The scary truth about snack waste – Canada

Canadians buy nearly $486 million worth of candy for Halloween. Between parties and trick-or-treating, Halloween creates a scary amount of candy and snack packaging waste. Plus, curbside recycling services don’t typically accept snack and candy wrappers, meaning that all of those wrappers will end up haunting landfills and incinerators. However, just because curbside recycling services don’t recycle candy and snack wrappers doesn’t mean that they can’t be recycled. 

What makes snack packaging hard to recycle?

Snack and candy wrappers aren’t typically accepted by curbside recycling services for a number of reasons. Factors like size, multilayer materials, and food contamination make the recycling process for this kind of trash a bit more complicated and create additional costs. Plus, waste management companies and front-of-store recycling programs won’t recycle certain items unless they can make a profit off of the resulting raw materials. 

TerraCycle can recycle hard-to-recycle trash like candy and snack packaging because we work with retailers, brands, and other stakeholders who fund the recycling process! Check out our recycling solutions so you can keep your Halloween waste out of landfills and incinerators.

TerraCycle’s recycling solutions

• Free recycling programs – We have FREE recycling programs for many different brands of snack packaging. Find the perfect program for your snacking needs. 
• Zero Waste Box™ – TerraCycle offers a Zero Waste Box specifically for candy and snack wrappers! The Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box is the perfect solution for recycling your Halloween snack packaging.

Upcycle your snack waste

There are plenty of other ways to keep your Halloween snack and candy waste out of landfills! Upcycling is a great way to make use of the trash produced by your Halloween celebrations. Check out some of these fun DIYs you can try to turn your trash into treasure!

• Use a full-size chocolate bar wrapper to decorate and upcycle some DIY barrettes and create some fun upcycled hairwear.
• Make a paper crown fit for a king or queen with snack packaging. You can even make this crown a part of your Halloween costume!
• Try making these adorable DIY pumpkins—they make great party favors!
• Make a sweet friendship bracelet by folding and linking lots of little candy wrappers together.

Check out the rest of our upcycling DIY videos here.

It can be tricky to avoid candy and snack packaging during Halloween, but with TerraCycle, you can recycle your Halloween trash and feel good knowing that you’re keeping it out of landfills and incinerators! Head to terracycle.com to check out our snack and candy wrapper recycling solutions.