Next week, Rubicon® will officially announce the launch of Trick or Trash™ 2022, the company’s annual recycling and education campaign designed to help reduce the waste that accumulates every year around Halloween.

One of the core tenets of the program, aside from providing free and easy-to-assemble recycling boxes to schools, independent businesses, and community organizations, which can be filled with discarded candy wrappers, is to provide recycling education to all.

Rubicon enables independent business owners to spread the word within their communities by creating printable flyers, available in English or Spanish, to be displayed in stores, offices, or other places of business. A downloadable business fact sheet has also been created for those looking to delve a bit deeper into the mission of Trick or Trash. These reading materials were created with the goal of providing business owners, employees, and customers with an introduction to the concept of the circular economy and illustrating the value of their candy wrapper recycling efforts which keep plastic wrappers from entering landfills—or worse, our delicate ecosystems.

Also available are “okay-to-recycle” graphics that provide clear instructions to dispose of candy wrappers only into Trick or Trash boxes. Being that the process for recycling candy wrappers is much more precise than that of most common recyclables, other materials can easily contaminate boxes and force everything to be taken to the landfill. We are proud that our contamination rates for Trick or Trash have been very low thanks to the efforts of all participants!

Trick or Trash would not accomplish its full purpose if it did not leave participants with a deeper awareness and richer knowledge of the important role recycling and the circular economy play in our planet’s environmental health. To this end, it is important to keep customers engaged in the program, as they will be a major contributor to its success.

Social media platforms offer some of the most effective ways to inspire and educate customers. Let them know your business is participating by using one of Rubicon’s shareable photo templates on the “Resources” tab of the Trick or Trash website. Be sure to search for Rubicon’s Trick or Trash stickers on these platforms as well, so you can decorate your photo and tag us with the “#TrickOrTrash” hashtag! We are also running our annual photo contest in which five winners will be selected at random to win a prize post-Halloween.

Business owners may also find success in leveraging social media to encourage customers to bring candy wrappers into their stores, inspiring them to contribute to a great cause. In some cases, it may be helpful for a business to create a promotion for customers who share its Trick or Trash posts on their personal social media pages, or come into the store with a certain amount of wrappers.

These methods can be a great way to organically increase engagement on social media and direct more traffic into shops, stores, or other places of business.

If you are interested in learning more about how Rubicon helps schools and businesses prevent candy wrappers from entering landfills, please take a look at the Trick or Trash website and its library of downloadable content, or email trickortrash@rubicon.com. We look forward to businesses around the country joining us for what promises to be another great Trick or Trash season!

Katie Kinnear is Director of Engagement Strategy at Rubicon. To stay ahead of Rubicon’s announcements of new partnerships and collaborations around the world, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, or contact us today.