In the roughly eight months since the Loop reusable packaging service has been up and running with pilot e-commerce consumers in select markets, there have been package design hiccups, retailer additions and product-line extensions. As an early adopter in Loop parent company TerraCycle’s home state of New Jersey, I’ve witnessed all of that firsthand. Now, I’m eager for the company to pull off its next planned U.S. milestone: integrating supermarket and drug store locations affiliated with The Kroger Co. and Walgreens into the business model, so customers can drop off empty containers more frequently, without having to ship back or find a UPS location to drop off the rather hefty tote used for deliveries. (Each easily can transport up to 20 or so items, depending on the assortment purchased.) If things go TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky’s way, West Coast stores from Kroger — its various brands including Dillons, Fred Meyer and Ralphs are in 35 states nationwide — will start accepting Loop container returns by mid-2020. East Coast customers will need to wait until the fall, when Walgreens plans to do the same. The idea is Loop accountholders will be able to return empty containers when and where it’s convenient to in-store bins. From there, TerraCycle will orchestrate transportation to facilities where they can be inspected, washed and sanitized prior to being refilled, Szaky said. "You can drop off the product, no matter where you bought it," Szaky told me, when we chatted about Loop’s progress late last year. Through a Loop spokesperson, Kroger and Walgreens declined to comment on their specific plans for the Loop service. Both went public with their Loop partnerships in May. TerraCycle Loop hopes to integrate in-store collection in the U.S. by the middle of 2020. Introduced in January 2019 to much fanfare at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Loop celebrated its first birthday last month, although the service only started delivering to consumers in its launch markets near Paris and New York in May. Its premise was simple: to carry only products that come in reusable, refillable bottles, jugs or cans. Those items are purchased online and delivered to the customer's doorstep via UPS. Loop is available to a "community of thousands" (TerraCycle doesn’t disclose exact numbers) in 10 U.S. states, and new consumer product brands are being added on an almost daily basis — ranging from pantry staples such as the dried chickpeas in my own cabinet to specialty nut butters to personal care items. Close to 150 unique products are available in both France and the United States, where the best-sellers include Häagen-Dazs ice cream (my favorite is the non-dairy coconut caramel blend it's testing), Tide detergent and Clorox wipes. Right now, Loop caters to customers who aren't afraid to spend a little extra on groceries or that have a craving for niche items that might not find their way onto mainstream store shelves. The prices themselves are higher than you would pay in-store for similar items, plus the deposits can add up quickly: I've only got six items at home right now, but my "active" deposit account has a balance of $41. Loop is acting as the bank for that money. Szaky told me that while the current Loop customer may skew high-end or eco-conscious, TerraCycle is seeking to create a mass-market appeal by adding products you'd find in your neighbor's pantry. The Kroger and Walgreen's relationships will be instrumental in making that happen, especially if they become active locally in every place possible. Kroger is the second-largest U.S. retailer and largest grocery supermarket company with more than 2,800 stores; Walgreens, which operates in all 50 states, had close to 9,300 locations as of August. That's an impressive physical footprint. Expansions into the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Japan and Australia are in the works starting in March and over the next two years in close collaboration with prominent retailers in those geographies including Tesco (UK) and Loblaw (Canada). As the service matures, more of these new markets intend to launch an integrated in-store/online version of Loop, with Japan and Australia likely to lead that charge, Szaky said.

The trouble with totes

While TerraCycle may be the primary corporate face of the Loop brand, the important role of retailers in scaling any reusable packaging model should not be downplayed. Partners like Kroger and Walgreens bring inventory and category management expertise, merchandising savvy, pricing know-how, logistics and e-commerce expertise and, of course, existing connections with everyday shoppers. The future role retailers will play in collection will be crucial, as Loop seeks to shrink the amount of time containers spend in the hands of consumers before they are returned and refilled. Right now, that period varies dramatically depending on the product category — on a monthly basis for ice cream, for example, or up to three months for shampoo. Mostly, it depends not just on how quickly a consumer uses up a given product but on whether they decide to wait until a tote is full before a return shipment. Our experience reinforces our belief that this is not just a trend that is going to come and go. One of Loop’s value propositions is that it can help brands better understand consumption habits as it reduces their dependence on single-use packaging. "In our model, we can report on repeat, refill, how long it takes, whether they take advantage of autorefill," said Heather Crawford, vice president of marketing and e-commerce at TerraCycle. Right now, however, it’s difficult to estimate how long containers sit empty in customers’ homes as they transfer items into other receptacles or as they wait to fill up a return tote — the only tote size right now is 19 inches by 16.5 inches by 16 inches. The cushiony inserts that hold the containers can be reconfigured to handle the different sizes and to accommodate the heavy cold pack that's used to transport frozen items before they melt. If there's ice cream in your order, you can only consolidate a half-dozen more items or so into the same shipment. And be careful when you're picking the tote up: An empty tote containing a cold pack weighs more than 15 pounds. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve managed to return just two batches of spent containers in the service’s iconic tote since May. That's in part because I live in a two-person household and I had a tough time finding items that I actually wanted to order — right after I signed up for Loop, my doctor prescribed a food elimination diet that bounced many of the plant-based products in the Loop inventory off my plate. But mostly, I felt guilty about the carbon emissions impact of dispatching a UPS delivery truck to pick up an almost-empty package. Ultimately, I opted for what I considered to be a more eco-friendly option: bringing my return tote to a UPS shipping location while I was out on another errand. But my experience isn’t unique and for some markets, notably Tokyo where people live in much smaller homes with far less storage space, TerraCycle is considering a smaller tote. Adding collection bins at retailers is also likely to reduce the reuse cycle, as consumers will be able to return containers far more frequently. Loop Haagen-Dazs is one of the best selling items on Loop. The shape of the pint jars are designed to withstand 100 cleaning cycles.

Nestle, Reinberger Nut Butter share early learnings

While the Loop products in the United States and France are different, the categories where shoppers are gravitating toward in Loop’s reusable containers are similar, including quick-turn grocery and pantry staples that generate the "highest volume of visible garbage," Crawford said. Loop also has helped generate interest in niche and specialty items, such as the various protein spreads sold by Reinberger Nut Butter, a small food company in the Philadelphia area that was less-than-impressed by its experience selling products through Amazon. Reinberger, which already distributed its mixed nut butter in reusable containers, changed its design to make it lighter and introduced single-nut lines unique to Loop, said Luke Rein, who manages production for the company. Its container isn’t entirely reusable — the aluminum lid needs to be handled differently because of the seal — but as sales grow, it’s addressing that issue. "Ideologically, this matches up well and is a good source of revenue," Rein said. According to Crawford, the average Loop order size is eight to 10 items (far less than what its big tote currently can handle). It’s adding brands on an almost daily basis, after they meet the company’s container design criteria. There have been some snafus with some products. For example, the initial containers for Tide's plant-based Purclean laundry detergent needed to be tweaked when the lids were found to leak, an issue that was annoying for me at home, as the detergent kept oozing down the side of the bottle onto my laundry room shelf. While the U.S. and French markets launched with about 80 products each, new regions likely will have at least 200 products at launch. In our model, we can report on repeat, refill, how long it takes, whether they take advantage of autorefill. At this time, no containers used in the U.S. or France have reached their maximum reuse potential, Crawford said, at which point they will be recycled or upcycled. That includes Nestle’s popular metal Häagen-Dazs ice cream containers, which posed a unique design challenge to the company, according to Steven Yeh, commercialization project manager for the Nestle ice cream team. The shape of the pint-ish-sized jars, designed to withstand 100 cleaning cycles, was rounded to make the ice cream easier to scoop and double-walled both for durability and to keep cold during the delivery process, Yeh said. (As already mentioned, Loop also includes a cold pack in its totes for frozen items.) It took six months to come up with the current container. Nestle’s experience with Loop so far is being used to inform its strategies and perceptions about consumer subscription models. It will test another edition of the reusable metal containers at more than 200 Häagen-Dazs ice cream boutiques across the U.S., where it hopes to allow customers to bring them back for refills, starting in New York. "Our experience reinforces our belief that this is not just a trend that is going to come and go," Yeh said. "It reinforces our commitment to a reusable container. We need to focus even more efforts on this."

