Can You Recycle Disposable Face Masks? Yes! Yes, You Can.
As a personal stylist who also happens to be obsessed with resilient home design (where good design meets climate resilience), I’m all about finding ways to live an intentional life that is aligned with my values. And, I’m all about doing that while making sure everything is beautiful.
So, the idea that our family is contributing to landfills and ocean pollution by throwing away our disposable face masks was brutal. Near the beginning of the pandemic, I went on a hunt for a company that would accept disposable masks to ACTUALLY recycle them. I found it!
How to Recycle Your Disposable Masks
When I initially found TerraCycle, I was elated to discover that they accepted disposable face masks for recycling. However, back then, it was an expensive option. Since then, the good people at TerraCycle have made huge investments in finding ways to “recycle the unrecyclable.”
We ordered a Zero Waste box and have been loving it ever since. Here’s how it works. You prepay for a cardboard box to fill up with an “unrecyclable” item. There are different boxes for different needs including supplies from your hair salon to coffee capsules (aka pods) and everything in your kitchen that isn’t recyclable. Believe it! Of course, this list includes disposable masks, too. N-95s, surgical masks and more are all allowed.
You pay for the box and when it’s full, just send it back. Done and done.
You’ll likely end up down a rabbit hole once you land on the website. It really does make you want to recycle everything you are currently throwing away. As an aside, we also have a Ridwell Box, which we love, but the TerraCycle box is a supplement to it, not a replacement.
TerraCycle also has a fundraising component that empowers your kids to recycle challenging items while raising money for their school. Good stuff all around.
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