Free food in London as #PumpkinRescue saves Halloween leftovers

Join in a pumpkin feast, and make sure you make good use of your own

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Pumpkin Rescue: Soup made for last year's event

Ben Norum31 October 2016

Six out of 10 pumpkins carved in London for Halloween don’t get eaten, which adds up to 1.7 million of them each season. That only bolsters the 7 million tonnes of food and drink that is thrown away from UK homes every year.

Enter #PumpkinRescue, a Halloween food waste emergency service that takes these unwanted leftover pumpkins and turns them into food.

That’s free food which will be given out at two sites across London this weekend, to be exact.

Hubbub and North London Waste Authority are teaming up to put on an event in Walthamstow Town Square on Saturday from 11am-4pm and at the Angel Centre in Islington from 11am-3pm on Sunday.

Soup made from the surplus pumpkin will be served at both locations, along with a host of fun family-friendly activities.

If you indulge in the free food, you should also help the cause by making sure your own pumpkins don’t go to waste. Pumpkin drop-off points are being set up in ten Tesco stores around London between October 31 and November 6, making it easy to drop off your squash when its time is over.