Mars, the global food conglomerate behind pet food brands such as Whiskas, Cesar and Pedigree, has just announced a new partnership with Terracycle to enable pet food packaging to be recycled.

According to British Plastics and Rubber (britishplastics.co.uk) among other sources, the pet food recycling program — the first of its kind in both the UK and Europe  — will offer pet owners a free solution to transform waste packaging into useful items like park benches and fence posts. The scheme enables consumers to return any eligible packaging in the market for processing.

Mars Petcare is also inviting other pet food manufacturers to join TerraCycle and Mars to develop the program and its impact through wider collaboration.

Through the scheme, pet owners can drop off their used pet food packaging at various designated public drop-off locations positioned around the country, or free-post them directly to TerraCycle for recycling.

Once the pouches have been collected, they will be sorted, cleaned and shredded. Any food residue is composted, and the packaging material is turned into small plastic pellets which can be converted into useful plastic items, such as park benches, furniture, fence posts or construction applications.

“Businesses like ours need to pioneer new responses to this problem and our new partnership with TerraCycle is an important part of this," said Deri Watkins, managing director at Mars Petcare U.K. 

"If we want lasting change we cannot do it alone. That’s why we want to open up this program and are inviting other pet food manufacturers to partner with us and TerraCycle. Together, we can develop innovative packaging solutions and dramatically reduce the environmental impact of the pet food industry.”