin Rescue Festival.


Halloween is upon us and the days are numbered for our favourite spooky staple, the pumpkin! Two in five of us will buy one, carve it and then discard the insides, throwing them away, placing them in food collections or composting them.

pumpkin photo press release photo

North London Waste Authority, through their Wise Up To Waste campaign, with environmental sustainability charity Hubbub, have organised a ‘Pumpkin Rescue Festival’, to reduce this type of food waste. The upcoming north London ‘Pumpkin Rescue Festival’ will be a celebration of food and an opportunity for residents in north London to get involved in cooking and tasting delicious pumpkin recipes, or if you don’t fancy cooking, then you can learn about how to compost them.

Councillor Clyde Loakes, Chair of North London Waste Authority says: “On average we purchase over a million pumpkins in the UK in the run up to Halloween – if we don’t reuse or recycle them, that’s a lot of food waste to potentially end up in landfill. Halloween might be a time for scares but needless waste is a little too scary!” 

Hubbub’s ‘Pumpkin Rescue’ initiative aims to raise awareness of food waste and make eating the pumpkin as much a part of Halloween culture as carving it, and to keep it out of landfill. There are 20 Pumpkin Rescue Festivals running across the UK this Halloween, and the flagship event is here in north London. 

Everyone is welcome to come along to one of the events listed below where you could enjoy delicious dishes made with pumpkin, learn how to cook something new or even get composting!  

§  Pumpkin Party
A big celebration event, taking place from 11am to 4pm on Saturday 31 October at the Angel Central Shopping Centre (21 Parkfield St, Islington, N1 0PS). Come along and enjoy delicious pumpkin soup and recipe cards and there will be some great pumpkin-themed fun and games too as well as tips and tools about ways to reduce your food waste. 

§  Cookery Sessions
Cookery sessions are being held in each of the north London boroughs, from 26 October – 5 November 2015. 

§  Composting sessions
Come and learn more about composting one of several composting sessions on 31 October and 1 November. 

§  Composting drop-off points
From Sunday 1 November to Saturday 7 November, you will be able to visit a drop-off point to compost and pumpkin leftovers. 

§  Pumpkin pop-ups
There will be smaller pumpkins feasts taking place in north London.  

Leading the Pumpkin Rescue, Trewin Restorick, CEO/Founder of Hubbub said:    
“The huge increase in pumpkin festivals this year shows a fundamental shift in the way the UK is thinking about food waste and Halloween celebrations. The UK is slowly finding innovative ways to create tasty meals from food that would otherwise be thrown away – and London is leading the way.”

 

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