ESCANABA — Students in the Escanaba area are recycling candy wrappers after Halloween this year instead of throwing the wrappers in the trash, thanks to Escanaba High School’s Environmental Club. The new club decided the first activity it would take on would be the “Trick or Trash” campaign. Members of the club provided drop-off points for high school, Holy Name and Lemmer Elementary students to dispose of unwanted Halloween candy wrappers for recycling.   “We have gotten a lot of wrappers from kids here,” said Escanaba High School Special Education teacher and advisor to the Environmental Club Jessica Garber.   Club members have also picked up wrappers dropped off at Holy Name and Lemmer.   The company Rubion Global launched a “Trick or Trash” recycling awareness program. Garber received information from Rubion Global to educate students about keeping wrappers out of landfills and getting them into a recycling stream. More than 450 teachers signed up for the program. Escanaba High School is one of nine schools in Michigan working with the program to recycle.   The Environmental Club will close the “Trick or Trash” box when it is full and ship it free of charge to TerraCycle, a waste management company.   “We plan on packing the box as full as possible before sending it back,” said Garber.   Students wanted to have a club that did activities to help the environment after a visit to the Lake Superior Youth Symposium during the 2018-2019 school year. Seventh through 12th grade students from schools in the Upper Peninsula explored unique features of Lake Superior through workshops, field trips, and presentations. They met new friends and discussed how they could be good stewards of natural resources.   “This Environmental Club was thought up by a few students last year who went to the Lake Superior Youth Symposium because they saw the impacts of pollution on our Great Lakes,” said Garber. “We had a meeting to gauge interest at the end of last year, but our first meeting of this year was Oct. 15,” said Garber.   Garber decided there was enough interest to start a club for the 2019-2020 school year and is excited to see how it will grow. The club is so new they are in the stage of deciding the type of projects to engage in. “We have a small group of students who are working on the Environmental Club right now, but we are hoping the numbers will grow,” said Garber.   The first project the club tackled was the “Trick-or-Trash” campaign. The next project is to recycle plastic soda bottles to prevent them from going into the trash bins in the high school. The club now has a new bin to recycle bottles with the recycle number 1 or 2 at the bottom.   “All the bottles are going into the trash now,” Garber said.   Starting Nov. 15, the Environmental Club will start recycling plastic bags, bread bags, bubble wrap, dry cleaning bags, newspaper sleeves, ice bags, plastic shipping envelopes, “ziploc” bags, cereal bags, case over-wrap, salt bags, pellet wrap and stretch film, wood pellet bags and produce bags. With each bag they recycle the club members get closer to winning a bench from the TREX Company, Inc., a major manufacturer of wood alternative decking, railings and other outdoor items made from recycled materials. The plastic items will be weighed weekly and the weight will be entered monthly on the TREX website. According to Garber TREX is sending the club bins for the plastic film challenge.   “This is a small jumping off point for us and the students are very excited to be making these small changes for the better,” Garber said.

ESCANABA, Mich. (WJMN)- Jessica Garber’s environmental club at Escanaba High School is new this year and with it being the Halloween season, the club is incorporating that into saving the planet.   “It was started by Rubicon Global,” said Garber. “They’re out of Atlanta, Georgia and basically they’re sending boxes that come from Terra Cycle to 450 schools across the nation in 49 states and kids can recycle their candy wrappers there.”   “There’s like millions of wrappers all over the world now an we need to like recycle it instead of just throwing it away because it builds up quickly,” said sophomore, Gabrielle Chouinard.   The group is also getting students at Lemmer Elementary involved by asking them to collect wrappers.   “So when they inherit this world too, they would know better about how to keep the environment safe from all of this pollution,” said junior, Alan Koszka.   People would like to recycle their candy wrappers can drop them off at Escanaba High School. The club is also asking for plastic bags for their next project. That collection is from November 15th to April 15th.   As the new organization continues to grow, they’ve also implemented recycling bins for bottles in the school.   “I always wanted to do something for the environment because there is climate change and stuff is changing so we need to do something about this and start recycling,” said Chouinard.