A year ago, a coalition of some of the world’s biggest brands embarked on an experiment: If they started selling everyday products like shampoo in reusable, returnable packaging instead of single-use plastic, would customers buy it? Could a modern version of the milkman model—where customers shop online, and then return empty containers via UPS to be cleaned and refilled for a new customer—make business sense? For brands, the new platform, called Loop, was a radical step to test fundamental changes to how they package and deliver products, driven by consumer pressure to deal with the problem of plastic pollution. The first pilots started in May 2019. The tests have been successful enough that the system is now rapidly expanding and will soon launch in retail stores. [Photo: courtesy Loop] “Companies are looking for new ways to address packaging and reduce waste, and consumers are demanding it,” says Steve Yeh, a project manager at Häagen-Dazs, the Nestlé-owned ice cream brand. The brand committed major resources to developing new packaging for the pilot: a novel stainless steel ice cream canister that’s designed to keep ice cream cold longer. It then can be sent back, sterilized in a state-of-the-art cleaning system, and reused. (It also looks a lot nicer on your counter.) The system is designed to be simple for consumers—in theory, nearly as easy as buying something in a disposable package and throwing that package in the trash. Online orders are delivered in a reusable tote, and when a customer has an empty container, it goes back in the tote, the customer schedules a pickup, the packages are returned for reuse, and the customer gets back a deposit that they paid for the package (or, if they’ve reordered the product, the deposit stays in an account and they don’t pay it again). Despite using heavier packages, more transportation, and cleaning, it has a lower carbon footprint than single-use packaging. And it keeps packages out of landfills and the ocean. “We all know that recycling alone will not be enough,” says Sara Wingstrand, who leads the innovation team at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, an organization focused on the circular economy. “This is a whole new way to actually think about how you can bring products to people.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] In Nestlé’s case, an internal team went through 15 iterations to reach the final design of the ice cream container, which has benefits beyond reducing waste. The package has a double metal lining, so it’s comfortable to hold, but keeps the ice cream inside from melting; it’s also designed to melt a little more quickly at the top, so it’s easier to scoop than it otherwise would be. Rounded edges mean that ice cream doesn’t get stuck in the bottom corners. And it looks better than a disposable package. The aesthetics, surprisingly, have been a bigger driver in the pilot’s success than the environmental benefits. “People actually are attracted to Loop first for design, second for reuse,” says Tom Szaky, CEO of Terracycle, the recycling company that first helped create the coalition of brands to test the platform, who is now also CEO of Loop. “The design is so important to consumers—more than I ever thought it would be.” It’s proof, he says, of what’s possible when the economics of packaging change. “If you go back 100 years and look at what your cookies came in or what your beer came in, it was a significantly greater investment in the package. As we make packaging lighter and cheaper, it becomes less recyclable, essentially growing the garbage crisis. And as we spend less money, [packages] clearly become less exciting and less desirable. The response to Loop is a simple one: Let’s shift ownership of the package in the end back to the manufacturer. And as such, they treat it as an asset and they can start investing in the pack again.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] The investment in the packages means that for the system to work, consumers have to put down a deposit for each container. In the pilot, Loop says that customers haven’t been sensitive to the price. “It’s not money out of your pocket,” says Donna Liu, a customer in New Jersey who has been using the system for several months. After the initial deposit, customers don’t have to pay again as they continue reordering the same products, and they can ultimately get the money back. But the deposits are steep, and would likely deter lower-income customers. In one review, a Huffington Post writer noted that she paid $32 in deposits for only six items (in addition to $20 in shipping, and the cost of the products themselves). Loop says it plans to have the costs come down as the system scales up. “Today, in small scale, it makes no economic sense because everything is inefficient in small scale,” says Szaky. “But a lot of our retail partners and our brand partners have modeled this in large scale. And it’s come out very exciting—it’s going to be able to be executed at scale and not cost the consumer more.” Wingstrand, who is not involved with Loop, notes that some other reusable models are already economically viable at scale, such as reusable water jugs delivered to offices. The e-commerce pilot has faced some challenges. Some customers complained about the small selection of products. Those who live in small apartments don’t like the bulky size of the reusable tote, which has enough padding inside to accommodate 16 wine bottles; one reviewer said that she was forced to use it as an ottoman until she was ready to send packages back. But moving to retail stores could help alleviate these issues. [Photo: courtesy Loop] Today, the online store has more than 150 products, including Tide detergent and Pantene shampoo in stainless steel containers, Nature’s Path granola in glass jars, and products from smaller brands like Reinberger Nut Butter. But that’s a tiny fraction of the hundreds of products online at, say, Walgreens, and one of the biggest questions from customers in the pilot has been when more products will be available. Szaky says that Loop is adding a new brand roughly every two days—but there’s a long development process for new packaging after a company joins. “This is not an overnight thing,” he says. “It takes maybe a year to get a product up and running.” In retail stores, though, customers can pick and choose which Loop products to use. “By the retailer listing in-store, the benefit to the consumer is they can go shop the Loop section, which will grow every day and get bigger and bigger, but whatever they don’t find in the Loop section they can still buy traditionally,” says Szaky. Customers can also avoid the hassle of shipping empty containers back and the size of the reusable tote; for retail returns, customers will toss containers in a reusable garbage bag and then bring them back to the store. It’s still designed to be simpler than traditional refill systems in stores—rather than cleaning and refilling your own container, you bring back dirty containers, drop them off, and buy already-packaged products on the shelf. As with online orders, you’ll pay a deposit on the container and then get it back when the container is returned. [Photo: courtesy Loop] The online pilot launched last May in and around Paris, New York City, and a few nearby areas; the startup has since added Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Rhode Island. It will soon expand to California as well as the U.K., Canada, Germany, and Japan, and will launch in Australia next year. Retail sales will begin later this year with Walgreens and Kroger in the U.S., Carrefour in France, Tesco in the U.K., and Loblaws in Canada. Loop won’t share specific numbers, but says that it’s seeing high numbers of repeat orders from its initial customers. The size of the pilot was limited, but more than 100,000 people applied. The startup envisions the model growing like organic food. “Every store started having a small section dedicated to organic products, but not all products had an organic alternative,” Szaky says. “That’s how it began, then it got bigger and bigger. And some stores like Costco have moved everything over to organic.” He notes that organic food still represents only about 5% of the market, and that has taken decades, but it’s a reasonable comparison. [Photo: courtesy Loop] The number of options will continue to grow. In a recent report, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that converting just 20% of plastic packaging to reusable models is now a $10 billion business opportunity. But Szazky sees it not as an opportunity, but an imperative. As he told Harvard Business Review in a recent interview: “I think that we’re going to see some organizations die because of this. Others will pivot. . . . Some organizations, like Nestlé, Unilever, and P&G, are taking these issues seriously and making the difficult decisions that may negatively impact the short term but lay the foundation to be relevant in the long term. Inversely, organizations—like many big food companies in the U.S.—are blind to what’s coming and will likely be overtaken by startups that are building their business models around the new reality that is emerging.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] For the brands that are pivoting, Loop is helping push them to experiment with reusable packaging. Häagen-Dazs is already using the container it designed for the system in stores in New York City, where customers bring it back an average of 62% of the time. (At the ice cream shops, customers don’t pay a deposit, but buy the container outright and then get discounts on ice cream each time they bring it back.) It now plans to roll out the container in 200 of its other stores. Unilever—which has products from brands like Love Beauty and Planet on the platform and is preparing to launch more products from Seventh Generation, Hellman’s, Dove deodorant, and others this year—is also experimenting with in-store refill systems and partnering with startups like Algramo, a Chile-based company that offers a mobile refill system on electric tricycles. “I think Loop provides a really good platform to start testing reusable packaging without setting everything up yourself,” says Wingstrand. “But I do think it’s very important to go very broad and make sure that not only are you putting and testing new packaging formats on the Loop platform, but you’re also trying to understand how the user might interact with a refill system, or how you might supply things in a compact format, or how you might even completely design out the packaging.”

