Your Dentist Wants to Buy Your Halloween Candy

There are certain Halloween candies that no one likes. Dum Dums, for instance. Or Wack-O-Wax Lips (even kids know that candy shouldn't taste like wax). These kinds of "treats" usually end up in the trash, and their providers subsequently teepeed.

Of course, parents fear another kind of candy: all of it. They're keenly aware that tummyaches, cavities, and extended sugar hangovers come after the gorging. And so tons of perfectly good chocolate bars, peanut-butter cups, and bubble gum get tossed out alongside the Dum Dums only a few days into November.

Fortunately, dentists around the country are fighting back against wasteful dumping (and poor oral hygiene, of course) having launched the Halloween Candy Buy-Back program. On Nov. 6, oral experts will relieve you of excess sweets, paying $1 per pound of unopened candy (if you're an interested dentist, register your practice as a designated buy-back station). What's more, the candy will be donated to U.S. troops overseas, thanks to the help of Operation Gratitude, a nonprofit that delivers care packages to deployed servicemembers.

--Ronny Smith