Huggies brand teams with Trenton company for free recycling

TerraCycle's latest partnership tackles outer plastic packaging

Jessica Perry//January 10, 2025//

Under a new partnership with TerraCycle, consumers can recycle the outer plastic packaging from their Huggies hauls. - PROVIDED BY KIMBERLY-CLARK

Under a new partnership with TerraCycle, consumers can recycle the outer plastic packaging from their Huggies hauls. - PROVIDED BY KIMBERLY-CLARK

Under a new partnership with TerraCycle, consumers can recycle the outer plastic packaging from their Huggies hauls. - PROVIDED BY KIMBERLY-CLARK

Under a new partnership with TerraCycle, consumers can recycle the outer plastic packaging from their Huggies hauls. - PROVIDED BY KIMBERLY-CLARK

Huggies brand teams with Trenton company for free recycling

TerraCycle's latest partnership tackles outer plastic packaging

Jessica Perry//January 10, 2025//

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Parents don’t need another thing to puzzle over, so Huggies brand diapers is teaming with Trenton-based to help make easier.

Announced Jan. 9, the collaboration will allow participants to recycle outer plastic packaging of Huggies’ baby diapers and wipes for free. Additionally, the program will accept packaging from other Kimberly-Clark-manufactured brands, which makes Huggies products.

For the diaper brand, the initiative aligns with a goal to design packaging solutions that are compatible with circular systems for all product packaging by 2025. For TerraCycle, it’s the latest high-profile partnership as the company continues its ambitious mission to eliminate waste.

According to data cited from the company, less than half of the 80 million tons of packaging waste produced each year ends up recycled. This program aims to help keep more of it out of landfills and incinerators, including wraps from personal care and hygiene products, diapers or wipes.

Huggies Free Recycling Program, participating brands:
  • Cottonelle
  • Depend
  • Goodnites
  • Huggies
  • Poise
  • Pull-Ups
  • Scott
  • U by Kotex
  • Viva

Tom Szaky is the founder and CEO of Trenton-based TerraCycle.
Szaky

“There’s a common misconception that single-use flexible plastic packaging can only be thrown away, but technically, almost anything can be recycled,” said Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “Our partnership with Huggies and Kimberly-Clark makes it easy and convenient for consumers to recycle hard-to-recycle packaging and contribute to a more sustainable future.”

TerraCycle works worldwide to offer innovative solutions to recycling and reusing materials. Altogether, it hosts more than 550 free recycling programs in partnership with more than 300 organizations globally. To date, the company says it has recycled over 8.5 billion items. The range of what the company can work with is seemingly limitless, spanning chip bags to flip-flops to cigarette butts.

Locally, TerraCycle partnered with ShopRite over the summer to introduce dedicated kiosks outside of stores to facilitate flexible plastic packaging recycling.

The Huggies Free Recycling Program is open to schools, individuals or community organizations. The process is also simple: sign up, download and print your prepaid shipping label, and send in the plastic packaging.

After landing at a TerraCycle material recovery facility, the plastic is shredded, cleaned and recycled into raw materials used to make new products.

“Huggies puts the consumer at the heart of all we do,” commented Kimberly-Clark North American Baby & Childcare President Andrea Zahumensky. “We set out to make our consumers lives better while making the smallest environmental impact possible. Our partnership with TerraCycle supports that ambition and minimizes our plastics footprint.”