Rubicon Global announced that the company has launched a Halloween campaign designed to help elementary and middle-school teachers across the United States educate their students on the importance of recycling and keeping candy wrappers out of landfills. The campaign is in keeping with the company’s B Corp mission to end waste.   According to industry data, $2.6 billion will be spent on candy in 2019⁽¹⁾, and Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy⁽²⁾ for Halloween.   Throughout the month of October, Rubicon will be running its first ever “Trick or Trash” campaign, offering teachers in elementary and middle schools across the United States a recycling and circular economy lesson plan, as well as a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box through TerraCycle for students to discard their Halloween candy wrappers within. All of these items are being provided free of charge⁽³⁾.   “We believe this campaign can be a catalyst for the next generation to recycle more and reduce waste in our world,” said Nate Morris, Founder and CEO of Rubicon. “Our hope is this program is a great addition to everyone’s Halloween festivities while providing teachers with a curriculum with which to educate students on how to develop positive recycling habits.”   “TerraCycle’s mission has always been to ‘Eliminate the Idea of Waste’ and we’ve proven that solutions do exist for items that may seem difficult to recycle,” said Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “Rubicon not only shares our commitment but has taken it to the next level by spearheading the ‘Trick or Trash’ Halloween campaign to reduce the impact of candy and snack wrappers on the environment and help pave the way for a greener future.”   Rubicon Global is a technology company that powers a digital marketplace, provides a suite of SaaS products for waste, recycling, and smart city solutions, and collects and analyzes data for businesses and governments worldwide. Using technology to help turn businesses into more sustainable enterprises and neighborhoods into greener and smarter places to live and work, Rubicon’s mission is to end waste in all of its forms by helping its partners find economic value in their waste streams and confidently execute on their sustainability goals. The company is a Certified B Corporation, affirming that Rubicon meets the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance and aligns its business with purpose and social good. Through its technology, Rubicon is transforming the entire category of waste and recycling.   Teachers can download the lesson plan immediately upon sign-up. After completing the sign-up, a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box will be shipped to their school. Once delivered, teachers can simply set up the box in their classroom, cafeteria, or hallway, and encourage the students to deposit all of their candy wrappers in the box. Once the box is full, teachers can simply close the box, attached the prepaid shipping label, and ship it off free of charge.

Rubicon Global announced that the company has launched a Halloween campaign designed to help elementary and middle-school teachers across the United States educate their students on the importance of recycling and keeping candy wrappers out of landfills. The campaign is in keeping with the company’s B Corp mission to end waste.   According to industry data, $2.6 billion will be spent on candy in 2019⁽¹⁾, and Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy⁽²⁾ for Halloween. Throughout the month of October, Rubicon will be running its first ever “Trick or Trash” campaign, offering teachers in elementary and middle schools across the United States a recycling and circular economy lesson plan, as well as a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box through TerraCycle for students to discard their Halloween candy wrappers within. All of these items are being provided free of charge⁽³⁾.   “We believe this campaign can be a catalyst for the next generation to recycle more and reduce waste in our world,” said Nate Morris, Founder and CEO of Rubicon. “Our hope is this program is a great addition to everyone’s Halloween festivities while providing teachers with a curriculum with which to educate students on how to develop positive recycling habits.”   “TerraCycle’s mission has always been to ‘Eliminate the Idea of Waste’ and we’ve proven that solutions do exist for items that may seem difficult to recycle,” said Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “Rubicon not only shares our commitment but has taken it to the next level by spearheading the ‘Trick or Trash’ Halloween campaign to reduce the impact of candy and snack wrappers on the environment and help pave the way for a greener future.”   Rubicon Global is a technology company that powers a digital marketplace, provides a suite of SaaS products for waste, recycling, and smart city solutions, and collects and analyzes data for businesses and governments worldwide. Using technology to help turn businesses into more sustainable enterprises and neighborhoods into greener and smarter places to live and work, Rubicon’s mission is to end waste in all of its forms by helping its partners find economic value in their waste streams and confidently execute on their sustainability goals. The company is a Certified B Corporation, affirming that Rubicon meets the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance and aligns its business with purpose and social good. Through its technology, Rubicon is transforming the entire category of waste and recycling.   Teachers can download the lesson plan immediately upon sign-up. After completing the sign-up, a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box will be shipped to their school. Once delivered, teachers can simply set up the box in their classroom, cafeteria, or hallway, and encourage the students to deposit all of their candy wrappers in the box. Once the box is full, teachers can simply close the box, attached the prepaid shipping label, and ship it off free of charge.

