FAQs

Trash or Treasure™ is fun, free, and easy to participate in! You can enjoy your holiday festivities and rest easy knowing that the waste generated by your celebratory candy is being recycled and the plastic from each wrapper will be reused. Each Trash or Treasure™ box has the potential to keep hundreds of candy wrapper plastic out of landfills, or worse, our precious ecosystems.

Additionally, Trash or Treasure™ provides passionate sustainability leaders with an opportunity to inspire their communities to recycle year-round. The Trash or Treasure™ educational materials—shared by teachers with their students and business owners with their staff and customers—demonstrate the impact of recycling beyond Halloween. Every year, participants tell us that the program is much more than a simple box—it inspires an interest in the circular economy and lifelong commitments to fostering a more sustainable world.

Schools, independent businesses, and community organizations qualify to receive a free box! But anyone can still participate by purchasing a Trash or Treasure™ for personal use, perhaps for a holiday party!

Our priority is to get as many Trash or Treasure™ boxes to as many schools and independent businesses—and by extension, as many communities and states around the country—as possible. Therefore, we limit the number of free box orders to one box per teacher, business owner, or community organization.

Not able to host a box? You can still enjoy using our educational materials. And if you’ve collected some wrappers of your own, you can search for a nearby participating business to bring your wrappers to deposit in their box!

Trash or Treasure™ boxes can be shipped to physical locations in all 50 U.S. states. We cannot ship to PO boxes and there may be longer shipping times for Alaska and Hawaii.

All schools, independent businesses, and community organizations requesting a free box are required to submit their business address for shipping. Any personal addresses submitted for free box shipments will not be considered.

Yes, of course! The more Trash or Treasure™ boxes in communities across America the better. Encourage your community to get involved by sharing this website or by signing up for our newsletter.

You can also spread the word by engaging with and sharing Trash or Treasure™ information via social media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Simply go to our order form, select your category (school, independent business, community organization, or personal use), and follow the order prompts on our RUBICONMarketplace™ website to submit your address and contact details.

While there is no deadline to sign up to receive a box, we ask that you allow up to 7 business days for shipping and delivery. To ensure that your box is delivered and ready for Halloween, order well in advance of the mid-October rush.

Our supply of free Trash or Treasure™ boxes for schools, independent businesses, and community organizations is limited. If you qualify for a free box, don’t wait to submit your order—we sell out every year!

It is important to place the Trash or Treasure™ box somewhere easily accessible and noticeable to as many people as possible. For a school, this may be a homeroom or hallway. For a business, this may be in your lobby or next to a reception desk or checkout counter.

You may also be planning to take the Trash or Treasure™ box to an event, for example, a school Halloween celebration or a community “Trunk or Treat.” This is a great way to fill your box to the max! Just be sure one person is responsible for keeping an eye on the box, explaining what can and can’t go into the box, and packing it up for return at the end of the event.

Please note: Every year, some Trash or Treasure™ boxes are accidentally thrown out by staff or building custodians who don’t know what it is for. We recommend briefing all building staff on the purpose of the Trash or Treasure™ box and, where possible, including the informational flyer above the box so all passersby can read about the program. Trash or Treasure™ cannot guarantee the replacement of boxes that are lost or damaged.

Only candy wrappers please! The Trash or Treasure™ team works closely with our recycling partner to create a specialized candy wrappers recycling process that can handle all wrappers whether they are made of plastic, aluminum, or paper. Putting any other waste in the box is considered “contamination” and can jeopardize the recycling of your candy wrappers.

If candy remnants or other waste ends up in the box, we do everything we can to keep it within the circular economy through composting or waste-to-energy solutions. But please avoid contamination in the first place by educating your students and staff about what can go in the box. Refer to our Education page for more details and point out the Do/Don’t icons on top of the box to others.

A Trash or Treasure™ box includes a recycling container with liner, prepaid return shipping label, and digital Certificate of Recycling (provided after the box is returned and processed).

To ensure that as many students can participate in Trash or Treasure™ as possible, we limit the quantity of free boxes to one per teacher. But if a school has multiple teachers interested in hosting a box in their homerooms or environmental clubs, we encourage each teacher to order their own box! Some schools have had friendly competitions between grades or environmental clubs that host a box for the whole school.

If your school collects more wrappers than it can fit into its box(es), we can send additional boxes on a first-request basis.

Yes! We encourage participants to get creative when it comes to hosting a box! Events are a great way to encourage participation, for example, at a school Halloween celebration or a community “Trunk or Treat”. This is a great way to fill your box to the max! Just be sure one person is responsible for keeping an eye on the box, explaining what can and can’t go into the box, and packing it up for return at the end of the event.

