Taco Bell has partnered with waste administration firm TerraCycle to offer prospects the chance to recycle these little single-serving sauce packets you get together with your fast-food meal, Plastics Today reported.
Per the report, the 2 firms began the pilot program in 2021, encouraging folks to mail of their used sauce packets in trade for reward factors that would then be transformed into money and donated to a choose group of nonprofits. Even higher, the next yr, this system started accepting sauce packets from any model — not simply Taco Bell.
Now, the 2 firms have expanded this system even additional, permitting prospects to ship in sauce-dipping cups, souffle cups and lids, and low creamer pods.
“In 2022, we examined the concept with customers to responsibly recycle any model of condiment sauce packets,” Missy Schaaphok, director of worldwide vitamin and sustainability at Taco Bell, said in a information launch from PR Newswire. “We labored with TerraCycle and a franchisee in New Jersey to check out the idea, and it was so successful. Consequently, we determined to take the concept nationwide later that yr and share the love past our iconic sauce packets, giving a extra sustainable choice to everybody.”
“At TerraCycle, our goal has all the time been to offer modern sustainability options for hard-to-recycle waste streams by means of partnerships just like the one we share with Taco Bell,” TerraCycle CEO and founder Tom Szaky stated. He indicated that, by means of this system, “customers have the flexibility to simply recycle any and all sauce packets by means of the Taco Bell Sauce Packet Free Recycling Program with no restrictions.”
Single-use plastics are an enormous drawback for our planet, taking tens to hundreds of years to interrupt down. The manufacturing of the fabric additionally generates heat-trapping gases like methane. Whereas there are lots of plastic-free alternatives for on a regular basis merchandise, the fast-food business as a complete has been grappling with the best way to cut back its single-use waste.
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On the time the pilot program launched, Taco Bell estimated that 8.2 billion of its sauce packets have been ending up in landfills yearly, per Plastics Right now.
Since its recycling program will depend on prospects voluntarily going out of their solution to ship used sauce packets and different tiny containers by means of the mail, it’s clear Taco Bell could do more to actually deal with its contribution to the single-use plastics disaster. Fortunately, the model appears keen to tackle that problem.
Taco Bell has also announced that it intends to make all of its shopper packaging recyclable, compostable, or reusable, in accordance with Plastics Right now. It would additionally remove PFAS and bisphenol A (BPA) from packaging supplies in addition to add recycling and/or composting bins to its eating places by 2025.
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