Recycle Halloween Candy Wrappers and Donate Extra Candy

From October 29 to November 7, residents can drop off clean, empty, and dry candy and snack wrappers at two collection sites in Melrose: the Melrose Family YMCA lobby and 497 Main Street, and the porch at 41 Albion Street in Melrose. Please note—no food waste, paper, or cardboard will be accepted.

Next to the wrapper boxes, bins will be available to donate leftover candy to The Food Drive, a Melrose nonprofit dedicated to hunger relief and food rescue. By sharing extra treats, residents can help ensure more neighbors can enjoy the season.

This year’s wrapper collection is made possible by a Melrose Rotary Club grant, which funds the shipment of wrappers to TerraCycle for recycling. TerraCycle transforms items that typically end up in landfills into new products like plant pots and tote bags or into raw materials sold to manufacturing companies to make outdoor decking, flooring tiles, playground surfaces, and more.

Thank you, and kudos to Cora, a sixth-grader at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School and a student at Follow Your Art Community Studios, who designed the beautiful artwork on the collection boxes.