Rubicon Global announces that the company’s first-ever Halloween campaign designed to help educators from across the United States teach their students about the importance of recycling and keeping candy wrappers out of landfills was a success, with more than 450 schools in 49 states signing up for the free program.   The campaign was in keeping with Rubicon’s mission to end waste. According to industry data, $2.6 billion will be spent on candy in 2019⁽¹⁾, and Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy⁽²⁾ for Halloween.   Throughout the month of October, Rubicon ran its first-ever “Trick or Trash” campaign, offering educators across the United States a recycling and circular economy lesson plan, as well as a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box through TerraCycle for students to discard their Halloween candy wrappers within. All of these items were provided free of charge.   Educators were able to download the lesson plan immediately upon sign-up, after which more than 450 Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Boxes were shipped out to schools across the United States. Once delivered, educators set up their boxes in their classroom, cafeteria, or hallways, and are encouraging students to deposit all of their Halloween candy wrappers in them. Once the boxes get full, educators can simply seal the box and ship it off free of charge using the prepaid shipping label.   “We are absolutely thrilled by the energy and engagement that teachers across the country have demonstrated since we launched the Trick or Trash program, as well as the positive feedback, photos, and posts we have seen on social media as the program has taken flight,” said Michael Allegretti, Chief Strategy Officer, Rubicon Global. “This unique Rubicon Global program showcases to children and teachers across the U.S. that every single person can play a critical role in creating a more sustainable future for our planet by keeping waste out of landfills.”  

For more information, visit www.rubiconglobal.com.

In early October, Rubicon launched its first ever "Trick or Trash" campaign, a free education campaign designed to keep those Halloween candy and snack wrappers. The idea was to provide teachers and educators with a recycling and circular economy lesson plan, as well as a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box through TerraCycle to help keep all of those Halloween candy and snack wrappers out of landfills and divert them into some sort of recycling stream. According to industry data, Americans will purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy for Halloween. That's a lot of wrappers.   Rubicon is announcing that more than 450 teachers and educators in 49 states plus the District of Columbia signed up for the program. Gemini Middle School in Niles was one of those that signed up.   Seventh-grade teacher Beverly Mendoza said "There are over 1,100 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in my middle school. Students chew gum daily. They go through tons of wrappers within a week, and most of those wrappers end up in the trash. We do a lot within our school to recycle paper, plastic bottles, and are even collecting bottle caps to send to a company that will create a bench out of them for the school. This Trick or Trash program from Rubicon is a great extension of our existing recycling and sustainability efforts and we are excited to be a part of it."   According to Rubicon, the demand exceeded its expectations and was thrilling to see.   "We were absolutely thrilled at the excitement and energy that teachers from across the United States were showing when we launched the program -- and then the positive feedback, photos, and posts we have seen on social media as the program took flight," said Charles Zinkowski, Director of Communications for Rubicon. "This program showcases to children across the U.S. that every single person can play a critical role in helping the sustainability of our planet and keeping waste out of landfills."

We need to talk about Halloween candy.   Public awareness of our plastic pollution crisis is at a high, plastic straws and bags are getting banned in cities and states across the country, and yet there has been almost no discussion about the massive environmental problem that Halloween candy creates. Americans will buy approximately 600 million pounds of Halloween candy this year, spending $2.6 billion on bite-sized candy bars and bags of candy corn. After the holiday, nearly all the wrappers and packages from these confections will end up in landfills, where they’ll sit around for decades or more.   Candy wrappers are very hard to recycle. Like most food wrappers and packages, candy wrappers are not meant to be mixed with bottles and cans and sent to a sorting facility. “They are too small for our equipment to sort,” said John Hambrose, communications manager at Waste Management Inc., one of the largest sanitation companies in the U.S. Most curbside recycling programs prioritize capturing rigid plastics like bottles, jugs and materials that are at least the size of a credit card.   And it’s not just size that’s a problem. It’s what candy wrappers are made from.   “There are so many varieties of candy out there and equally abundant are the types of wrappers,” Jeremy Walters, sustainability manager for Republic Services, another major waste disposal company, told HuffPost in an email. “Though some wrappers feel like paper, they often have a ‘waxy’ or ‘poly-coating,’ leaving it unfit to be mixed with paper for recycling.”   Recycling systems aren’t designed to capture and sort wrappers “because they have little dollar value,” said Nick McCulloch, senior manager of sustainability at Rubicon Global, a waste reduction tech company.   “Recycling is in part about economics — the value of the raw materials you’re collecting needs to exceed the cost of collecting them. Candy wrappers make that math hard because they’re made from low-value plastics,” he told HuffPost. “You’d have to collect tens of thousands of wrappers to help make those economics work.” Nevertheless, a few small efforts exist to curb the waste associated with hard-to-recycle materials like candy wrappers.   In September, HuffPost reported on the launch of the first municipal program in the country that encourages residents to throw flexible plastics, including candy wrappers, in the recycling bin. Eight thousand households in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, are participating so far, and nearby communities will join the experiment by the end of the year. The area uses a recycling facility with the advanced technology to deal with flexible plastics. Most facilities around the country would need millions of dollars to upgrade their equipment.   