ECOSUPERIOR
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Thunder Bay has a Halloween tradition that you won’t find in every city. It’s the annual Great Pumpkin Compost Collection! The City of Thunder Bay, EcoSuperior and GFL Environmental, coordinate this event to help promote waste reduction and composting. Instead of sending pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns out to the curb in a trash bag, residents are asked to take their Halloween pumpkins to one of the three collection bins. The collection bins will be located at the County Fair Plaza on Dawson Road, the Westfort Playfield off Neebing Avenue and the overflow parking lot for Intercity Shopping Centre, on Fort William Road next to Swiss Chalet. Compostable decorations such as cornstalks and straw can also be placed in the bins. Non-compostable items such as plastic bags and candles are not accepted. The collection bins are scheduled to be in place from Nov. 1 – 10, 2019.
Happening again this year, residents are invited to join the 3rd Annual Thunder Bay Pumpkin Parade at Hillcrest Park on Friday, November 1, from 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Bring your jack-o-lanterns to share your creativity, or just come to check out all the pumpkins on display! Volunteers will have candles to light up your masterpiece. Pumpkins on display will join the Great Pumpkin Compost Collection after the event.
Since its inception in 1995, the project has seen over 400 tonnes of pumpkins diverted from landfill to the municipal composting site. It’s a cooperative effort between commercial sponsors, the public who participate by taking their jack-o-lanterns to the bins, and the City for composting them. The program diverts up to 30 metric tonnes of organic materials from the landfill each year. The pumpkins will return to beautify the city as finished compost from the municipal composting site at the Solid Waste & Recycling Facility. This compost is made available free of charge to the public each spring.
