When it comes to chicken packaging, here’s what you can & can’t recycle

When you do your part and toss Do Good Chicken into your cart, you become a part of something bigger. Our mission is about eliminating all waste¹ where we can and reducing what goes into landfills. That’s why we’ve taken action to make our Do Good Chicken packaging as recyclable as possible and hope that every chicken producer will do the same. 

To help you along the way, every Do Good Chicken package has instructions thanks to our partnership with How2Recycle², a standardized labeling system that clearly communicates recycling instructions to the public. Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll find on these labels, so you know what you can (and can’t) recycle when you buy a Do Good Chicken product:

• The Do Good tray – Yes, our tray is 100 percent recyclable! Our trays are made out of recycled polyethylene terephthalate, or rPET. And, the tray’s life won’t end with us — it’s just a stop on its journey to being recycled again. When you rinse off our tray and put it in your recycling bin, you’re giving it a new life as a future recycled carpet, fleece garment, or water bottle. 

• The poultry pad – Vital to absorbing moisture, the poultry pad found in chicken packaging is not recyclable. However, when you throw it away, consider using trash bags made of recycled materials. Hippo Sak³, for example, makes plastic trash bags from plastic collected off of beaches, and Seventh Generation⁴’s trash bags are made from 55 percent⁵ recycled plastic. 

• The plastic wrappings – The stretch film on our packaging has the important job of keeping the poultry fresh, but sadly can’t be recycled. The same goes for the shrink-wrapped bag that helps you carry our whole chicken product. Until there is a better solution, you’ll have to toss these out (hopefully into a bag made from recycled materials). 

• The chicken – Of course there’s no need to waste a single delicious bite! Whether you stir-fry it, turn it into buffalo chicken dip, or braise it, our chicken tastes great and makes for great leftovers! Check out some of our chef-inspired recipes⁶. And if you’re wondering if your frozen raw chicken can last until grilling season, you’re in luck. You can store a whole raw chicken in the freezer for up to a year⁷, individual raw pieces for nine months, and cooked chicken for two to six months. 
  
• The bones – If you’ve enjoyed our whole chicken (or any chicken with bones for that matter), don’t throw those bones away — make something of them, such as chicken stock or bone broth⁸. Stock can be made and frozen to use for soups, sauces, and gravies — or you can join in the health trend and try drinking bone broth. The bones contain various vitamins that are known to be extremely nutritious.

We love our recyclable Do Good tray, and we’re still searching for more sustainable or zero-waste solutions for the rest of our packaging. In the meantime, we’ll continue focusing on ending food waste and combating climate change⁹ through our great-tasting chicken. If you love our recyclable packaging mission, you’ll love our food-waste-fighting chicken, too. Try it out¹⁰, hitting select stores this spring.

¹ https://dogoodchicken.com/sustainability/
² https://how2recycle.info/
³ https://www.hipposak.com/
⁴ https://www.seventhgeneration.com/paper-and-trash-bags
⁵ https://zerowastememoirs.com/eco-friendly-trash-bags/
⁶ https://dogoodchicken.com/category/recipes/
⁷ https://www.glad.com/food-protection/protection-pointers/how-long-does-chicken-last-in-the-fridge-or-freezer/
⁸ https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/bone-broth#what-bone-broth-is
⁹ https://dogoodchicken.com/sustainability/
¹⁰ https://dogoodchicken.com/product/