Taco Bell Wants to Recycle Your Sauce Packets

Taco Bell is getting a little bit greener. 

The fast-food chain is rolling out a program that will encourage customers to recycle their used sauce packets through a partnership with TerraCycle, according to KOCO. It’s estimated that 8 billion pounds of used sauce packets wind up in landfills each year. 

To get it in the action, customers will need to set up an account with TerraCycle and then collect their used packets in a recyclable container. Once the container’s full, just print a free shipping label from TerraCycle’s website and then ship the container via UPS.

Get our free mobile app

Taco Bell discovered that returning the labels via a shipping company was the preferred method of customers during a pilot launch of the program back in April. Not only is it more convenient, but it’s kind of gross to imagine them keeping a bunch of used sauce packets in restaurants. 

The company plans to use signage such as QR codes in its restaurants to increase awareness of the program and encourage people to sign up. 

The sauce packet recycle program is the latest effort by the taco chain to go greener. The company announced last year that it was discontinuing its popular Mexican Pizza due to its packaging that used more than 7 million pounds of paper per year. 

Taco Bell says it plans to take several more steps toward increased sustainability. For one thing, the company’s goal is to use fully "recyclable, compostable, or reusable" packaging for all of its products in all of its stores around the world by 2025.