Loop is now a reality in nine states in the northeastern United States, Washington, and plans to grow more in that country, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom and Japan. In less than a year of operation, Loop , a circular purchasing platform for consumer products designed not to generate packaging waste - developed by Tom Szaky and his team - has had an undeniable receptivity on the part of several brand-owned companies and retail chains around the world; and it is increasingly welcomed and used by final consumers, who see it as an efficient way to contribute to the mitigation of the environmental impact of waste. (More about Loop in this article from Mundo PMMI). From New York, Tom Szaky spoke with Mundo PMMI and explained the dimension that the platform has been charging. He also referred to the challenges and priorities that have been established for its consolidation and strengthening in different countries and regions of the world, and its future in other regions of the globe. PMMI World: Some define Loop as one of the most disruptive advances in Circular Economy and packaging to date. What is the balance after these eight months after its launch and has it been proven whether our society is ready for Loop? Tom Szaky: Loop is an engine for producers to create reusable versions of their products and for retail chains to integrate those offers, both physically, in stores, and in their online sales. There are many ways to assess the success of Loop and one of them is the number of people who are joining the initiative, that is, how large this ecosystem is becoming. And I must say that since we opened we are adding a brand every two business days; The number of new revenues is astronomical, it grows very quickly with some medium-sized brands and startups , but also with many large companies. The same goes for retail companies, we are receiving a retail firm every three weeks. In fact, in March of this year we will be going out with Tesco in the United Kingdom, with the Loblaws food and pharmacy chain in Canada in June, in Japan in November, and also in Germany. Australia is also on its way. Another way to measure the success of Loop is the availability to consumers. I am very pleased to say that this year, both in the United States and in France, you can see the products in the physical stores of retailers and they will be able to return the containers to the store, which is very important to be able to take the model to great scale. Additionally, retail chains such as Carrefour are inserting Loop products into their e-commerce pages, and the cost will be associated with shipping and collection. This brings great operational challenges and is the result of trials conducted during 2019. In general, what we have seen is that consumers are responding very well to the Loop model, and this is the reason we will continue to grow. In summary, today we have around 200 brands and we are adding a brand every two days, we also have about 50 retailers and we are adding one every three weeks. PMMI World: What is Loop's biggest challenge today?  Tom Szaky: Our biggest challenge and priority is to make Loop feel as “disposable” as possible, that is to say that the consumer lives the experience of feeling like on a platform exactly the same as what he experiences when he consumes a disposable product. One of the things that people have told us in the first presentations, and one of the main challenges, is that they would like to see more and more Loop products available in the market. In the beginning the products were only obtained online and the user bought them by this means; Now, through the retail chains, it is possible to find the products in the stores, which allows the buyer to acquire both the Loop products and the others that he usually buys. This is why it is important that the product feels disposable but works towards the consumer as reusable. This is what leads us to focus on the disposable experience, because that is what the user is looking for.   Loop is a circular buying platform for mass consumption products designed not to generate packaging waste, developed by Tom Szaky and his team.   PMMI World: The difference between the generation of millennials and the most senior generates an impact? Is it possible that it is easier to convince a millennial to buy through Loop than a Baby Boomer?   Tom Szaky: It's an interesting approach, but I don't share it. I think millennials join an initiative like Loop because they are tired of garbage; They have lived their entire lives using disposables and want to get out of that and do something different. But, in the case of a Baby Boomers or the parents of a millennial , the experience is very familiar, since that way the purchases worked before. Loop returns them to their childhood where there was no garbage, this is why an interest is generated for them, and for these reasons arouses emotion in both generations. PMMI World: What is Loop's biggest opportunity today? Tom Szaky: The main focus is to attract a large number of fast-moving consumer products and many retail chains that sell their products on the platform. Secondly, it is reaching fast food restaurants, and then there would be the clothing sector. PMMI World: How is Loop attracting fast food companies? Tom Szaky: We are now working with one of the largest fast food brands in the world, developing a type of reusable potato chip packaging, so that when ordering the customer can choose the reusable option and get an aesthetically pleasing packaging , beautiful, that works under the same method. PMMI World: What has been the main reason why TerraCycle has managed to convince big brands like Nestlé, Unilever, Pepsico, Danone - to name a few - to join and be part of Loop? Tom Szaky: I think that basically there have been two factors, which occurred simultaneously: the moment and the immense capacity that Loop offers to innovate and turn products into something exciting, with aesthetically beautiful packaging, that work. Those two factors together have been tremendously important for the development we are seeing today for Loop. PMMI World: What could you say about the innovations that Loop has encouraged in the design of reusable packaging?   Tom Szaky: I think consumers want to have the feeling and experience of disposable. The important thing about returning ownership of the container to the manufacturing company is that it becomes an asset, and being an asset manufacturers can make more significant investments in it. Loop gave brands and their designers the ability to achieve in the packaging aspects that they had always wanted to do and that the system had not allowed them basically due to cost factors. PMMI World: What is the power of the packaging reusability model? Tom Szaky: Reusability is an idea that everyone understands; Children today understand packaging more than its contents, they know that garbage is wrong and that recycling is fine, although they cannot explain anything about palm oil, or climate change. PMMI World: How was the task of convincing the consumer that reusability is possible? Tom Szaky: I think showing them that it works; Initially the consumer doubts, and once they see it in operation, everyone believes: none of this is new, this is how it was done around the 1930s. It is not impossible to sell this concept, it is simply to refresh an old idea. PMMI World: Could you mention any statistics that reflect the impact of the reusability model on packaging in terms of carbon footprint reduction? Tom Szaky: This depends on the packaging, of course. Statistically, around the first three years, the impact is equal to that of the disposable model. In the first use, the reuse is worse than in the case of the disposable; at all three uses it is the same; at five uses it is 15% better than waste; and in the tenth use it is 75% better. These are statistics of our allies and Loop, which we have also obtained through life cycle analysis, LCA. PMMI World: Infrastructure has been a very important challenge for you. Tom Szaky: Yes it has been a great challenge, but not the greatest. We are now present in France, in the United States, we are going to inaugurate Loop in the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and Germany this year. We have very good infrastructure partners and with very good capital, so this has been a setback, but it is not an issue that cannot be