MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What Happens To Unsold Halloween Pumpkins?
Now that the spooky season is officially over, the public’s demand for pumpkins plummets. And that means all those displays you’ve seen at area grocery stores & farms become economically (and literally) rotten. So, what happens to unsold pumpkins once Halloween is over?
Some pumpkin farms use their unsold inventory as compost to increase soil nutrients & act as fertilizer, which is one of the most environmentally conscious ways to use them. Plus, the pumpkin seeds can also end up essentially planting themselves, sprouting fresh inventory for the following season.
If they’re not used in composting, farms with livestock can use pumpkins as feed, since cows & pigs will happily gorge on pumpkins. However, if pumpkin dealers don’t stock animals, they may wind up donating their pumpkins to local zoos, where they get used as food…or entertainment (The Oregon Zoo has elephants that it lets stomp pumpkins to amuse visitors, as well as the other animals). There are also some farms that encourage pumpkin bashing, as well. Like The Country Barn in Lancaster, PA, which permitted visitors to use sledgehammers to demolish pumpkins or launch them into the air, all as part of their Pumpkin Demolition Day last year.
But what about you & me? What should we, the everyday consumers, do with our now freshly obsolete pumpkins? Well, the main issue is that it’s not okay to feed carved and/or painted gourds to animals. While can eat raw pumpkin, it’s usually not the best idea, since it can present a choking hazard & could even generate an intestinal blockage in your furry friend. You should also avoid feeding your pet pumpkin pie filling, which is loaded with additives (including sugar).
Whatever you do, do your best to avoid just throwing your pumpkins away, if at all possible. Because pumpkins left to decompose in a landfill release methane gas into the atmosphere. What would be best would be to try & find someone in your area (friend, family member, neighbor, etc.) who has a compost bin. That is, if you don’t already have one yourself. (And, I mean, c’mon…who doesn’t have their own personal compost bin, am I right?)
Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me an email: [email protected].
BROUGHT TO YOU BY: BPG USA
Wake Up Crew Highlights: November 1, 2023
MUNDANE MYSTERIES: How Long Can You Safely Keep Halloween Candy?
Whether you’ll be trick-or-treating tonight or buying discounted candy you’re your nearest drugstore tomorrow, Halloween is the season to go nuts when it comes to consuming sweet treats. I know it can be tempting to burn through your Halloween bag in one fell swoop, but if you exercise patience with your haul of Twix & Kit Kats, you’ll be thanking yourself later. But just how long can you safely keep this year’s Halloween candy before it goes bad?
The Halloween candy that will have the longest lifespan is dark chocolate; with its lack of dairy content, dark chocolate should last up to two years from the time it was made, while a regular milk chocolate Hershey’s bar usually goes bad after about 8 to 10 months. Both chocolates, though, can develop pale, chalky “blooms” over time, but that won’t make the chocolate inedible…it just means it’s drying out.
Hard candies & jelly candies (i.e., jelly beans) usually stay good for up to a year, so those can be kept around all the way up to next Halloween. Softer candies like candy corn, caramels, gum, and peanut butter cups are good for roughly 6 to 9 months. After that, you’ll need to toss ‘em out.
Now, the main qualification for all of this is properly storing your candy. Loose candies degrade a whole lot faster than treats in sealed wrappers, so if you open something then plan to finish it fairly soon thereafter. Also, avoid keeping your candy bowl in warm, sunny spots, since heat can (obviously) be bad for sweet treats. Dark, cool spots are where you want to keep your candy, since they help them stay fresher longer (and your family members are less likely to find them hidden there).
Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me an email: [email protected].
BROUGHT TO YOU BY: BPG USA
Wake Up Crew Highlights: October 31, 2023
Solei and Luna our Jay Day and The Day Home Team Pets of the Week
MUNDANE MYSTERIES: How Are Port-o-Potties Cleaned?
I took my daughter to Hersheypark last night for their “Dark Nights” Halloween event, when, out of the blue, she pointed at some port-o-potties & asked: “How do they clean those things?” As unexpected as the question was, it was totally valid. How DO they clean those things? I mean, disinfecting port-o-johns can’t be as simple as just wiping down the surfaces with antibacterial spray & dousing the hole with a bunch of bleach, right? So, how is it done?
To keep port-o-potties clean (or as clean as possible), sanitation workers have to use special equipment. Because, unlike the toilets in most of our homes, port-o-potties aren’t attached to a sewage system. Instead, waste goes into a large storage container beneath the seat. And that’s where all the waste stays until the holding tank can be attended to.
To clean a port-o-potty, that holding tank has to be emptied, hopefully well before it has a chance to overflow. And to do that, sanitation workers use a vacuum hose that’s connected to a large vacuum truck, which sucks out all the waste & moves it into a different storage tank that’s on the vacuum truck, itself. Then, once that’s done, the truck takes all the waste collected to a special facility to be treated.
But that’s not the end of the process (thankfully). There are also a few other elements that have to be added to a freshly emptied port-o-potty before it can once again be considered ready for public use. Once the tank’s been emptied, sanitation workers fill it with clean water & a blue chemical solution to dampen odors & suppress bacteria while the unit is in use.
And, while the cleaning of the port-o-potty tank might seem like it would be the hardest part of the process, it’s actually the sanitizing of the rest of the unit that ultimately ends up being even tougher & messier. Because workers also have to scrub down the urinal, the floor, the walls, and, of course, the toilet seat. And if you’ve ever used a port-o-potty at a live event with lots of people, then you probably have a good (and frightening) idea of just how disgusting that job must be.
So, we should all salute the real heroes out there: the sanitation workers who keep all the port-o-potties clean enough for us to use so that we can enjoy our concerts & festivals.
Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me an email: [email protected].
THIS MUNDANE MYSTERY IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY: BPG USA
Wake Up Crew Highlights: October 30, 2023
House of the Week – 10/27/23
Key features:
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Appreciate:
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