How P&G, Maple Leaf Foods, Bimbo, Harvey's and more are lessening their environmental impact.

The North Face sets more ambitious environmental targets

The North Face has always counted itself among the more planet-friendly fashion brands, but this year it’s announcing several new goals and beefing up existing efforts with an eye towards being more impactful and actionable. All of the top materials used for The North Face apparel will be recycled, regenerative or renewable by 2025; by 2023, 100% of the brand’s polyester and 80% of its nylon fabrics will be made with recycled content. This is based on where the company can have the most impact, as more than half of its carbon footprint comes from production. The North Face will also eliminate all single-use plastic packaging by 2025. The company plans to launch a new, fully circular line of it most popular styles, made entirely from previously-worn materials and garments. That’s on top of existing initiatives to reduce waste, including its Lifetime Warranty (encouraging repair versus binning), Clothes the Loop program (letting customers donate used apparel for store credit) and the Renewed Collection (a line of refurbished outerwear, which consumers can now contribute to with their own previously worn apparel, beginning on Earth Day). Finally, it will use its purchasing power to affect change outside of its own operations. It will place its “Exploration Without Compromise” seal only on the most sustainable products it sells in its stores and online: all apparel, equipment and accessories it sells must be made with 75% or greater recycled, organic, regenerative or responsibly-sourced renewable materials in order to receive the badge.

Maple Leaf Foods adds colour to Earth Day

In honour of Earth Day, Maple Leaf is launching Climate Change Colouring Kits, available for free online. The book shows the impact of climate change in a family-friendly way, with messages like “Look at how beautiful our West Coast is. But, is that green algae in the water? Ew!… algae blooms can change the actual colour of our oceans and lakes.” Accompanying ominous crayon colours include: “Ocean Green,” “Grass Yellow,” “Forest Black,” “Sand Blue,” “Freshwater Brown,” and “Sky Orange.”  Maple Leaf’s Climate Change Colouring Kits also offer tips about how to be more climate friendly, such as eating less meat. Maple Leaf says this climate education initiative, developed with agency partner Sid Lee, reflects its commitment “to become the most sustainable protein company on earth.” Each colouring book (including packaging) is 100% recyclable and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) Certified, and the crayons are made from eco-friendly soy and beeswax and come in a metal reusable container. To offset emissions, Maple Leaf invested in Hamilton’s AIM Environmental Waste Diversion Project, which converts organic residues from three municipal collection sites into compost products. As part of its planet-first commitments, the company already donates 1% of its pre-tax profits to organizations to help remove barriers to food security, and Maple Leaf is also ratcheting up its plant-based offerings.

Harvey’s partners with Tree Canada on green initiative

Canadian QSR Harvey’s was among the first national chains to focus on sustainability and reducing waste in its restaurants. It was quick to introduce paper straws in early 2019 – today, 80% of all its packaging contains recycled material – and li launched “Grow a Plant” in September the following year, providing a plant kit with every kid’s meal purchased in lieu of a plastic toy. This year, the company has launched a national tree planting initiative with Tree Canada, a non-profit dedicated to planting and nurturing trees in rural and urban environments. Starting today through to June 16, Harvey’s will donate a portion of proceeds from every transaction in restaurants, as well as delivery orders placed through Door Dash, to the organization, with the goal of planting 25,000 trees in 2021. If achieved, the initiative would help capture around 5,000 tonnes of CO2.

Bimbo to offset all of its Canadian electricity use

Known for its Dempster’s, Stonemill, Villaggio, Vachon and Takis brands, Bimbo is Canada’s largest bakery company, operating 16 bakeries, 14 distribution centres and 191 depots across the country. And now, electricity used by all of those facilities will be offset through a pair of new virtual power purchase agreements. Power purchase agreements are a way for large companies to secure energy from providers at a preferred price, but virtual PPAs are a way to do that for providers that aren’t providing power directly to the company – the electricity is instead released into the local power grid. If the provider sells the power at a lower price, the company pays the difference, making VPPAs a popular way to establish renewable energy projects. It also gives companies unable to draw electricity from renewable sources a way to “offset” that consumption by making renewable energy available elsewhere. Through 15-year agreements with global company Renewable Energy Systems, Bimbo’s VPPA will support the development of two wind and solar projects in southern Alberta, totalling 170 megawatts of installed capacity. Bimbo Canada will procure roughly 50 megawatts of renewable electricity from these projects to offset its consumption.

