Pasadena residents should put Halloween pumpkins in their yard waste containers once the holiday ends, because pumpkins count as food waste under the city’s curbside organics program, according to Greg de Vinck, director of public works.
City of Pasadena Refuse customers do not need to bag medium to large pumpkins but should remove candles and decorations before placing them directly in the organics bin, the city said. Other food scraps are to be bagged in plastic and tied before going in the container, according to the city. Residential refuse customers have been required to put food waste in yard waste containers since Jan. 1, 2022.
The requirement stems from Senate Bill 1383, which the Legislature and then-Gov. Jerry Brown approved in 2016 and which took effect Jan. 1, 2022, LAist reported. The law also requires supermarkets to donate surplus edible food, and the city says it requires communities to cut organic waste disposal 75 percent by 2025. Organic waste makes up more than half of what goes into landfills, where it produces methane, a gas as much as 84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, according to LAist.
Landfills produce 20 percent of California’s methane pollution, Rachel Wagoner, who directed the state recycling agency CalRecycle when the law took effect, told LAist, calling a change in how people dispose of organic waste “the fastest, simplest, easiest thing that every Californian can do” to fight climate change.
More than 1 billion pounds of pumpkins rot in U.S. landfills each year after Halloween, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, the Associated Press reported in 2025. “It’s never too far gone for compost,” Dante Sclafani, compost coordinator at Queens County Farm in New York, told the AP.
Pasadena composted 91,504 tons of yard waste from Jan. 1, 2020, through Aug. 30, 2024, and diverted 463 tons of food waste from Jan. 1, 2022, through the same date, according to a report to the City Council. The city’s food waste is ground into a bioslurry and taken to a Water Resource Recovery Facility in Carson, with remaining solids composted at a Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts facility, and says recycling pumpkins helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and supports renewable energy production.
State rules have required local enforcement since Jan. 1, 2024, and the city said in 2024 it would ramp up enforcement to keep pace with impending state audits, Waste360 reported.
Residents who compost at home can get one free compost bin per household from the city by attending a workshop; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends mixing “greens” and “browns” in roughly a three-to-one ratio, the AP reported. Program details are at https://www.cityofpasadena.
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