Trick or trash: Candy makers grapple with plastic waste

ASSOCIATED PRESS • October 29, 2022

As America loads up on an estimated 600 million pounds of candy for Halloween, a handful of companies are trying to make it easier to recycle all those wrappers. But they acknowledge their efforts are only making a small dent and say more fundamental changes are needed. Even when companies do go to the effort of recycling candy wrappers, they produce such a low-value plastic that it doesn’t recoup the cost of recycling. As a result, a lot of plastic packaging ends up getting thrown away. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, containers and packaging made up 21% of trash going into landfills in 2018. “The problem isn’t the number of candy wrappers on Halloween, but the 365 days a year that our infrastructure is set up to throw away,” said Janet Dominitz, the executive director of the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group,