As the 6th year of Trash Panda comes to a close, it feels like Trash Panda is a completely different company than when I first started out in my garage.
The team has grown to 9 people.
Our production keeps increasing exponentially.
And we’re making more discs out of recycled plastic than ever before.But when I really sit back and reflect on Year 6, the thing I’m most proud of isn’t the change. It’s how much Trash Panda is still the same.
Our foundation.
Our mission.
What we value.
What we prioritize.All of that is still the same.
So yes, Trash Panda’s impact continues to expand and scale drastically as you’ll see below. But at the end of the day, it’s still the same company that believes the best sport on Earth should also be the best sport for the Earth.
Thank you all for joining in on this adventure. Without you, this wouldn’t be possible.
Cheers,
Jesse, Founder
42,210+ POUNDS
Over the last year, Trash Panda has diverted over 42,000 pounds of plastic from landfills!
And if recycling more than an entire truckload wasn’t cool enough, last year’s quantity also pushes us over a milestone we’re incredibly proud of: 100,000 lbs of plastic recycled lifetime-to-date 🤯
With a second injection machine, we’ve been able to churn out more and more discs and scale the amount of plastic we’ve recycled rapidly. Every 1.25 minutes, 1 lb of plastic is recycled while the machines are running.
Some of our most notable (and interesting) plastics recycled include: Crocs™ Shoes, Phone Cases from LoopyCases®, Thermoplastic Rubber, and Gatorade Bottles.
Apparently our side quest is to find the craziest things to recycle 😂
39,050+ DISCS RECYCLED
If you checked, and re-checked that number, you are not alone! That is A LOT of discs we recycled in just one year 👀
Our Disc Recycling Program continues to grow due to more and more disc golfers like you sending in old and beat up discs. If that wasn’t cool enough, we also have the pleasure to work with partners like local disc golf retailers and disc golf manufacturers.
Suffice it to say, our less than adequate grinders have been working overtime. And some more efficient grinding capacity is in order for Year 7!
Have old discs to recycle? Start the process here.
13,292 Event Participants
Year 6 consisted of two of the biggest events in Trash Panda’s history.
Holiday Used Disc Swap
The 6th Annual Holiday Used Disc Swap brought in 11,864 participants from 32 countries and we estimate over 20,000 used, well-loved discs were swapped to new homes!
But this year, we took it even further:
Each year we mitigate the CO2 emissions caused from participants shipping out their disc by pairing people up either within their own country or by splitting the larger countries up into smaller sections. However, as the participant count continues to increase, we decided to donate to the Reef Restoration Foundation to offset all of the CO2 emissions created from this event.
“HUDS” (as we call it internally) continues to be one of our favorite events of the year!
The stories that come out of the event and the purpose of giving old discs a new home is exactly why we continue to do so year after year.
Earth Day Bingo
In April 2026, 1,428 disc golfers took to their local courses for our 3rd annual Earth Day Bingo event in partnership with UDisc.
From revitalizing tee pads to picking up trash to carpooling to the course, people from around the world decided to go the extra mile and make their corner of the world a bit better.
Once you start looking for trash, you see it everywhere. And Earth Day Bingo is a great reminder that something doesn’t have to be our fault to be our responsibility.
Imagine if every single person on the Earth committed to picking up one piece of trash a day. That small action would certainly transform the places we live.
So seeing 1,428 people take responsibility for other people’s trash is always inspiring to say the least!
Partnerships
Crocs™
Year 6 will go down in Trash Panda’s history as one of the most special and memorable years with the brand!
Partnering with a brand like Crocs has been a dream come true, and making discs out of recycled Crocs shoes was definitely not on our bingo card for the year.
We often like to say that we make circular things in a circular way, and the Crocs Inner Core is the epitome of that.
Shoes collected, cleaned, and ground through their “Old Crocs. New Life” takeback program are now turned into high performance discs that look awesome. But it doesn’t stop there! Because of our disc recycling program, those discs can one day be returned to be made right back into a disc time and time again ♻️
All because we took “sport mode” seriously!
1% for the Planet
We continue to proudly donate 1% of all revenue to credited environmental partners 🌍
This year we partnered with organizations local to us in Colorado:
- Mountain Area Land Trust
- UpRoot Colorado
- Denver Park Trust
- GoFarm
- Rocky Mountain Wild
Ridwell
Ridwell is an awesome company doing great work within the recycled space.
By offering a bi-weekly home pickup, they accept things that are hard to recycle – think batteries, lightbulbs, bubble wrap, bread tags, etc. Then they partner with companies like us who can actually recycle them.
Last year, they collected used discs and frisbees from their subscribers around the Denver area and partnered with us to recycle a gaylord of old, broken, and beat up discs!
As a team, we also use them for hard to recycle things at our warehouse as well. So the old batteries in Kyle’s scales or the plastic wrappers from someone’s lunch in the breakroom are intentionally recycled through Ridwell.
We’ve officially passed our 6th year.
As we go into Year 7, our sights are set on a new milestone: 1,000,000 pounds of plastic recycled.
We will continue to move forward, we continue to find ways to do better, and we continue to grow the sport sustainably.
Because, after all, the best sport on the planet should be the best sport for the planet.
Thank you all!
-The Trash Panda Team
