Taco Bell Wants Customers To Send Back Used Sauce Packets So It Can Reuse Them

We all need to be doing whatever we can to reduce our carbon footprint, and one such thing that really helps is recycling as much as possible. However, there are some things that can be reused or repurposed that you wouldn’t even consider. One such thing is Taco Bell sauce packets. The Mexican fast-food chain is asking customers to return those emptied packets so that they can be cleaned, reformed, and made into new, full sauce packets. Not a bad idea!

  1. Customers are being asked to return the packets in the mail. Partnering with recycling company TerraCycle, the pilot program rolling out across the US aims to “divert as many used sauce packets as possible away from landfills” and reuse them. Considering nearly eight billion pounds of used sauce packets end up there every year, this is an important initiative.
  2. So how does it work? Basically, customers need to sign up for a Terracycle account and then keep their empty Taco Bell sauce packets in a recyclable container. When they’re ready to be returned, you just print a free shipping label from the website and send it back. Simple!
  3. Taco Bell isn’t accepting packets in-store. This is because, the restaurant says, most of their transactions happen via the drive-thru and aren’t eaten in the actual restaurant. They also did some research and found that most people prefer to return via mail because it allows them to “minimize their transportation footprint and ship their box of saved sauce packets once full.”
  4. Taco Bell is doing something revolutionary here. They’re one of the very first major food companies to partner with New Jersey-based TerraCycle. Taco Bell hopes that by 2025, all of its packaging will be fully “recyclable, compostable, or reusable” at every single location around the globe.
Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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