Budweiser gets closer to its fully renewable commitment

Labatt Breweries of Canada has established its own VPPA with Capital Power, supporting a new solar development in Alberta and helping to offset the electricity used in the brewing of Budweiser, Canada’s most popular beer brand. The agreement will include approximately 51% of the energy generated by the solar facility, one-quarter of which will be bundled with renewable energy credits directly from the facility and the remainder with credits from projects elsewhere in Canada. The VPPA is the latest effort by parent company AB InBev in its commitment to brewing Budweiser using 100% renewable energy by 2025. Since establishing the goal in 2018, 10 billion beers have been brewed using renewable energy, with investment of over $1 billion in related infrastructure projects.

P&G makes its laundry brands more recyclable

Recycling plastic is a tough thing. What might be recyclable in one town might not be in another, and the fact that recycling is its own business means that, if demand to buy used plastic isn’t there, plastic products end up becoming waste anyway, no matter what a local facility can handle. To help get around this, P&G has brought a partnership with TerraCycle on an “Eco-Box Recycling Program” to Canada. Consumers can get a pre-paid shipping label to send in products and packaging from the Tide, Downy and Gain laundry brands that may not be recyclable in certain regions, such as the plastic dispensing cups, flexible plastic bags, nozzles and nozzle clips. The plastic is then melted down and molded into new products. As a way to incentivize participation, every shipment of waste lets participants earn points that can be donated to a non-profit, school or charity of their choice. The program is available to individuals, but given that shipping empty bottles every time a household runs out could be a tall order, P&G is also encouraging schools, offices and community organizations to sign up and run their own collection efforts. P&G also launched the “It’s Our Home” campaign in the U.S. last week and in Canada on Monday, encouraging consumers to help contribute to a more sustainable world through small actions they can do throughout the home.

