Before you toss those pumpkins, here are a few ways you can re-purpose them

CHASKA, MN (CBS) — Halloween has come and gone. How are those porch pumpkins looking?

Before you toss your sunken Jack-o-Lanterns in the trash, here are some ways to give your gourds new life after the holiday.

More often than not, these spooky, festive decorations will end up in the trash—adding to the nearly 70 million tons of yard trimmings and food waste Americans generate each year. But, there are other options.

Despite the drought, it’s been a great year for Vineyard Manager John Thull and the Horticulture Research Center. But as the chill seeps in, and Halloween passes,

Thull said that part of their leftover crop goes toward animal enrichment at the Como Zoo.

It’s not an option for everyone… but the idea can be applied to a local animal rescue or a local farm… or even a neighbor with chickens. On top of enrichment, the pumpkins can offer a plentiful food source for their residents.

Regular pumpkins can be used as a food source for squirrels, birds, and deer in your backyard. And some gourds can even double as a bird house. Thull explained, “you could take [a gourd], hollow a little hole in there, and let the birds actually make a nest inside.”

But, perhaps, the most effective way to repurpose your pumpkins is to compost it in your garden. Thull suggested that the winter will take care of the pumpkin, if you set it somewhere where you don’t mind it deflating away over the winter. “By next season it will be pretty much just mush, and it will be nice compostable material that will work into your garden at that point.”