Conscious of the packaging Halloween candy can garner?
London Drugs wants to help out and launched the first Halloween candy wrapper recycling drive in the province.
Part of its Other Flexible Plastic Packaging program, the retailer is accepting chocolate bar and candy wrappers as well as potato chip bags to keep the waste out of landfills.
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Bring your discarded wrappers to any London Drugs location and the “garbage” will be sent to Merlin Plastics, a processing plant in Delta, working on developing a viable method of recycling common, but tough to process items.
“This is really a big problem; the volume of wrapper waste is significant. That’s why we’re making a commitment to help address it – not just at Halloween but year-round,” said Maury McCausland of London Drugs.
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Any material that cannot be recycled will be used to produce engineered fuel for commercial operations.
According to Statistics Canada, more than $500 million worth of cookies, confectionery and snack foods were sold across Canada in October of 2017, generating significant amounts of waste.
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Additionally, the Ocean Conservatory found food wrappers were among the top five items found during their International Coastal Clean-up last year.
“Last year, with the help of our customers and staff, our stores celebrated a 93 per cent waste diversion rate,” McCausland said of the flexible packaging program. “This program will help get us one step closer to zero waste.”
