Walmart launches recycling hub program in time for holidays

Select Walmart and Sam’s Club stores are now serving as drop-off points for plastic food and beverage packaging.

Walmart is collaborating with international recycling provider TerraCycle to introduce the Walmart Hub Recycling Program. Through the program, consumers can bring all brands of coffee capsules, water filters, plastic bottles, soft plastic food packaging, and rigid plastic packaging to participating Springdale, Ark. and Broken Arrows, Okla. Walmart supercenter locations, as well as at the Fayetteville, Ark., Sam’s Club store.

Shoppers can bring their accepted waste which is not curbside recyclable to the designated recycling hubs that are positioned outside the participating Walmart and Sam’s Club locations. When the hub station is full, TerraCycle will pick up and transport the waste to regional material recovery facilities where it will be sorted by material type and recycled into raw materials that can be used to make new products, like playgrounds and park benches.

Walmart is intentionally rolling out its new recycling program in time for the holiday season, when TerraCycle data indicates Americans throw away 25% more trash than any other time of year, amounting to nearly 25 million tons of excess waste.

“Plastic food and beverage packaging is an often-overlooked waste stream that plays an important role in our daily lives,” said Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “Most are not aware that soft plastic food packaging, for instance, is usually multilayered and consists of multiple different materials, excluding it from curbside recycling. That’s why this waste stream, along with water filters, plastic bottles, coffee capsules and rigid plastic packaging, was included in the Walmart Hub Recycling Program— to offer consumers an easy way to celebrate the holidays sustainably, without guilt over the waste that food and beverage products produce.”

Walmart wants you – to recycle
Walmart has been taking more active role in promoting recycling amongst its customers. In October 2022, the discount giant partnered with Loop, the circular reuse platform developed by TerraCycle, to enable users of its InHome delivery service in the metro areas of Bentonville and Rogers, Ark. to purchase a limited assortment of products in refillable, reusable containers.

After consumers use the products, they place the empty containers in a designated spot inside or outside their home for a Walmart associate to retrieve them. From there, the containers are sent to Loop to be sanitized, then returned to participating brands to be refilled and returned to the store for future purchase.

Walmart is also partnering with TerraCycle, as well as CPG manufacturer Procter & Gamble (P&G), to offer free in-store recycling collection for empty hair care, skincare and cosmetic packaging at 25 of its stores located throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

[Read more: Walmart partners with P&G in beauty recycling pilot]

The program is known as the Walmart U.S. Beauty Recycling Program. Participating stores feature dedicated collection bins for beauty packaging. The discounter has committed itself to becoming a “regenerative” company — helping to renew people and the planet through its business. The company detailed progress towards its goal in its recently released 2022 “Environmental, Social and Governance Summary Report.” 

The Walmart Community Recycling Hub is open to any interested individual, school, office, or community organization. Visit corporate.walmart.com/community-recycling-hub for more information on what can and cannot be recycled curbside.