overcome. PMMI World: What is the next step in the global expansion of Loop? Do you contemplate the possibility of being in Latin America soon? Tom Szaky: We are looking to enter Latin America, in Brazil we have been with TerraCycle for many years and we believe that by 2021 we will be there, with the Loop model. PMMI World: Having a reusable product means that it has an important value that exceeds the value of disposables, if the brands gave a value to the single-use container, do you think this would promote collection and recycling? Tom Szaky: Yes, definitely. The more value a single-use container is given, the greater its recyclability. PMMI World: TerraCycle has been recognized for recycling difficult materials. Do you think that migrating to reusability can affect recyclability? Tom Szaky: TerraCycle is growing very fast, we had an organic growth of 30% this year. The two initiatives are growing and have different roles; I believe that reusability has a projection towards the future and recyclability is more related to what we are doing in the present. The main focus on the production of disposable packaging is to make them as economical as possible, and when the packaging is cheaper the overall cost is reduced and it ends with a more complex packaging in terms of material, as in the case of multilayer. In my opinion that is the biggest problem, that the main objective of the brands, which is to reduce costs, goes in reverse of the recyclability of the packaging. PMMI World: How do you see the future? What is the greatest contribution that could be made to mitigate the impact of waste? Tom Szaky: For us it's about creating more reusable alternatives for the products and making them more available for more retailers to distribute. Our way of calculating success is by measuring how much users migrate from single-use containers to multi-use products and packages. That is our goal in general.

Old car seats. Cigarette butts. Used contact lenses. Most people think of this kind of detritus as future landfill, but Tom Szaky sees all this and more as recyclable. He’s the CEO and founder of TerraCycle and its newest initiative, Loop. Both are circular economy solutions that bridge the gaps between consumers, corporations, and waste. TerraCycle, founded in 2001, is a private recycling company that focuses on capturing and repurposing hard-to-recycle items by partnering with corporations and governments. Loop, launched publicly in mid-2019, takes on the problem of waste even more aggressively by working with brands to provide reusable packaging for common consumer products — think Tide laundry detergent or Häagen-Dazs ice cream. HBR asked Szaky, a global leader on reducing waste, about what he’s learned about how consumers, companies, and the government are — or aren’t — helping to reduce the massive amounts of waste humans create on a daily basis. In this edited interview, he also offers advice for business leaders who are interested in pursuing circular models. You’re sitting in a unique position between brands and consumers. What conversations are you having on each side? And which side is more resistant to the argument for sustainability? In the past two years I’ve seen a big shift in how consumers view waste. They’ve woken up to all the negatives of garbage and have started to see it as more of a crisis. That said, consumers are still voting with their dollar for things that benefit them personally, like convenience, performance, and overall price. They’re very vocal, but they’re not necessarily shifting their actual purchasing. Now, the vocal nature of the consumer alone does create a really exciting thing: Brands are waking up to this trend. Even more so, lawmakers are waking up and passing legislation that is affecting consumer product companies, like banning plastic bags and straws. In France in a few years, takeaway food packaging — plastic plates, cups, and utensils — will not be used if you eat in restaurants. These laws are then creating ripples across the consumer product retail industry. Is your feeling that governments are filling gaps that businesses have left? Or are they nudging consumers along, encouraging them to take the action they profess to support? It’s more complicated than that. Plastic straws weren’t seen as a problem up until maybe two years ago; then they became the icon of what’s wrong with plastic and disposability. After a huge public outcry, lawmakers started passing legislation banning the straw. Then companies proactively banned straws before even more legislation actually took hold. So a push from consumers led lawmakers to take action and then corporations jumped in. Now the plastic straw is effectively dying. But it took all three nudging each other. Tell me about the kinds of conversations you’re having with investors and other stakeholders as part of starting and leading two companies. What’s it like to be in the sustainability sphere, especially as a new startup? We started developing the concept for Loop just two years ago, which absolutely makes it a startup. TerraCycle is 16 years old and more of a growth company. So I have two different perspectives. TerraCycle has grown every year since the beginning, but in the past two years it has exploded. Corporations that wouldn’t have signed with us before are now signing on. And corporations that are signed on are going deeper. We grew our revenue 30% organically in 2019, compared to 2018, and expect the same in 2020. This is driven primarily by everything moving faster and companies wanting to go deeper versus big new surprises or new industries that have been asleep now waking up. In parallel, we also raised about $20 million for Loop Global and about $20 million for TerraCycle US. The key change there is that investors are looking much more for authentic impact investments. This is entirely correlated to garbage becoming a crisis. I don’t think Loop could have existed even five years ago because of the ask. Essentially, we’re asking CPG [consumer packaged goods] companies and retailers to fundamentally redesign packaging and accept major changes to the economics of packaged goods delivery — in other words, to treat packaging as an asset instead of a cost. Because of changing views on garbage, they’re increasingly willing to say yes to that. So what is happening now in the startup world is that more audacious ideas that solve these issues — like Loop — are on the table. Do you think existing companies are going to be able to make this shift? Or is it going to have to be new companies that are entering the market? Both. I think that we’re going to see some organizations die because of this. Others will pivot. And new companies will fill out the balance, just as with any shift. Look at tech, for instance. How many retailers survived it? Some did a great job, right? And some, like specialty big-box retailers — Toys “R” Us, Linens ’n Things, Staples in Europe, et cetera — died in the process. The key in this instance is to pivot and reinvent the organization, noting that this is easier said than done, as it takes tremendous short-term sacrifice. I believe that it won’t be industries or sectors that pivot versus die, but individual companies. Some organizations, like Nestlé, Unilever, and P&G, are taking these issues seriously and making the difficult decisions that may negatively impact the short term but lay the foundation to be relevant in the long term. Inversely, organizations — like many big food companies in the U.S. — are blind to what’s coming and will likely be overtaken by startups that are building their business models around the new reality that is emerging. When you’re having conversations with investors for TerraCycle or Loop, what are they concerned about? What do they want to know? There’s suddenly a lot more interest in this topic in the investment community, and I think investors would tell you that they really think sustainability is almost a requirement for the future. Fifteen years ago, when we were raising capital for TerraCycle, people invested because of impact and purpose; it was like they were considering giving money to an NGO. Today, investors would tell you that they really think sustainability is a requirement for the future. They are looking at the sustainability index not just as “Oh, I am feeling good about where I’m putting my money” — now it’s moved to sustainability being critical for business