Please note: Every year, some Trash or Treasure™ boxes are accidentally thrown out by staff or building custodians who don’t know what it is for. We recommend briefing all building staff on the purpose of the Trash or Treasure™ box and, where possible, including the informational flyer above the box so all passersby can read about the program. Trash or Treasure™ cannot guarantee the replacement of boxes that are lost or damaged.

Boxes ordered before September 19 will ship on or after September 19.

All box orders will ship within three to five business days but please allow up to a week for shipping. Shipping times for Alaska and Hawaii will be longer.

For shipping and delivery questions or issues, please contact MarketplaceSupport@rubicon.com.

Our Trash or Treasure™ educational materials have been created for grades K-12, college, and university. Please explore the lesson plans, videos, and webinars.

Our Trash or Treasure™ educational materials have been created for grades K-12, college, and university. Please explore the lesson plans, videos, and webinars.

Created in partnership with the National Wildlife Federation’s education team and Rubicon’s sustainability team, we have created Trash or Treasure™ educational materials that will encourage staff and customer awareness.

Please explore our educational materials and download the fact sheet for businesses.

You can also spread the word and encourage participation among staff and customers by using these resources.

A fact sheet for business owners has been created with useful information about Trash or Treasure™.

Known for their award-winning Ranger Rick magazines, the National Wildlife Federation has been inspiring young people to love and protect our nation’s diverse wildlife and ecosystems for generations. America’s largest and most trusted conservation organization works to unite Americans in giving wildlife a voice and advocating for the conservation values that are woven into the fabric of our nation’s collective heritage. We are honored to call the National Wildlife Federation the official education partner of Trash or Treasure™.

Explore the educational materials created by the National Wildlife Federation’s education team and Rubicon’s sustainability team.

Yes! School clubs should order their free box via the “School” option on the order page.

Each Trash or Treasure™ box comes with a pre-affixed and prepaid return UPS shipping label. Simply tape your box closed and return it to your nearest UPS store for shipping. Once it is received and processed, you will receive a Certificate of Recycling confirming how much material you diverted from landfill.

Please use UPS to return your Trash or Treasure™ box. Each Trash or Treasure™ box comes with a pre-affixed and prepaid return UPS shipping label, ensuring that you don’t have to pay a penny for shipping and that the full box journey is carbon neutral.

We try to accommodate requests for extra boxes in order to keep as many candy wrappers out of landfills as possible. Please reach out to the team at tot@rubicon.com to get on our “Overflow Box List” (as supplies last).

The plastic from the candy wrappers is used to create doggy bags for local animal shelters. Any paper or aluminum wrappers are recycled using traditional methods. And any food waste that ends up in the box (on accident!) is composted. Watch our video to learn more.

The Trash or Treasure™ team works closely with our recycling partner to create a specialized candy wrappers recycling process that can handle all wrappers whether they are made of plastic, aluminum, or paper. Putting any other waste in the box is considered “contamination” and can jeopardize the recycling of your candy wrappers. If candy remnants or other waste ends up in the box, we do everything we can to keep it within the circular economy through composting or waste-to-energy solutions.

Please avoid contamination in the first place by educating your students and staff about what can go in the box. Refer to our Education page for more details and point out the Do/Don’t icons on top of the box to others.

The box and box liner are both recycled on the same site as the candy wrappers. All shipping is managed through the UPS Carbon Neutral Shipment program. Nothing that goes into the Trash or Treasure™ box (or any part of the box itself) goes into landfill, ensuring that this program does not contribute to the methane emissions produced by landfills.

It is the responsibility of all Trash or Treasure™ box “hosts” to ensure that their boxes don’t end up in local dumpsters (even on accident) and that all boxes are returned to our recycling processor so that the materials can re-enter the circular economy.

Ultimately, we know that recycling a box of candy wrappers is not going to solve the country’s recycling challenges. But the box is going to make an impact on every person who uses it. And that person will think twice before throwing a recyclable in the trash for the next week, month, and hopefully for the rest of their lives.

Everyone who signs up for our newsletter will be the first to know about box orders and other important updates. Those who order a box will also receive confirmation emails about the status of their box.

We are fortunate to have some wonderful business sponsors! These sponsors often host Trash or Treasure™ boxes in their offices, stores, or restaurants. Alternatively, some sponsors will donate their boxes to local partners in their community (e.g., libraries, community centers, or nonprofits).

If you would like to become an official Trash or Treasure™ sponsor, please reach out to the team at tot@rubicon.com

Wonderful! If you would like to become an official Trash or Treasure™ sponsor, please reach out to the team at tot@rubicon.com