"Go Green After Halloween" Pumpkin Toss & Costume Drive, 11/6

Posted: 10/31/2025 7:48 pm

Brookline Department of Public Works (DPW) is excited to invite residents to attend the third annual Pumpkin Toss and Costume Drive on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, as part of the “Go Green After Halloween” initiative. The event will take place from 1:30 – 6:30 p.m., at the Brookline Farmers’ Market in the West Centre Street parking lot.

This family-friendly event encourages residents to celebrate sustainability by giving their Halloween leftovers a second life. Attendees can bring pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns to toss into a compost collection truck provided by Black Earth Compost, a local partner that offers curbside composting services. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that more than 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins are discarded across the U.S. each fall, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Composting helps reduce this impact and supports healthy soil.
Participants are reminded to remove any non-biodegradable materials, such as paint, wax, candles, or glitter before composting. The DPW encourages residents enrolled in the Town’s Food Waste Drop-Off Program to bring pumpkins directly to this event to help prevent overflow at drop-off sites.

In addition to the pumpkin toss, the DPW will collect gently used costumes of all sizes to help reduce textile waste and promote reuse. Costumes collected will be donated to the Lincoln School and will be distributed during the school’s Pumpkinfest event in October 2026. Residents are asked to label their costumes with a short description and size before donating. Research from The Environmental Defense Initiative (TEDI) estimates that 35 million Halloween costumes are discarded nationwide each year, creating 5,952 tons of textile waste—roughly the weight of six cruise ships.

“The Department of Public Works is very excited to offer its third annual Go Green After Halloween event,” said DPW Zero Waste Program Manager Miranda Hotham. “This is a fun opportunity for Brookline residents to dispose of their Halloween waste in an eco-friendly way. Last fall, the community composted nearly two tons of pumpkins, which otherwise would have gone to the landfill or incineration. We hope that this year the Brookline community will join us to create an even bigger impact through pumpkin composting and donating their Halloween costumes!”

The West Centre Street Parking Lot is accessible from the Coolidge Corner T Station and the Route 66 bus (Shailer Street and Harvard Street stops).

For more information about composting opportunities in Brookline, visit www.brooklinema.gov/compost or contact the DPW Highway and Sanitation Division at zerowaste@brooklinema.gov.

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