longevity. A lot of what we’ve seen major corporations do is market sustainability in that “purpose” bucket, and not in the “business” bucket, with pledges and other high-profile commitments. Is this changing? Are large corporations able to move from the emotional bucket to the business bucket the same way investors are? The most famous of the pledges is the Ellen MacArthur Foundation pledge, which more than 400 businesses and organizations have signed, signaling their intent to eliminate their use of new plastic. It basically says that, by 2025, they will make their products compostable, recyclable, and reusable. And they will significantly increase their use of recycled content by this date. Now, let’s be candid about why they’re pledging. Since waste has become a crisis in the past two years, many companies have come to the position that they have to solve it or they will be legislated out of it. The best way to get ahead is to make future promises, partly because you don’t have to do anything between today and the promise day, right? If everyone promises that by 2025 all this great stuff will happen, they are not really responsible in the present. I’ve talked to chief sustainability officers of some of the world’s largest CPG companies who honestly have no idea how they’re going to pull it off. They have no f—cking idea what they’re going to do and are saying things like, “Well, the industry will figure it out.” That’s scary. Here’s what I think will happen come 2025 with this particular promise. There is a difference between the promises to be “recyclable” and made from “recycled content.” In other words, most companies, via the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, have pledged that by 2025 they will be 100% recyclable and independently made from a high percentage (typically 25%) of recycled content. I think that the majority of companies will say that they made their package “technically recyclable” but that the recycling industry is to blame for not then “practically recycling” them. I think maybe 90% of companies making these promises will fail and then point to the fine print, saying, “Oh, we made our packaging recyclable, but the recycling systems don’t have the capability to recycle it today.” That’s going to create a big reckoning that will piss off consumers even more, backfiring on brands. So those 10% that succeed, how do they do that? They’re just getting ahead of it. Here’s an example: Some companies are now buying futures on recycled plastic so they know they will have the volume, which is an unheard-of thing in procuring plastic. A good example is Nestlé. The key line in their recent press release is this: “To create a market, Nestlé is therefore committed to sourcing up to 2 million metric tons of food-grade recycled plastics and allocating more than CHF 1.5 billion to pay a premium for these materials between now and 2025.” One of the things that interest me about your company is how you collaborate with so many companies. How difficult is this? Could you go it alone? We absolutely need to collaborate. These are systemic problems, and to solve the system you need multi-stakeholder collaboration. Loop could only exist with massive multi-stakeholder collaboration. There would be no other way to pull it off. And I think we need more and more of that. What makes collaborations like this work? Trade groups and consortiums don’t work. The problem with an industry group, at least in my experience, is to get the group together so they can publicly say that there is a multi-stakeholder discussion. But the outcomes are usually nothing. So how do we create true multi-stakeholder system change? Because if you’re going to change the system, you need all the stakeholders to agree. With Loop, we consciously tried to create a multi-stakeholder collaboration. And look at what happened: It’s working. We’re adding a brand every two days since we launched, and most major multinational CPG companies have joined: Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, et cetera. We’ve also added a retailer every three weeks since our launch, including retailers around the world. Loop is live in France (via Carrefour) and the U.S. (via Kroger and Walgreens) via e-com, and is expanding in both countries to in-store later this year. It is also launching in Canada (via Loblaw), the UK (via Tesco), Germany (via a retailer we will announce in February), and Japan (via AEON), all this year. And finally, we have seen tremendously positive consumer insights — people want Loop, and they like the experience when they get access to it. I don’t see too many companies with similar models out there yet. Loop is a major systems change that requires a large coalition of multi-stakeholders. That is, no company can do it on their own — everyone has to act together. What I am seeing is a lot of groups calling us and saying, “How did you do the Loop thing, and how can we apply that type of system or process to whatever our topic may be?” They ask this because, typically, multi-stakeholder collaborations are slow and hard to drive results from. What do you tell them? I tell them that you cannot run such a platform by committee. There needs to be a “chair” that makes the decisions, even if the decisions are unpopular, and creates the urgency to make sure everything is moving forward quickly. You also set public deadlines that everyone can agree to. For example, it’s why we launched at the World Economic Forum last year — that was a deadline everyone could align on.

The reusable shopping platform, which launched with big hype and is now eyeing retail, has already raised one key question in its early days: What are the true costs of convenience? Tom Szaky, CEO of recycling company Terracycle, firmly believes that ditching disposable packaging doesn’t have to mean disposing of its benefits. Affordability, mainstream selection, "having the cool, new thing," and, most of all, convenience, are all elements of modern retail Szaky feels can be preserved in a package-free economy. Brands, he believes, just need the right model. In May, Terracycle launched a venture in circular economy shopping called Loop, bringing mainstream food and personal care products to consumers’ doorsteps in reusable, refillable packaging. The products come from some of the world’s biggest plastic polluters as defined by a 2018 Greenpeace audit across six continents. The idea has been to even out a skewed playing field between disposable and reusable packaging options, turning the complicated process of refilling and returning empty containers into a simple, one-click act. Since the launch, Loop has been hailed as a new take on "the milkman," a nostalgic reference to the dairy industry’s unique, circular model of distribution that once had so much consumer buy-in across the United States. Yet far from the simple routes of the neighborhood milkman, Loop is reverse engineering circularity onto products and supply chains designed for recycling or disposability. Its direct-to-consumer trial has been a virtuosic case study in marketing and reverse logistics. But the pilot – the object of much hype in the last six months, with a reported waitlist of 85,000 – was never designed to exceed 5,000 households in North America and another 5,000 in France. The company is planning to launch a more integrated approach and expand into multiple new countries next year. And while TerraCycle says it is too early to know how these pilots will perform, many in the recycling sector are curious to see just how disruptive this concept might be. The experiment, as it has unfolded until now, begs a pressing question: What are the true environmental and logistical costs of convenience? Rethinking convenience Szaky has good reason to want to bring convenience to a niche, package-free market. Currently, it’s in short supply. Catherine Conway, a package-free consultant based in the U.K., said she has found one of the main challenges for this form of shopping to be the behavior change it asks of consumers. Her business Unpackaged targets waste by reinventing stores’ bulk aisles to encourage reuse and refill with bring-your-own containers. "For the last 30 or 40 years, consumers have been told that all they should care about is convenience and price. So currently all they care about is convenience and price," explained Conway in an interview with Waste Dive. "You’ve now got to get across the