Terracycle launches biscuit wrapper contest
United Biscuit, the manufacturer of McVitie’s, and post-consumer recycling company TerraCycle, yesterday (8 April), announced the launch of a new recycling fundraising competition, ‘Biscuit Wrapper Roundup Collection Contest’ that will award prizes to contestants who save the most biscuit wrappers from landfill.
The contest will run until 7 October 2013 and will award participants with ‘TerraCycle points’ which can be redeemed as a contribution to a chosen school, charity or non-profit organisation.
According to TerraCycle, contestants will earn two TerraCycle points for every ‘3.2 grams of savoury biscuit wrappers of any brand’ sent in for recycling and will be automatically entered into the contest for most wrappers collected.
At the end of the competition, the twenty top collectors will win contributions of £250, £150, £50 or £20 for their chosen school, charity or non-profit organisation. In addition, the ‘Grand Prize winning location’ and ‘First Runner Up’ will also receive a hamper full of McVitie’s biscuits.
Regular ‘Top 10 leaderboards’ and Facebook updates will be posted throughout the contest by Terracycle so participants can see how well they are doing.
Those wishing to send their wrappers to Terracycle can download freepost labels from the company’s website, along with ‘Shipping Posters’ and ‘Thermometer Posters’, aimed to ‘encourage collections in the participant’s community or place of work’.
‘Encourage people across the UK’
According to TerraCycle, whilst biscuit wrappers are recyclable there are few councils that offer mixed plastic film collections, resulting in ‘billions of biscuit wrappers needlessly being sent to UK landfill’.
It is hoped that the new competition will ‘encourage people across the UK to collect and send waste biscuit wrappers otherwise destined for landfill, to be recycled into new products’, such as watering cans, garden benches and waste bins.
‘Repurposing the previously non-recyclable’
The contest follows on from the ‘McVitie’s Biscuit Wrapper Brigade’ scheme which launched in June 2012 and has reportedly saved 21,000 wrappers from going to landfill, whilst raising over £460 for schools, charities and non-profit organisations.
TerraCycle works with 50 brands in 22 countries to collect used packaging and products that would otherwise be destined for landfills. It then ‘repurposes the previously non-recyclable into eco-friendly materials and products’.
According to TerraCycle, to date the company has saved over 11 million pieces of waste packaging from landfill, raising over £159,000 for schools, charities and non-profit organisations.
Read more about the ‘Biscuit Wrapper Roundup Collection Contest’.