This month, recycling company TerraCycle launched its first “Trick or Trash” program for Halloween candy wrappers. Initially, school teachers and students could request a free recycling box before the holiday; and once the box was full, they’d return it to TerraCycle, which cleans and breaks down the wrappers to be made into new items. But due to overwhelming demand in more than 40 states, the company had to stop sending out free boxes. Schools can still purchase a recycling box for snack and candy wrappers, but they’ll have to pay TerraCycle $81 to cover the costs associated with recycling these items.   Some food manufacturers have begun to experiment with wrappers made from recyclable materials. In the U.K., Nestlé recently launched its first recyclable paper packaging for a snack bar. The company did not respond when HuffPost asked whether it planned to use this new packaging on other products.   Walters told HuffPost that he worries about this so-called recyclable paper packaging.   “In theory it is a step in the right direction, but ultimately the biggest issue with this packaging is going to be contamination,” Walters wrote. “If you love chocolate as much as I do, you probably have experienced the Earth-shattering disappointment of opening up your chocolate bar and realizing it melted in your bag over the course of the day. Think about the sticky, chocolatey mess inside that wrapper. If that new ‘recyclable’ type of wrapper is soiled with chocolate or other food materials it cannot be mixed with paper grades coming out of the modern-day recycling center.”   So what’s an environmentally conscious trick-or-treater to do?   In the zero-waste Facebook group of which I’m a member, I asked if folks had alternatives to Halloween candy wrapper hell. Several members said they went out of their way to hand out plastic-free treats ― like playing cards made from paper, compostable chewing gum from a plastic-free store, or classic Halloween favorites that come in paper containers (like Nerds, Lemonheads and Milkduds).   “If we all make it a point to support companies and brands who are really tackling the problem of disposability and taking steps to find solutions, we can force meaningful change,” said Sue Kauffman, North American public relations manager of TerraCycle.   Waste Management’s Hambrose agreed, saying that people can make a difference “by purchasing products that use less packaging and recycled materials,” and by sharing their concerns with elected officials.   Individual actions won’t get us very far so long as companies keep churning out candy in single-use packaging, according to Greenpeace representative Perry Wheeler. “It’s time to rethink how we are delivering these products while still making it enjoyable for children,” Wheeler said.   “It is overwhelming to enter the Halloween aisle this time of year and think about where all of this plastic will end up — polluting our oceans, waterways, or communities,” he added. “The cost of inaction on our throwaway culture is just too high to ignore.”   One member of the Facebook group said this is not an issue their household bothers to tackle, despite working toward a waste-free lifestyle. “I have no solutions,” they wrote. “We just deal the best we can.” They added that they try to limit the number of houses they visit to collect less candy in the first place.   Another option is extreme action, like banning all unrecyclable food packaging, not just candy wrappers. Such an effort, however, would not only be unpopular, and therefore unlikely to gain political traction; it’d be tough to enact and enforce.   Bans on plastic straws and shopping bags are highly controversial, and there isn’t a consensus yet on how effective they are. Research published earlier this year found that California’s ban on plastic shopping bags might be driving up sales of plastic garbage bags. And bans on plastic straws have proved difficult to implement.   When we asked Hambrose whether a gigantic trash-hauler and recycler like Waste Management would favor a potential ban on candy wrappers, he was aghast.   “Waste Management would never get between a trick-or-treater and a candy bar,” Hambrose said. “We can’t think of anything more horrifying.”   If it matters to you, it matters to us. Support HuffPost’s journalism here. For more content and to be part of the “This New World” community, follow our Facebook page.   HuffPost’s “This New World” series is funded by Partners for a New Economy and the Kendeda Fund. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundations. If you have an idea or tip for the editorial series, send an email to thisnewworld@huffpost.com   This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

Earlier this month, Rubicon Global, a technology company born in the waste and recycling industry, launched its very first "Trick or Trash" Halloween campaign, a free recycling-awareness program for educators across the United States. The idea was to provide teachers and educators with a recycling and circular economy lesson plan, as well as a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box through TerraCycle to keep Halloween candy and snack wrappers out of landfills by diverting them into recycling streams. According to industry data, Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy for Halloween. It was smashing success. The free program had more than 450 teachers in 49 states plus the District of Columbia sign up in less than a month. One of those schools in Illinois was our very own Gemini Middle School in Niles. Seventh-grade teacher Beverly Mendoza, who signed up for the "Trick or Trash" program, said "I was taught to recycle from a young age, but more recently I've noticed that there are many cities and neighborhoods that still don't provide recycling, and that is a shame. There are over 1,100 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in my middle school. Students chew gum daily. They go through tons of wrappers within a week, and most of those wrappers end up in the trash. We do a lot within our school to recycle paper, plastic bottles, and are even collecting bottle caps to send to a company that will create a bench out of them for the school. This Trick or Trash program from Rubicon is a great extension of our existing recycling and sustainability efforts and we are excited to be a part of it."  

