How can I start raising money for charities by recycling with TerraCycle?

TerraCycle specialises in recycling your hard-to-recycle rubbish. From toothbrushes, to contact lenses, water filters and toys—we recycle items you can’t recycle kerbside.

After we recycle your rubbish into raw materials, it’s sold to manufacturing companies who produce the end product and complete the recycling journey. But the story doesn’t end there…

From trash to cash

When you send us shipments of rubbish through many of our free recycling programs, you earn TerraCycle Recycling Rewards. These reward points (100 points per dollar) can be redeemed as monetary donations to the school, charity, or nonprofit of your choice.

Check the ‘Rewards’ section on the program pages 

You can only earn TerraCycle points if you collect through the ‘recycle from anywhere’ option, or if you run a public drop-off point. If you recycle your rubbish at a public drop-off point, the administrator of the collection point will receive the points.

Not all programs offer rewards, and some require that shipments reach a minimum weight to qualify so check out the  program-specific details on the program page so you know you’re on the right track.

Choose a school, charity, or nonprofit

Once you’ve accumulated a minimum of 3500 TerraCycle points in your account (equating to $35), you can redeem your points for monetary donations to the charity, school, or nonprofit of your choice. You can donate to one of our featured charities once you accrue 1000 points ($10). 

‘Search for an existing charity’ toolbar on the rewards page to check for the charity or school of your choice. If it’s not there, fill out the registration form and submit your chosen organisation’s details to our Customer Care team. We’ll review the request and if approved add it to our database of registered charities, not-for-profits, schools, community groups, and social enterprises.

How do I redeem TerraCycle charity points?

It’s easy to redeem your points! Follow these simple steps:  

1. Sign in to your TerraCycle account and click on the ‘My Points’ drop-down.
2. Click ‘Redeem my points’, select the organisation to which you wish to donate to, and enter how many points you’d like to redeem. 
3. That’s it! You’ll receive an email to confirm it was a success. 

When can I redeem my TerraCycle points?

You can redeem your TerraCycle points at any time, and twice a year in January and June, we tally up the total points donated and send a payment for the total amount. This means that points redeemed by the end of October will be paid out in January, and any points redeemed by the end of April will be paid out in June. But don’t worry if you miss one redemption deadlines, because your donation will be added to the next payment.

Can I earn bonus TerraCycle points? 

Getting rewards for your rubbish is good—but what’s even better is that there are many opportunities throughout the year to earn extra points. Check out our contests page or follow us on social media to make sure you don’t miss an update.

Do TerraCycle points expire?

If there is no activity in your account after a full year, your points will expire. ‘Activity’ can mean downloading a shipping label, shipping a package of rubbish to TerraCycle, or redeeming points. So keep up the good work and make use of those points!