Rubicon, Lexington,
Kentucky, announced that its annual Trickor Trash campaign was a success for the third consecutive year,
reaching more schools, small businesses and community organizations than ever
across all 50 U.S. states.
Designed to help reduce the waste that accumulates every year
around Halloween, Rubicon’s Trick or Trash campaign provides safe and
easy-to-assemble recycling boxes to schools, universities, small businesses,
community organizations and individuals for discarding candy wrappers.
It is estimated that each year, 600 million pounds of candy are
consumed in the United States during the Halloween season, and research from
the National Retail Federation shows
that in 2020 alone, $2.4 billion dollars was spent on candy during the holiday.
The film plastic materials used for candy packaging are notoriously difficult
to recycle, with the vast majority ending up in landfills, as well as America’s
waterways and oceans. To address this challenge, Rubicon enlisted the help of
students, teachers, and small businesses around the country to collect candy
wrappers and inspire communities to recycle.
Rubicon’s says its Trick or Trash 2021 campaign reached
significantly more individuals this year, with almost 2,000 collection boxes
being sent to more than 1,250 schools, small businesses and community
organizations. This substantial increase in boxes—up from 730 in 2020 and 450
in 2019—increases the potential for the number of candy wrappers saved. A new
enhancement to this year’s program is advanced reporting ensuring that all
participants receive a certificate of recycling confirming how much would-be
waste they diverted. Early reporting indicates that once all of this year’s
boxes have been returned for processing, participants will have diverted an
estimated 10 million candy wrappers from landfills.
Rubicon’s partners on the project include Cox Communications, The Arby’s Foundation and The National Wildlife Federation. This
year’s campaign also welcomed g2 revolution as
Trick or Trash’s recycling partner. According to the company, g2 develops
sustainable “Second Life” solutions to divert waste from landfills
through reuse, recycling or recovery of usable ingredients to make new products
or to generate energy.
The educational component of the campaign, co-created by Rubicon
and the National Wildlife Federation, focuses on the role of recycling within
the circular economy, and was expanded in 2021 to include K-12 lesson plans and
other content from prior years, a reading list for university and college
students, and a useful factsheet for business participants. The National
Wildlife Federation also introduced campus sustainability teams to the Trick or
Trash program as part of its Campus Race to Zero Waste initiative, a nationwide
recycling competition which Rubicon also supports.
“We are thrilled by the level of enthusiasm that Trick or Trash
has once again generated from students, teachers, small-business owners and
local communities across the United States,” Nate Morris, founder and CEO of Rubicon,
says. “Now in its third year, Trick or Trash embodies Rubicon’s mission to end
waste in its purest form. From the thousands of pounds of candy wrappers that
are diverted from landfills, to the campaign’s core educational component that
is being taught in schools and universities across the country, Trick or Trash
has proven itself to be a central part of the American conversation where it
comes to teaching future generations about the importance of sustainability.”
“This is my school’s third year participating in Trick or
Trash,” Lori Rubio, a K-6 teaching assistant at Elmcrest Elementary School in
Liverpool, New York, says. “Students love to see the box filling up. Just when
they think it is full, we push the wrappers down and can add more. Elmcrest
students are very knowledgeable about recycling and its importance because we
pride ourselves on being one of the best schools in our district when it comes
to recycling.”
Rubicon noted that for any schools, small businesses, community
centers or other organizations that are interested in diverting hard-to-recycle
materials away from landfills, the RUBICONMarketplace powered
by g2 revolution is now live. The marketplace makes recycling items such as
aerosol cans, used batteries, plastic bags, and personal protective equipment
(PPE) easier for interested parties, the company says.
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