When you look into how recycling management works, it’s a little like finding out Santa Claus doesn’t exist. The illusion shatters and along with it your belief in everything you once thought good and pure in the world. In a way, the road to landfills is paved with good intentions. We Canadians, for example, are notorious for “wish-cycling,” throwing items in the blue bin in the hopes that someone, somewhere will be inspired to recycle them. It doesn’t work like that. Instead, the non-accepted items — chip bags, pizza boxes, toothpaste tubes — only increase the likelihood of actual recyclables getting rejected because the lot is deemed contaminated. To be fair, though, nearly everything is recyclable in theory — even cigarette butts and dirty diapers. But in terms of what actually gets recycled, it all comes down to economics. “Recyclers want things they can recycle at a profit,” says Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, a company that aims to recycle materials that usually aren’t. The things that generate profit tend to be large objects made from a single material. And if that’s plastic, it’s usually clear PET (polyethylene terephthalate or type 1 plastic) or white HDPE (high-density polyethylene or type 2). In other words, it’s everything most beauty packaging is not. Take a look at your medicine cabinet. Chances are a lot of your personal care products fit in your palm and will thus likely get missed by sorting machines and thrown in the trash (it’s why samples and minis have been called the beauty industry’s dark secret). They’re probably also made of mixed materials (a plastic, rubber and metal razor; a metal spring in a plastic pump) and, if plastic, neither clear nor white. That last part is important as coloured plastic has a smaller chance of being recycled because of its lower resale value. (The same goes for glass. If it’s amber or green, Szaky says it probably won’t get recycled.) That’s because you can’t take colour out, only add to it, which makes it less attractive to companies. “Think of kids mixing paint,” he says. “It always ends up brown and you can’t unbrown the brown.” In 2018, the U.S. alone produced 7.9 billion units of plastic for beauty and personal care products, according to Euromonitor International. If we transpose that to a Canadian scale — considering Canadians have similar purchasing habits — “we can estimate that Canada produces 909 million plastic packaging units in a year,” says Laura Yates, plastic campaigner for Greenpeace. Out of that, about 23 per cent is diverted for recycling by consumers, but then a third of that is lost in the sorting and recycling process. Bottom line: In Canada, roughly 773 million plastic beauty or personal care containers end up in landfills every year. So does that mean brands are lying when they emboss a three-arrow triangle on the bottom of, say, a dark travel-sized plastic bottle? No, not technically. That bottle really is recyclable. The issue is similar to consumers’ wish-cycling tendencies: We’re betting our salvation on a system that’s out to make money, not fix the world’s waste problem. When Ericka Rodriguez first started her makeup line, Axiology, in Bend, Oregon, she chose to house her lipsticks in aluminum tubes. “We thought, ‘This is great because aluminum can be recycled over and over again,’” she says. But the part of the tube that held the bullet was made of plastic, which meant that in cities that didn’t accept mixed-material items (guidelines vary a lot from place to place), the whole tube was being discarded. “We felt like we were being dishonest because we were like, ‘It’s recyclable,’ and then some people would be like, ‘It’s not, though, because there’s also plastic.’” It’s not that those aluminum tubes can’t be recycled, it’s that separating the components isn’t considered “worth it.” It gets worse. For a while now, biodegradable plastics have been touted as the solution. You’ve probably used compostable cutlery from that place you got a grain bowl from once and thought, “Wow, this is the future” and went on crunching your quinoa with a clear conscience. The problem is: Composters don’t want compostable packaging. A year ago, Tesco, the biggest retailer in the U.K., banned compostable packaging from its shelves. It did that after it learned composters weren’t actually composting these biodegradable plastics, they were burning them. “Everyone was shocked and asked, “Why? Isn’t it really compostable?”’ says Szaky. “They said, “It is, but it costs us more to process it and deal with it so why would we bother doing it? We’re not morally obligated to do it, we’re not legally obligated. We’re a for-profit business.” Before you go chucking your game of Monopoly in the trash (recycling bin? Who the hell knows anymore?), know that capitalism isn’t the only variable at play. Australia, as part of its first-ever National Plastics Plan, announced last month that it would be banning bioplastics as research has shown that, environmentally, it’s not much better than the conventional kind. “Biodegradable plastics promise a plastic that breaks down into natural components when it’s no longer needed for its original purpose,” explains Jackie Gilbert Bauer, head of product development for hair care brand Hairstory. “The idea that plastic literally disappears once in the ocean or littered on land or in landfills is nice, but it’s not actually possible. Nothing disappears completely.” That’s why Greenpeace does not currently recommend switching to other types of disposable packaging like bioplastics, paper or even 100 per cent recyclable packaging. “Although these often feel like an environmentally better choice than plastic, they are false solutions that risk aggravating current environmental crises, don’t question current disposable culture, and divert attention from the real solutions that should favour reuse,” says Yates. Even TerraCycle, a company built on recycling, acknowledges recycling isn’t the solution. “You really can’t recycle your way out of the place we’re in today,” says Annika Greve, director, business development for North America at Loop, a new TerraCycle initiative launched in Ontario earlier this year. Don’t get her wrong, recycling is “necessary and critical,” she says. For example, TerraCycle and Nordstrom just partnered on BeautyCycle, a program aiming to recycle 100 tons of beauty packaging by 2025 (you can bring any beauty empty to a Nordstrom store to have it recycled). But still, she says, recycling is “a Band-Aid on the much larger issue.” That’s where Loop comes in. It sort of works like an old-school milkman, collecting reusable bottles, cleaning them up and then refilling them. Loop assists companies in transitioning to durable, refillable containers and teams up with retailers such as Loblaws in Canada, so that consumers can buy participating products and drop off empties in a convenient location. Examples of beauty partners in Canada include indie brands like Oneka and Meow Meow Tweet, as well as REN, the first premium beauty brand to sign up. Arnaud Meysselle, REN’s CEO, doesn’t sugar-coat it: Eliminating waste is hard. “There are a lot of hurdles to overcome,” he says of the brand’s pledge to become waste-free by end of year. “There’s a financial impact, which we swallowed — additional costs are not added to the end product — because we are the sinner, so why would we ask people to pay for our sins?” Unfortunately, not every brand is in a position to absorb the costs linked to greener packaging. “It’s really hard for indie brands, the smaller brands, because a lot of these things come with a 10 or 50 thousand minimum order,” says Sheri L. Koetting, founder of MSLK, an agency that guides beauty brands at all stages of development. “So, it’s much easier for the big companies to make these moves. They have the volume. They could do whatever they want.” Ericka Rodriguez ran into this exact problem when she was sourcing refillable lip crayon tubes. “The quotes we were getting to make these were astronomical,” she says. “The way it works is there’s only so many beauty manufacturers out there. They’re mostly in China and they all already work for the big beauty brands. Since these big beauty brands haven’t really invested in, for example, a refillable crayon tube, we’re having to do it and it can be out of reach.” Luckily, the shift is starting. Last year, P&G brands Pantene, Head & Shoulders and Herbal Essences announced they’d be launching refillable shampoos and conditioners. In January, Dove debuted a refillable deodorant. Unfortunately, these products aren’t available in Canada yet. You can, however, shop refills from L’Occitane, Tata Harper, Hairstory and Kiehl’s, to name just a few. “By using 1-litre refill pouches, customers use on average 80 per cent less plastic compared to the same amount of formula across four 250-ml bottles,” says Leonardo Chavez, global brand president for Kiehl’s. “Less plastic,” as in most pouches are still made of plastic, which Koetting says can be viewed as “not that eco-friendly.” “But the amount of plastic that goes into that pouch is so much more minimal and doesn’t take a lot of energy to make,” she says. Because it’s lighter and can ship flat, its transport also generates fewer carbon emissions. We have a tendency to vilify materials, says Szaky, which has certainly been the case with plastic in recent years. “Plastics can do amazing things that nothing else can do. Our computers are made from plastic, our eyeglasses are made from plastic. It’s also how the materials are used that determines whether they’re benevolent or not.” Perhaps the most benevolent material is no material at all. British brand Lush has been a leader in that space with its packageless hair care and skin care bars. Rodriguez also decided to take that route with her multi-purpose balms — she did away with the tubes and instead wrapped the bullets in recycled paper — when she couldn’t find a manufacturer that could provide a packaging solution she was comfortable with.   As consumers, supporting brands that offer these kinds of package-free or refill products — or letting the ones that don’t know that we want better options — can make a world of difference. “The number 1 thing that will make industry change is purchasing habits — that speaks volumes,” Greve says. But the most effective purchasing habit of all? Buying way less. “The only answer is lowering consumption,” Szaky says matter of factly. And this is where the illusion shatters even further: “No matter how vegan or fair-trade that thing that you bought is, if you didn’t buy it, that land that had to farm it could have been a forest.” Like Santa, Szaky confirms, “there’s no such thing as good consumption.”

