Over 250 million pounds of plastic film — like grocery bags and shipping mailers — are recycled each year through store drop-off recycling. Many everyday items aren’t eligible for local curbside pickup; however, they can be recycled. That includes the cereal bag liner found in your favorite box of General Mills cereal, Nature Valley Crunchy bar wrappers, and more.
Retailers like Kroger, Meijer, Target, Walmart, and many more sponsor programs collect these household items. In fact, there are over 20,000 locations across the U.S. where eligible items can be dropped off.
Taking advantage of store drop-off recycling helps conserve resources, reduce waste, lessen environmental impact, and gives packaging a second life. These materials can be turned into products like outdoor decking, construction materials, new flexible plastic films, and more.
Store drop-off programs provide a dedicated stream for these items ensuring they are properly recycled.
Participating in store drop-off recycling is simple. Here’s how:
Gather your recyclables. It’s easy — start with one recyclable bag and put other bags and films in your “bag of bags” to take back to the store. As a rule of thumb: If plastic film can stretch and has a triangle with the numbers two or four on it, it can generally be recycled via store drop-off (but not curbside — be sure to keep these separate).
Also, look for the How2Recycle label on packaging for detailed disposal instructions — many common products carry these instructions, even products that are marked Not Recyclable.
At General Mills, we're committed to designing all of our packaging to be reusable or recyclable by 2030. To learn more, watch a video here.
