If you love eating Mountain House meals, start saving those bags. The popular brand of freeze-dried meals just announced its annual recycling contest. It’s giving away free food and BioLite stoves to the top collectors of used Mountain House packaging.
Each fall since 2021, Mountain House has teamed up with TerraCycle — a company that partners with brands to recycle waste that normally ends up in a landfill — to offer the Mountain House Recycling Contest. For 2 months (September 1 to October 31), hikers and nature lovers can send used plastic pouches to TerraCycle through the Mountain House Free Recycling program.
The top three collectors who send the most Mountain House packaging have a chance to win a prize bundle. That consists of a Mountain House Expedition Bucket (including 15 pouches or 5 days’ worth of freeze-dried meals) and a BioLite Electricity Generating CampStove 2+.
To be clear, Mountain House pouches can be recycled with TerraCycle at any time of year, though it’s unclear how many bags are being saved. A spokesperson for TerraCycle could not provide details on the total volume of recycling processed for Mountain House last year.
However, the contest does motivate hikers to save more bags, according to TerraCycle. Last year, about 15% of all used pouches were received during the contest period.
Mountain House Recycle Contest: How to Enter
To participate in the contest, sign up for the Mountain House Free Recycling Program. You can download a prepaid shipping label, and send in the Mountain House plastic flexible pouches. Once received at TerraCycle’s material recycling facilities, the packaging is shredded. It’s then cleaned and transformed into raw materials. Those are used to make new recycled products, according to a news release.
Separate from the Mountain House Recycling Contest, the Mountain House Free Recycling Program is open to any interested individual, school, or community organization.
Participants can earn TerraCycle Recycling Reward points for each shipment. Points can be redeemed for cash donations to any school or nonprofit organization of their choice.
Visit the TerraCycle website to see a full set of rules for the Mountain House Recycling Contest.