San Jose, CA-based Airfield Supply, which bills itself as the largest single-site cannabis dispensary in California, is using the annual 420 (April 20) cannabis-celebration day to promote an innovative cannabis-packaging recycling program that began in November 2020. Airfield is asking its customers to bring their clean cannabis-packaging plastic waste to the dispensary for recycling and in return receive a coupon which, together with 10 cents, is redeemable for a “420 special product.” A minimum $25 purchase is also required. Products offered in the promotion include infused beverages, gummies, vape cartridges, pre-rolls, and more. “This is the core campaign we are focusing on this 420 season, so we are using all of our communication channels to drive awareness and engagement across email, social, in-store media, and through budtenders,” says Chris Lane, chief marketing officer at Airfield Supply. “Every customer will be engaged on the topic, which we hope is more than 15,000 people in a matter of days who can take action on their next visit.” The hope is that this “action” could become a recycling habit. Lane adds, “We’re using the 420 cannabis ‘holiday’ to motivate and engage with our customers by offering them 10-cent products in exchange for their trash. Our hope is that this starts a pattern that will continue.” Airfield is the first dispensary to partner with cannabis manufacturer CannaCraft and plastics upcycler Resynergi on the pilot program, in which plastic from used cannabis packaging is converted into diesel fuel. When Airfield customers leave the dispensary with their purchases, they receive a low-density polyethylene (LDPE) pouch for storage of used cannabis packaging. When they return to the dispensary, they drop the recyclable pouch into a black-and-white Resynergi recycling bin. CannaCraft picks up the recycled materials each week when dropping off new cannabis products for the dispensary. Resynergi uses an energy-efficient, low-emissions pyrolysis process to convert the plastic packaging into diesel fuel, which is then used by CannaCraft to power its delivery vehicles. Resynergi can convert one ton of waste into about 200 gallons of diesel fuel. “We take high-density polyethylene, low-density polyethylene, and polypropylene — types 2, 4, and 5,” says Brian Bauer, CEO of Resynergi. “We plan to take low-density PE in the form of films like bags, which is new to the industry.” Airfield has recycled hundreds of pounds of packaging waste so far. Waste from all cannabis brands is accepted, and plastic waste from CannaCraft’s manufacturing operation is also used in Resynergi’s pyrolysis operation. For dispensaries, creating opportunities for package recycling and upcycling “couldn’t be more important,” Lane says. “Given that we’re centered on a plant, it only seems natural and correct that our approach be gentle to the Earth and thoughtful about the environment. As a successful dispensary in a large state with very few dispensaries, we’re in a unique position to help shape the industry. We can stop cannabis packaging plastics from flooding our landfills — and we should. It’s that simple.” 2. TerraCycle takes on Canada.