message of why it’s going to be a bit inconvenient for them." This, she says, is why package-free shopping has remained on the fringes of retail. Many are put off by the limited offerings available in bulk, or simply aren’t willing to perform the extra work it entails. "I think there’s a lot of misconceptions out there about the number of hoops a consumer will jump through in the name of more sustainable packaging," Adam Gendell, associate director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), told Waste Dive. After all, any system is only as good as the number of people who will actually use it, and most people will only use it if it’s easy for them to do so. Gendell lauded the "milkman style" distribution model that Loop has adopted, where little is asked of consumers and the company is "not asking people to take 20 steps to get the package back" but instead "saying 'Here’s your reusable package, please get the stuff out of it, put it back outside, and forget about it.'" For shoppers, Loop’s direct-to-consumer model appears to do just that. The only behavior change required is to place used containers back in the Loop tote and schedule a pick-up online. Customers are incentivized to perform this last step because they have put down fully refundable container deposits on each item (a requisite for participation in the service), though these can be quite high. In her review of the service, Supply Chain Dive’s Emma Cosgrove commented that in addition to some products being more expensive – Loop’s dry black beans, for example, were 60% more than a bulk price in a grocery store – the deposits were cause for some sticker shock. "On my first order," she wrote, "I paid $30.50 in deposits including the $15.00 deposit for the shipping box – 23% of my total order." For brands, who also put hefty down payments and investment in new packaging to participate, Loop acts as an accommodating plug-in to a relatively hands-off reusable model. "Everything we do is always as a third party," said Benjamin Weir, Loop’s North America program manager, in an interview. The company's first task is working with brands to develop and test reusable packaging for each product. This can be simpler when brands request a "stock" container (a glass jar or an aluminum tin). It can get more complicated when they require customization, like in the case of the Häagen-Dazs stainless steel container or the Crest glass mouthwash bottle designed in conjunction with Kohler, featuring a silicone sleeve and a stainless steel cap. Once packaging is selected, a sanitation system is determined and then audited by brands. Loop outsources this portion of its work to specialized vendors at a cleaning facility located in Pennsylvania. It’s a learning curve, Weir told Waste Dive, as vendors providing sanitation services typically clean medical-grade equipment or aerospace parts – products far too valuable to dispose of after a single-use. For Loop’s purposes, they must be trained to clean consumer product-sized goods. In addition to cleaning services, Loop also provides brands with fulfillment – not to be confused with product refilling – at a warehouse in New Jersey, where orders of Loop totes are packed and prepared for delivery. These warehousing services are also outsourced. Finally, once the orders are prepared, totes are delivered to shoppers’ homes by UPS, the carrier Loop has partnered with for logistics. Balancing sustainability with availability Preserving ease-of-use for brands and consumers doesn’t come easy. The dairy industry to which Loop is so often compared enjoyed the luxury of managing just one product, produced and distributed regionally, with a standard package that had been designed with reusability and sanitation in mind from the very start. Production, cleaning, fulfillment and distribution all happened in the same place and dairy farms had relative control over their local supply chains. And milk, a product consumed regularly, was delivered on a "subscription" basis making the demand for refills constant and stable. Loop enjoys almost none of those advantages. The pilot offers 123 products on its website featuring over a dozen different types of packaging, each with its own distinct sanitization process. And being a third party means that, while Loop is responsible for sanitation of containers in regional warehouses, refilling remains in the hands of manufacturers located throughout the country. Nestlé, who is trialing Häagen-Dazs ice cream with Loop, told CNN they’re trucking refills of product from California to the East Coast. The winding reverse logistics for products that are – unlike the milkman – not locally sourced have caused some to question whether the additional impacts aren't nullifying any sustainability goals. "Loop is trying to minimize waste, but does that process still take into account the emissions to take that product back and reuse it and wash it and reprocess it and send it back out?" queried Alexis Bateman, director of the Sustainable Supply Chains program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an interview with Waste Dive. "I think that overvaluing one impact over another is usually the pitfall that these kinds of solutions come into." Weir said Loop is aware of some of the environmental impacts posed by adding mileage to the supply chain and using higher grade materials. "We’ve always said that this system is not always designed to service a large quantity of households. You’ll never see more than 5,000 households in our system right now, as is," he said. Working with the consulting firm Long Trail Sustainability, Loop has performed life cycle analyses (LCA) on all of its packaging to determine the cradle-to-grave environmental impacts. Rick Zultner, Loop's vice president of research and development, told Waste Dive these assessments showed that at 10 reuse cycles, the Loop e-commerce trial had a 35% reduction in global warming potential as compared to a "similar model." "The Loop system is very proficient at solving the waste problem, but we have to think beyond that," said Weir. "We have to think about the sustainability of the entire ecosystem and whether we are creating new problems with new solutions. That’s of course never the goal." Limits of LCAs Reusable systems like Loop open the door to a larger debate within the field of environmental accounting. In recent years, officials at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) have surveyed literature and pioneered studies assessing the sustainability of reusable systems in a range of contexts, from water bottles to beer kegs. "There’s no simple answer to the question of disposable versus reusable packaging," said Peter Canepa, an LCA practitioner at the DEQ, in an interview with Waste Dive. At the request of local brewers in Oregon, the DEQ performed an LCA to determine the impact of the industry’s traditional reusable stainless steel kegs when compared with the rise of new single-use plastic beer kegs. "Even with the washing and sterilization, all those steps were accounted for and reusable stainless steel kegs were more beneficial," said Canepa, referring to the LCA results. "But there started to be a point of inflection." Reuse made sense for breweries in Oregon who distribute their product locally, but numbers began to tilt in favor of disposable as distance was added to the supply chain. According to Canepa, breweries distributing East of the Mississippi found there were sufficient environmental implications, to the point that "making a new plastic keg, using it once, and disposing of it was actually less impactful." It is at this point that the LCA school of thought diverges from the one Loop more closely adheres to. Advocates of circular economy theory (like SPC’s Gendell) still promote the use of LCA as a tool, but put far more weight on systems being regenerative. The idea is that waste from one system forms a resource for another. "That can’t always be measured with any type of precision with a tool like LCA, which is an important, but imperfect science," Gendell explained. LCA, for example, does not yet have a way to quantify the effects of litter on marine or land environments, a category in which disposable materials score very poorly. Unpackaged’s Conway agrees that literature on reuse can often be difficult to decipher. "The thing that’s annoying is that it’s very hard to get independent environmental data … These industry-sponsored studies are not 100% reliable." She argues that just because reusable systems like Loop require more upfront resources than disposables shouldn’t be a reason to discount them, even if the LCA initially says otherwise. Especially in the beginning, it may be the case that they just require a bit of scale to make it worth it. "I don’t think that’s a bad system until they get to that point, I think they just have to be aware that it’s probably going to be inefficient to start off with," she said. The experiment continues Loop’s pilot model (the length of which is said to be undetermined) preserves extreme convenience, but that likely will not be way this service grows in the future. "What we’re doing now, to make it as convenient for consumers as possible, is really allowing them to order and return packaging at any time," explained Weir. "The purchasing of the products and the returning are truly two separate interactions." In an ideal world, pick-ups would coincide with drop-offs and vice-versa. And retailers, who have their own fleets of trucks, would leave warehouses full in the morning and come back full with returns (as opposed to returning empty, as they do now). In the future integrated version, consumers will purchase and return Loop products at retail locations directly. Confirmed partners include Walgreens and Kroger in the United States, Carrefour in France and Tesco in the U.K. The advantage to this model is that products would be sold in locations many shoppers already frequent, side-by-side with disposable counterparts of the same items. "That kind of brick-and-mortar shopping is going to open up additional avenues for the consumer," said Patrick Browne, director of sustainability at UPS, in an interview with Waste Dive. The company continues to work with Loop on the e-commerce model, but Browne said that retail deliveries would pose less of a logistical challenge. They take place in more dense settings, where drivers are delivering multiple packages per stop, making them more efficient. Whereas "in e-commerce, which is residential, typically your stops are a little bit farther in between houses." Loop’s decisions about reuse and disposal are not purely determined by environmental impact, sparking further complications. This comprises perhaps Loop's biggest challenge: balancing the complex, fragile world of environmental accounting with the extremely qualitative world of corporate branding, which has an altogether different set of values. For the companies Loop works with, packaging isn’t just about getting a product from here to there, or even strictly about safety. It’s also about maintaining brand uniformity and image. Disposable packaging, where each purchase yields a fresh container, does this quite well. Conversely, "packaging that is reusable will naturally scratch. It will naturally bend," said Weir, "There are very few ways around that. Especially when we’re looking at high, high numbers of reuse cycles." Loop’s challenge has been encouraging companies to reconsider their traditional stance on wear and tear, which is typically viewed as a performance failure. In the end, participating brands determine what is the standard for reuse, and where to draw the line between refilling and disposing. It is Loop’s job to adhere to that standard, meaning disposal may occur on the hundredth cycle, or the tenth. “The positive side is that I think these solutions are important to start to change the dialogue on end-of-life packaging and waste that’s become so normalized in American culture,” said MIT’s Bateman. "Even if the future of Loop looks very different from what it is now, the trials of today are essential to shifting the discourse on disposables." At the end of the day, Loop reveals an inconvenient truth about reusable systems: In the current market, it takes more work to make less waste. According to DEQ's Canepa, that extra work is necessary because, in a reusable world, more durable materials with a higher lifecycle impact raise the stakes. “This sounds really banal, but if the thing made to be reusable is not reused, or more specifically is not reused a specific number of times,” he explained, “then you actually may be doing worse [sic] for the environment.” Reusable programs thus require vigilant stewarding to ensure proper use, an inescapable part of Loop's grand experiment. "They can’t be left to operate to themselves,” emphasized Weir. “There needs to be certain rules, there need to be certain frameworks. Because one-to-one, a stainless steel container versus a paper pint, I mean, there’s no comparison.”

Less than a year ago, I told you about Loop, the company launched by Trenton-based Terracycle. Basically, Loop is seeking to completely change the way Americans purchase and use disposable containers. The change is dramatic; if Loop gets its way, all containers will be reusable. Basically, the company is taking the old milkman model and applying to everything, from Haagan Dazs ice cream to Clorox Wipes. Instead of buying those products and throwing away the container when you’re done, Loop sends you the products in branded stainless steel packaging, and when you’re done, you send it back. Zero waste. “We’re stopping and thinking and saying that even if 100 percent of products and packaging were recyclable, and even if 100 percent of products are made from recycled content, is that still the best?” Anthony Rossi, the vice-president of Global Business Development at Loop, told me for the original article. “Two years ago Tom (Szaky, Terracycle founder and CEO) got to thinking and said ‘no, we can’t stop there.’ One, it’s utopian. I don’t think we’ll ever get close to that number, but two the real problem here is disposability. And so we’re attacking disposability by working with partners to reengineer their packaging to be durable and reusable while providing infrastructure to get products to consumers and back.” OK. That was about 10 months ago. Today? “Time” has named Loop one of the 100 best inventions of 2019, 5,000 people are using LoopStore.com to do tons of their shopping, and another 85,000 are on the waiting list to get into Loop’s pilot program. I’d say so far, so … really freaking fantastic. “It’s rethinking trash,” said Donna Liu, a Princeton resident who is a Loop customer. “And it’s easy to use. Honestly, in the beginning, I was a little bit puzzled as to when you order, how do you time it. But it’s much simpler than I thought it would be. You schedule your order online and it comes within a day a two.” Liu said she orders about once a month, with the order including many of the typical grocery store purchases. “Personal care products, shampoo, conditioner, cleaning products, some foods, snacks, dried grains, rice, quinoa, cashews … I just kind of browse their store, look at the things I’d be using anyway, and order it,” Liu said. Granted, Liu admits it is slightly more expensive to order through Loop, but she sees it as a long-term investment that will pay off down the road. “I call it the ‘green margin,’ Liu said. “It’s the cost of not generating more trash, it’s the cost of not adding to the environment’s problems.” And that’s, obviously, the whole reason Loop exists. To create a system in which our purchases don’t add to the problem. And really: Even if you’re a staunch anti-environmentalist, there’s no downside to Loop’s model becoming the dominant force in the industry. And it could certainly happen, and might even happen sooner that anyone dare hope. “At launch, we were in the early phase of the pilot and since May, we have added over 120 products and have doubled our coverage in the United States, adding six new states,” said Eric Rosen, the publicist for Loop/Terracycle. “We have also recently announced committed retail partners in the UK (Tesco), Canada (Loblaws), and Australia (Woolworths). We are also beginning to engage in scale-up conversations with our U.S. retail partners and planning for how we will bring the Loop platform into retailers’ e-commerce platforms and brick-and-mortar stores. And in 2020, you can expect Loop to be available in Canada, the UK, Germany and Japan. And we anticipate being in-store in select locations in the United States.” It would not surprise me one bit if we blinked ourselves to 2030 and saw that Loop has very legitimately changed the way the world’s system of product packaging. Trenton makes, the world reuses.

