Rubicon Announces the Launch of Trash or Treasure

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): Rubicon Technologies, Inc. announced the launch of Trash or Treasure™, a program designed to help reduce the waste that accumulates around seasonal celebrations throughout the year, starting with Halloween 2023. Over the last four years, through the support of schools, community organizations, and independent businesses across the United States, Rubicon’s annual Halloween waste reduction campaign has helped to divert hundreds of thousands candy wrappers from landfills, enabling thousands of pounds of plastic to be recycled as part of the circular economy.

Campaign participation has grown exponentially every year since its inception in 2019, and now the Company is excited to celebrate five years of the program with a new name and an expanded mission. Trash or Treasure will now help schools, community organizations, and small businesses reduce waste all year long by providing easy-to-assemble mail-back recycling boxes which can be filled with discarded candy wrappers and returned via carbon neutral shipping provided by our longtime campaign partner, UPS.

It is estimated that each year more than 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 2022, $3.1 billion dollars was spent on candy during the holiday. Candy packaging materials 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 is once again enlisting the help of teachers, business owners, and community leaders around the country in collecting used wrappers and inspiring communities to recycle.

Starting this fall, the Trash or Treasure program will run throughout the year with special campaigns around Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and other seasonal festivities in 2024. “Rubicon’s mission is to end waste, and our Trash or Treasure campaign is the clearest example of this mission in action,” said Dan Sampson, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Rubicon. “We are so excited to announce the expansion of the program such that we can now divert candy wrappers from landfills all year long. We are incredibly grateful to all the schools, community groups, and small businesses for being a part of Trash or Treasure. Their support and enthusiasm have made the program what it is today.”

Core to the success of Trash or Treasure is the campaign’s education program, which was created in collaboration with The National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Trash or Treasure’s official education partner. Downloadable lesson plans, reading lists, signage, and other collateral are available to help campaign participants rethink what is considered trash and understand its potential value as part of the circular economy.

These materials introduce circular economy concepts that can be integrated into any curriculum, and provide fun, interactive, critical thinking exercises with the goal of helping students understand recycling and why it is important to the health of our planet. “The National Wildlife Federation seeks to educate and inspire environmental and wildlife champions of all ages,” said Kim Martinez, Vice President of Education and Engagement at the National Wildlife Federation. “By participating in Rubicon’s Trash or Treasure Halloween campaign, kids are doing their part for wildlife by keeping candy wrappers out of our landfills and oceans.”

Courtesy: www.wasteadvantage.com