North of the US border, TerraCycle has partnered with Canopy Growth and that company’s Tweed and Tokyo Smoke brands to recycle all brands of cannabis packaging and all Canopy Growth-produced vape products throughout Canada. Hundreds of Canadian dispensaries are participating in TerraCycle’s Cannabis Recycling Program and Cannabis Vapes Retailer Recycling Program, which launched in October 2018 and December 2019, respectively. The dispensaries use in-store recycling bins to collect the waste. One bin is for vape products only, including cartridges and batteries. The other bin is for all other types of cannabis packaging — primary and secondary plastic packaging, tins, joint tubes, plastic bottles and caps, and plastic bags. “To date, 6.3 million pieces of cannabis packaging and vaporizers have been collected for recycling through the Cannabis Recycling Program,” says Alex Payne, a publicist for TerraCycle. The programs play a special role in Canada’s recycling infrastructure because much of the child-proof packaging required for cannabis products is not recyclable across the country. TerraCycle sorts the materials, shredding and cleaning plastic for upcycling into products such as park benches and picnic tables. Recycled metals are melted, poured into ingot molds, and used to make metal-based products. Since last summer, TerraCycle has also been selling Zero Waste Boxes for cannabis-packaging waste to consumers in Canada. Consumers can order a Cannabis Packaging Zero Waste Box or Cannabis Vapes Zero Waste Box online, fill the box with the designated waste, and then ship the box back to TerraCycle using a pre-paid shipping label. The returned materials are sorted and repurposed into affordable recycled products.

3. Upcycled ocean plastic for cannabis brands.

 

Sana Packaging, which develops sustainable cannabis packaging using materials like 100% plant-based hemp plastic, has recently tackled the problem of ocean plastic. Since December 2020, the company has launched jars, lids, and tubes made from 100% reclaimed ocean plastic. The 4-oz Sana Ocean Jar 4 and Sana Ocean Screw-Top Lid are made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE); this package can be used for cannabis flower, edibles, and topicals. Sana Ocean Tubes, used to pack pre-rolls, blunts, and vape pens, are made of polypropylene (PP). The tubes and jars are child-resistant certified and resealable. “We source our reclaimed ocean plastic in partnership with Oceanworks, a global marketplace for reclaimed ocean materials,” says James Eichner, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Sana Packaging. “One of the big value-adds that Oceanworks provides is the verification that we’re sourcing pure materials. Our 100% reclaimed ocean plastic is Oceanworks Guaranteed, FDA certified, and — depending on the product — a pure HDPE (#2 recyclable) or a pure PP (#5 recyclable).” Though still more expensive than conventional alternatives, Sana’s ocean plastic offerings are coming down in price. “Our first reclaimed ocean plastic products were [two to three times] more expensive than their traditional counterparts,” Eichner says. “However, we’ve been able to reduce our pricing significantly though a combination of scaling up our operations and designing more efficient products. Our newer reclaimed ocean plastic products are around 15% to 25% more expensive than their traditional counterparts.”