Rubicon Global and TerraCycle, both companies dedicated to managing and eliminating waste, recently teamed up to run a Halloween recycling initiative. The “Trick or Trash” campaign provides free lesson plans about recycling and the circular economy to elementary and middle-school teachers, along with bins, called Zero Waste Boxes, for recycling candy and snack wrappers accumulated by students during their trick or treating forays.   “Were tying it to Halloween because it definitely gets the kids’ attention,” says TerraCycle spokesperson Sue Kauffman. “It’s a perfect opportunity to teach some really important lessons about a topic that is really important to kids.”   While exact numbers of participating teachers haven’t been tallied yet, according to Kauffman, interest apparently has been high. Due to an unexpectedly enthusiastic response, the campaign had to end the box giveaway a few days early. Teachers and principals from more than 40 U.S. states signed up, more than doubling the anticipated number.   Those still interested in owning a Zero Waste Box can buy one on TerraCycle or Rubicon’s web sites. And the free lessons plans are still available. The initiative is being run through Rubicon’s site.   According to Rubicon, a whopping $2.6 billion will be spent on candy this year. Americans buy nearly 600 million pounds of candy for Halloween.   The lesson plans focus on what happens to all that candy waste after it’s tossed into recycling bins—what can and can’t be recycled, why you need to separate different types of waste, the merits of reusable packaging vs. single use, lifestyle changes that can lead to less trash and so on. “For a lot of people, when they throw things in the blue bin, it’s out of sight, out of mind,” says Kauffman. “They don’t really know what happens.”   Students are tasked with dropping off their candy wrappers and related waste after Halloween is over. Once the box is full, teachers can ship the box back to TerraCycle with a prepaid label. The company will then recycle the waste.   Atlanta, Ga-based Rubicon Global is a tech company focused on helping businesses, cities, individuals and haulers manage waste and become more sustainable. TerraCycle is a recycling and waste management pioneer, based in Trenton, NJ. It also recently launched Loop, which works with retailers and manufacturers to sell containers and other receptacles that are reused.   As for the Halloween initiative, according to Kauffman, it’s all about focusing on what students can do to change behavior and reduce waste. “If anything is going to change, you have to change the next generation,” she says.

We need to talk about Halloween candy.   Public awareness of our plastic pollution crisis is at a high, plastic straws and bags are getting banned in cities and states across the country, and yet there has been almost no discussion about the massive environmental problem that Halloween candy creates.   Americans will buy approximately 600 million pounds of Halloween candy this year, spending $2.6 billion on bite-sized candy bars and bags of candy corn. After the holiday, nearly all the wrappers and packages from these confections will end up in landfills, where they’ll sit around for decades or more.   Candy wrappers are very hard to recycle. Like most food wrappers and packages, candy wrappers are not meant to be mixed with bottles and cans and sent to a sorting facility. “They are too small for our equipment to sort,” said John Hambrose, communications manager at Waste Management Inc., one of the largest sanitation companies in the U.S. Most curbside recycling programs prioritize capturing rigid plastics like bottles, jugs and materials that are at least the size of a credit card.   And it’s not just size that’s a problem. It’s what candy wrappers are made from.   “There are so many varieties of candy out there and equally abundant are the types of wrappers,” Jeremy Walters, sustainability manager for Republic Services, another major waste disposal company, told HuffPost in an email. “Though some wrappers feel like paper, they often have a ‘waxy’ or ‘poly-coating,’ leaving it unfit to be mixed with paper for recycling.”   Recycling systems aren’t designed to capture and sort wrappers “because they have little dollar value,” said Nick McCulloch, senior manager of sustainability at Rubicon Global, a waste reduction tech company.   “Recycling is in part about economics — the value of the raw materials you’re collecting needs to exceed the cost of collecting them. Candy wrappers make that math hard because they’re made from low-value plastics,” he told HuffPost. “You’d have to collect tens of thousands of wrappers to help make those economics work.” Nevertheless, a few small efforts exist to curb the waste associated with hard-to-recycle materials like candy wrappers.   