Footwear brand Teva has announced a new recycling program that allows customers to mail in their used sandals, diverting them from landfills. The TevaForever program partners with TerraCycle, a US-based recycling company, to recycle pre-owned sandals at no cost to the customer, allowing the sandals to be turned into something new, reducing environmental impact, and keeping waste out of landfills. Customers can visit Teva online to sign up and download a prepaid shipping label to mail in their sandals to TerraCycle. Once at the recycling center, the shoes will be cleaned and the materials separated. After the sandals have been broken down and processed, the new material will be used by manufacturers to build playgrounds, athletic fields, and track ground covers. “The partnership with TerraCycle is a huge step forward in our ongoing commitment to minimize our brand’s environmental impact. The TevaForever recycling program gives our fans an easy way to join the cause, knowing we will give their sandals new life,” stated Anders Bergstrom, vice president, and general manager of Teva, in a release. Furthering Teva’s sustainability efforts, the brand stated it had saved over 40.2 million plastic bottles from landfills in 2020 alone by creating shoe straps made from 100 percent of recycled plastic through a unique yarn called Repreve. Teva stated its long-term vision is to work towards solutions to one day fully close the loop by recycling old Teva sandals into new ones.

Parents and Kids-At-Heart Can Recycle Well-Loved Spin Master Toys and Games TORONTO, April 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Spin Master Corp. (TSX: TOY) (www.spinmaster.com), a leading global children's entertainment company, responsible for playtime favorites such as PAW Patrol®, Hatchimals®, Etch A Sketch® and Rubik's Cube®, has partnered with international recycling leader TerraCycle to make its toys and games recyclable in the United States.   "As a global company that creates innovative toys and games that inspire magical play experiences, we recognize the need to help preserve our environment for the benefit of the children we entertain today and for generations to come," said Tammy Smitham, Spin Master's VP of Communications & Corporate Citizenship. "Our program with TerraCycle gives our well-loved toys a reimagined future while also reducing our impact on the environment."

Through the Spin Master Recycling Program, consumers can now send in Spin Master toys and games to TerraCycle to be recycled for free. Participation is easy: sign up on the TerraCycle program page (https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/spin-master) and mail in the well-loved toys using the prepaid shipping label provided. Once collected, the Spin Master toys are cleaned and melted into hard plastic that can be remolded to make new recycled products, such as park benches and picnic tables.

"The Spin Master Recycling Program is a perfect chance to engage the next generation through sustainability in a fun and approachable way," said TerraCycle CEO and Founder, Tom Szaky. "This program makes it easy to show your children that recycling and the environment don't have to be relegated to the classroom – kids can grow into responsible environmental citizens with every toy they outgrow and recycle with their parent's help."

In addition to diverting waste from landfills, Spin Master has made other environmental commitments including streamlining manufacturing processes to prioritize recovery and recycling, alongside goals to reduce plastic packaging and offset self-generated carbon emissions annually.  More information on Spin Master's CSR Strategy and initiatives aimed at protecting the environment are available at https://www.spinmaster.com/en-US/corporate/corporate-social-responsibility.

The Spin Master Recycling Program is open to any interested individual, school, office, or community organization in the United States. For more information on TerraCycle's recycling programs, visit www.terracycle.com. All Spin Master toys and games are eligible with the exception of the Kinetic Sand™ brand.

Spin Master Corp. (TSX: TOY) is a leading global children's entertainment company creating exceptional play experiences through a diverse portfolio of innovative toys, entertainment franchises and digital games. Spin Master is best known for award-winning brands PAW Patrol®, Bakugan®, Kinetic Sand®, Air Hogs®, Hatchimals®, Rubik's Cube® and GUND®, and is the toy licensee for other popular properties.  Spin Master Entertainment creates and produces compelling multiplatform content, stories and endearing characters through its in-house studio and partnerships with outside creators, including the preschool success PAW Patrol and nine other original shows along with multiple short-form series, which are distributed in more than 190 countries. The Company has an established digital presence anchored by the Toca Boca® and Sago Mini® brands, which combined have more than 40 million monthly active users. With close to 2,000 employees in 28 offices globally, Spin Master distributes products in more than 100 countries. For more information visit spinmaster.com or follow on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @spinmaster.

TerraCycle is an innovative waste management company with a mission to eliminate the idea of waste. Operating nationally across 21 countries, TerraCycle partners with leading consumer product companies, retailers and cities to recycle products and packages, from dirty diapers to cigarette butts, that would otherwise end up being landfilled or incinerated. In addition, TerraCycle works with leading consumer product companies to integrate hard to recycle waste streams, such as ocean plastic, into their products and packaging. Its new division, Loop, is the first shopping system that gives consumers a way to shop for their favorite brands in durable, reusable packaging. TerraCycle has won over 200 awards for sustainability and has donated over $44 million to schools and charities since its founding more than 15 years ago and was named #10 in Fortune magazine's list of 52 companies Changing the World. To learn more about TerraCycle or get involved in its recycling programs, please visit www.terracycle.com.

Product packaging has made huge progress since the days when almost everything was shrink-wrapped or packed in styrofoam. Yet our planet’s waste problem has continued to grow. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s numbers, containers and packaging created 77.9 million tons of municipal solid wastein 2015. Why is it proving so difficult to reduce our dependence on wasteful packaging? A combination of factors increase the difficulty and make it hard for solutions to stick—but many people in many different industries are working to change that. What are the barriers that often prevent businesses from adopting sustainable packaging, and what strategies can they use to overcome them? Scientists, engineers and designers around the world are digging into these challenges right now. The strategies they’ve come up with are inspiring, surprising and possibly revolutionary for our planet’s fight for environmental sustainability.   #1: Research and Development Cost Barriers Sustainable packaging can be costly and challenging to develop. Many businesses don’t see the resources they think they’d need on their balance sheet to invest in R&D for better packaging. However, it’s important to also look at the potential cost savings from streamlined packaging. If your leadership is squeamish about making the investment, try pitching the projects in ROI terms. This might include focusing your first packaging redesign efforts on areas where eco-friendly packaging offers a high potential for cost savings. Eliminating packaging waste is the ultimate win-win: a cost-cutting point that’s also a great first step to becoming cleaner and greener. #2: Passing Increased Material Costs Onto the Consumer

Consumers say they’re serious about protecting the environment and want to see businesses create greener packaging. But do they really care enough to shell out more for products with a green packaging upgrade? For years, the signs were mixed, and businesses were correspondingly wary. Research in 2011 found that most consumers were not willing to pay morefor sustainable products. However, newer numbers suggest a change. Nielsen went so far as to call 2018 “The Year of the Sustainable Shopper” as the sustainable goods market grew by an eye-popping 20 percent to reach $128.5 billion. The entry of millennials into the workforce and their increased buying power have been driving forces behind this trend. Nielsen reports that 90 percent of millennials are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly ingredients (versus 60 percent of baby boomers.) What’s more, improvements in technology have created low-cost, high-impact solutions like biodegradable packing peanuts that actually offer superior performance to their styrofoam cousins. The takeaway on this factor is that these concerns, while still worth considering, are generally less pressing than they were a decade ago. Between improved technology and a customer base that’s more willing to pay for sustainably produced goods, the risks are considerably lower. #3: Blended and Multilayer Packaging that isn’t Recyclable.

Many companies rely on multilayer packaging that isn’t easily separated for recycling. An average chip bag, for example, contains several layers of material, some of which are recyclable and some of which aren’t. This means that municipal single-stream recycling systems often consider these bags as non-recyclable contaminants. Hain Celestial, the manufacturer of the popular snack brands Garden of Eatin’ and Sensible Portions, devised an innovative solution. They’ve paired up with third-party recycling solutions company TerraCycle to create a free bag recycling program for their snack bags. That plastic then ends up with companies like 3D Brooklyn, a business that recycles the plastic from old chip bags to create 3D printing supplies. Sustainability has always been a team sport, so one of the smartest things that a business can do is to reach out to others invested in the same process. #4: Food Scraps that Make Packaging Non-Recyclable Anyone who’s gotten in trouble for throwing a pizza box in the recycling bin knows the so-called “Pizza Box Problem” very well. At first glance, a cardboard pizza box seems like it should be easy to recycle, but the grease and cheese that stick to the box often make that impossible. The food waste is considered a contaminant, and improperly recycled pizza boxes are a major headache for recyclers.

This slippery problem has defeated many businesses, and the vast majority of pizza boxes still end up in the trash. But there’s innovation on the horizon: last year, Seattle pizza restaurant World Pizza introduced a reusable pizza box. Regulars can buy the recyclable polypropylene box for $5 and get a free slice—then, they can bring it by to pick up their pizza any time they order takeout. It’s a limited and imperfect solution, but also the kind of bold first step required for an industry to discover the technologies of the future. #5: The Need for Extra Protection and Durability in Online Retail At the end of the day, performance is still king. No matter how green or sustainable a packaging method is, it won’t pass muster if it doesn’t fulfill its prime directive of protecting the product within. As online retail continues to put up huge growth numbers, the problem has become more severe due to the amount of packaging required to ship an item hundreds or thousands of miles. Online retailers know all too well that their products are likely to get some rough handling before they reach their destination, and they design their packaging accordingly.