In September, HuffPost reported on the launch of the first municipal program in the country that encourages residents to throw flexible plastics, including candy wrappers, in the recycling bin. Eight thousand households in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, are participating so far, and nearby communities will join the experiment by the end of the year. The area uses a recycling facility with the advanced technology to deal with flexible plastics. Most facilities around the country would need millions of dollars to upgrade their equipment.   This month, recycling company TerraCycle and tech company Rubicon Global partnered to launched a “Trick or Trash” program for Halloween candy wrappers. Initially, school teachers and students could request a free recycling box before the holiday; and once the box was full, they’d return it to TerraCycle, which cleans and breaks down the wrappers to be made into new items. But due to overwhelming demand in more than 40 states, the companies had to stop sending out free boxes. Schools can still purchase a recycling box for snack and candy wrappers, but they’ll have to pay TerraCycle $81 to cover the costs associated with recycling these items.   Some food manufacturers have begun to experiment with wrappers made from recyclable materials. In the U.K., Nestlé recently launched its first recyclable paper packaging for a snack bar. The company did not respond when HuffPost asked whether it planned to use this new packaging on other products.   Walters told HuffPost that he worries about this so-called recyclable paper packaging.   “In theory it is a step in the right direction, but ultimately the biggest issue with this packaging is going to be contamination,” Walters wrote. “If you love chocolate as much as I do, you probably have experienced the Earth-shattering disappointment of opening up your chocolate bar and realizing it melted in your bag over the course of the day. Think about the sticky, chocolatey mess inside that wrapper. If that new ‘recyclable’ type of wrapper is soiled with chocolate or other food materials it cannot be mixed with paper grades coming out of the modern-day recycling center.” So what’s an environmentally conscious trick-or-treater to do?   In the zero-waste Facebook group of which I’m a member, I asked if folks had alternatives to Halloween candy wrapper hell. Several members said they went out of their way to hand out plastic-free treats ― like playing cards made from paper, compostable chewing gum from a plastic-free store, or classic Halloween favorites that come in paper containers (like Nerds, Lemonheads and Milkduds).   “If we all make it a point to support companies and brands who are really tackling the problem of disposability and taking steps to find solutions, we can force meaningful change,” said Sue Kauffman, North American public relations manager of TerraCycle.   Waste Management’s Hambrose agreed, saying that people can make a difference “by purchasing products that use less packaging and recycled materials,” and by sharing their concerns with elected officials.   Individual actions won’t get us very far so long as companies keep churning out candy in single-use packaging, according to Greenpeace representative Perry Wheeler. “It’s time to rethink how we are delivering these products while still making it enjoyable for children,” Wheeler said.   “It is overwhelming to enter the Halloween aisle this time of year and think about where all of this plastic will end up — polluting our oceans, waterways, or communities,” he added. “The cost of inaction on our throwaway culture is just too high to ignore.”   One member of the Facebook group said this is not an issue their household bothers to tackle, despite working toward a waste-free lifestyle. “I have no solutions,” they wrote. “We just deal the best we can.” They added that they try to limit the number of houses they visit to collect less candy in the first place.   Another option is extreme action, like banning all unrecyclable food packaging, not just candy wrappers. Such an effort, however, would not only be unpopular, and therefore unlikely to gain political traction; it’d be tough to enact and enforce.   Bans on plastic straws and shopping bags are highly controversial, and there isn’t a consensus yet on how effective they are. Research published earlier this year found that California’s ban on plastic shopping bags might be driving up sales of plastic garbage bags. And bans on plastic straws have proved difficult to implement.   When we asked Hambrose whether a gigantic trash-hauler and recycler like Waste Management would favor a potential ban on candy wrappers, he was aghast.   “Waste Management would never get between a trick-or-treater and a candy bar,” Hambrose said. “We can’t think of anything more horrifying.”   If it matters to you, it matters to us. Support HuffPost’s journalism here. For more content and to be part of the “This New World” community, follow our Facebook page.   HuffPost’s “This New World” series is funded by Partners for a New Economy and the Kendeda Fund. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundations. If you have an idea or tip for the editorial series, send an email to thisnewworld@huffpost.com