Fortunately, commercially available eco-packaging solutions are getting better every day. Packaging options like biodegradable air pillows and recyclable refrigerant gel packs are now widely available, and they offer comparable performance at competitive prices. Online retailers and shippers now owe it to their customers and to their environment to thoroughly investigate all of their options for more eco-friendly shipping. With the Earth’s plastic pollution rapidly reaching critical levels, there’s no time to waste in developing the packaging solutions to address it. As many businesses have discovered, the process is often not easy or cheap. New technology and fresh investment are necessary—but the good news is that both of those are on display every day.

The beauty industry as a whole is incredibly wasteful. In fact, only nine percent of the 120 billion units of plastic packaging produced by the industry is actually recycled each year. That means most of the plastic jars, cellophane wrappings, pumps, tubes, and coated boxes end up in landfills, or worse, our oceans. Some products certainly cause more harm than others in terms of their environmental impact, and at the top of the list is anything single use. This includes makeup wipes, cotton rounds, cotton swabs, and those indulgent sheet masks that we all love to use so much, which are possibly the worst offenders of all. Sheet masks are often wrapped in a plastic-foil pouch and surrounded by a paper or plastic material on either side of a cotton mask - none of which is usually recyclable in most curbside programs. "This is because [the packaging is] made out of complex material in the form of multiple plastic types or a combination of aluminum and plastic, rendering it too difficult to separate and process," Alex Payne, a publicist at TerraCycle, told POPSUGAR. "As for the sheet mask itself, if yours is nylon or synthetic (which you can find by reading the ingredients label on most masks), it is not cost effective for conventional recyclers to clean and process." With the recent overall shift toward sustainability and eco-consciousness, it makes you wonder if single-use sheet masks are on their way out given their wasteful nature. The retailer Credo Beauty has already made moves in that direction, announcing earlier this month that it will be eliminating single-use products at its stores by June 1, in the hopes of preventing 3,000 pounds of sheet masks from ending up in the trash.

"As garbage, they're bound for the landfill or incinerator, and too often, garbage ends up as pollution in the environment," said Mia Davis, Credo's vice president of sustainability and impact. "Even though this type of product is super convenient, the undesirable 'end-of-life' scenario led us to take action."

As garbage, they're bound for the landfill or incinerator, and too often, garbage ends up as pollution in the environment."

Rosalina Tan, a sustainability expert and founder of skin-care brand Pili Ani, has a less-is-more philosophy when it comes to skin care and also doesn't encourage the use of sheet masks from an "organic advocate point of view," as well as an efficacy standpoint. "We don't necessarily need the sheet for an effective moisturizer or firming or brightening mask," she said. "We just need to be more informed on how to properly apply the products - we can incorporate jade rollers for faster absorption or massage techniques." That said, Ani doesn't think sheet masks will go extinct anytime soon; rather, the industry needs to "get more creative in our formulations." This includes making sustainable options, which a handful of brands have already done - Honest Beauty has the Reusable Magic Silicon Sheet Mask ($15), and Nurse Jamie has the FaceWrap ($30). There are biodegradable or compostable sheet masks on the market, but those products pose some issues of their own. For starters, Davis said most people don't compost, and while opting for these "planet-friendly" alternatives is a step in the right direction, "it's still not a great thing for the environment."

Payne added: "Some sheet masks are 100-percent cotton or made from bamboo or bio-cellulose, so they theoretically can be composted, however, it's important to check if they have a synthetic beauty product coating or filler." If they do, the mask won't compost properly. This puts an added burden on the consumer to research the materials and ingredients in their masks, which is less likely to happen, but that's not all. "It's also worth mentioning that 'biodegradable' and 'compostable' aren't interchangeable terms," he said. "Everything technically biodegrades eventually - even plastic - so look for sheet masks that are compostable, since that means it will break down over a clear time frame in the proper circumstances." With its decision to eliminate all single masks, even those that are deemed "biodegradable," Credo Beauty hopes to inspire other key industry players to follow suit. "Sustainability is not a trend nor a 'nice to have' marketing initiative," Davis said. "It's imperative."