Stores like Aldi and Trader Joe’s are trying to decrease excess plastic, but experts say it’s not enough. Plastic packaging can be both a blessing and a curse. It’s usually deployed to protect food, preserve freshness, and prevent spoilage and waste, which are all good things. At the same time, supermarkets can’t seem to help themselves from overpackaging items to the point of perversion, like a single banana — which already comes in its own Mother Nature-approved wrapper — plated on a Styrofoam tray and shrink-wrapped in even more plastic. Other forms of plastic appear completely gratuitous. Do pasta boxes really need tiny film windows for previewing the noodles? Supermarkets aren’t the only source of packaging waste, but they’re a major contributor. They’re also where most people interact with brands like Nestlé, which sells more than 1 billion products a day, 98 percent of which come in throwaway formats. When the Break Free from Plastic initiative audited more than 187,000 pieces of trash from 42 countries across six continents last October, the names that reared their heads most frequently were Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and — yes — Nestlé. Supermarkets have been promoting recycling as a way out of this morass, but it hasn’t been enough, according to environmentalists, who say that single-use plastic needs to be purged from the get-go. It’s a concept that a growing breed of “zero-waste” grocers are experimenting with, too. “If your bathtub was overflowing, you wouldn’t reach for a mop to clean it up; you would turn it off at the source,” says David Pinsky, an anti-plastics campaigner at Greenpeace. “And that’s what we need to do on plastics.” LESS THAN 14 PERCENT OF THE NEARLY 86 MILLION TONS OF PLASTIC PACKAGING PRODUCED GLOBALLY EACH YEAR IS RECYCLED The fact of the matter is we’re not doing a good enough job of recapturing plastics, which are made from nonrenewable resources such as crude oil and natural gas and contribute to climate change throughout their life cycle. Less than 14 percent of the nearly 86 million tons of plastic packaging produced globally each year is recycled, and of that, only 2 percent goes into high-value applications. The rest is landfilled, incinerated, or buffeted into the environment, where it clogs up the seas, the beaches, and the digestive tracts of sea life. Much of the trouble with recycling plastic is it’s “incredibly finicky,” says Darby Hoover, a senior resource specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Different municipalities accept different types of plastic, and the little triangle with the number at the bottom of a plastic container — if you can even find it — refers to the type of resin and not if or how it can be recycled. Sometimes, despite a recycling facility’s best efforts, a plastics stream becomes contaminated, which impairs sellability. But even if a facility does get it right, there isn’t always a market to funnel all the different types of plastic. “What’s been happening with China, in particular, is that it was America’s No. 1 buyer of plastic and paper, but now it’s saying that the stuff we send to them needs a much lower contamination rate, and we can’t do that,” Hoover says. Complicating the matter is complex packaging such as Tetra Pak cartons — the type plant-based milks, soups, and broths come in — and Capri Sun-type juice pouches — which contain different layers of material fused together — are even more difficult to reclaim. “So they’ve got aluminum and different types of plastic, then a bunch of glue that holds it all together,” Hoover says. “It’s very, very hard to separate out all those materials and figure out how to recycle any of them.” THE GLOBAL PLASTIC PACKAGING MARKET IS EXPECTED TO SOAR TO $412 BILLION IN 2024 The problem isn’t going away anytime soon. Plastic packaging is a booming industry with a powerful lobbying presence that can block lawmakers from enacting bans on plastic bags, Styrofoam containers, and other landfill fodder. Fueled by growing demand for flexible and functional food and beverage packaging, the global plastic packaging market is expected to soar from a value of $344 billion today to $412 billion in 2024. We throw away most single-use plastics within minutes of use, yet they can persist in the environment for 1,000 years. “We do need to fundamentally rethink the way that we use plastics,” says Sara Wingstrand, project manager of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative, which has rallied more than 350 businesses, governments, and other organizations, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, Walmart, and Target, in 2018 to support the elimination of unnecessary plastic packaging and transition the rest to reusable, recyclable, and compostable versions by 2025. “Recycling is a part of the solution, but it’s becoming evident that there is no way that we can recycle our way out of the plastic pollution crisis.” One key hurdle is that supermarkets are often blissfully unaware of how much plastic they’re employing. The material is relatively cheap and it makes up a fraction of a business’s operating expenses, Wingstrand says. And the thing is, you can’t reduce what you haven’t measured. Some supermarkets are trying, though. In South Africa, the supermarket chain Pick and Pay is trialing packaging-free “nude zones,” where customers can bring their own containers for fruits and vegetables that are laser-etched with the supplier code and sell-by date in lieu of plastic stickers. Similar “food in the nude” campaigns are taking place at grocers in New Zealand, which banned single-use plastic bags in July. This past April, Metro, a supermarket chain in Quebec, became Canada’s first major grocer to allow its customers to fill up their own reusable containers with meat, seafood, pastries, and ready-to-eat meals. Shoppers examine bags of salad at a PriceChopper supermarket. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images The United Kingdom, where a “polluter’s tax” on any single-use packaging that doesn’t contain at least 30 percent recycled materials is poised to debut in April 2022, is also making strides. Its major supermarkets have committed to a UK Plastics Pact to design out “problematic or unnecessary” single-use packaging by 2025. Waitrose is piloting refill stations at select stores for pasta, wine and beer, and detergent, and Sainsbury’s plans to introduce refillable packaging “at scale.” As part of its pledge to use only reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging by 2025, Aldi has banned black plastic trays, which near-infrared sensors at recycling centers have trouble picking out from a sorting belt. Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket, has convened with its suppliers to examine solutions that may require a design or materials overhaul. It’s even mulling banishing brands that use “excessive or inappropriate” packaging. It should come as no surprise that supermarkets in the US — bolstered by America’s corporate-friendly policies — have lagged behind. “Europe is probably more favorably predisposed to regulation and restrictions,” says Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at GlobalData, an international data-analytics consultancy. (Case in point? The European Union has a roadmap for making all plastic on the European market recyclable by 2030.) “Whereas the US is much more focused on freedoms of companies and individuals, and government is probably a lot more reluctant to legislate on certain things.” “THE [US] GOVERNMENT IS PROBABLY A LOT MORE RELUCTANT TO LEGISLATE ON CERTAIN THINGS” That isn’t to say there has been zero progress. Target is working on ditching expanded polystyrene foam packaging from its own-brand packaging by 2022. Select products in its Everspring line of home essentials are packaged in containers with up to 100 percent post-consumer recycled plastic. Costco has eschewed PVC clamshell packaging, which is not recyclable and can leach toxic chemicals when it degrades, for recyclable PET or recycled PET made from water bottles. Straws and Styrofoam meat trays are now verboten at Whole Foods, which is also replacing its hard plastic rotisserie chicken containers with bags that use roughly 70 percent less plastic, a spokesperson says. Walmart, the world’s No.1 brick-and-mortar retailer, aims by 2025 to incorporate at least 20 percent post-consumer recycled content in its own-brand packaging, which will also be 100 percent recyclable, reusable, or industrially compostable. In terms of general merchandise packaging, Walmart says it will work with suppliers to nix PVC by 2020. But a June report by Greenpeace, which rated 20 leading US supermarkets on their efforts to eliminate single-use plastic, found a universal failure to “adequately address the plastic pollution crisis they are contributing to.” In fact, no supermarket scored more than 35 out of a possible 100 points. Even the American iteration of Aldi, which rose to No. 1 for setting out a plastics reduction target and plan, needs to ramp up its ambitions, according to Pinsky. Since 90 percent of the products on its shelves are private label, rather than from name-brand suppliers, Aldi has a bigger say in its packaging decisions. “Aldi’s only committed by 2025 to reduce its plastic footprint by 15 percent,” he says. “So while some supermarkets are starting to take small steps in the right direction, none are acting with the urgency or the ambition that’s needed to truly tackle the plastic pollution crisis.” Transparency, Pinsky says, is a sticking issue. No supermarket, for instance, publicly reports its plastic footprint, which makes it difficult for the public to evaluate progress year over year. Time-bound, comprehensive plans are still few and far between. And some grocers are merely substituting one single-use material for another, as in the case of Trader Joe’s, which drew plaudits earlier this year for plans to strip its stores of 1 million pounds of plastic by removing plastic bags from its checkout counters, switching to compostable produce bags, and replacing Styrofoam trays with recyclable alternatives. But plant-based bioplastics, which stores increasingly favor, can still contribute to microplastic pollution if released into the environment, Pinksy notes, and molded fiberboard could harbor cancer-causing chemicals. “WE NEED TO SHIFT OUR CULTURE BACK TO MORE REUSE SYSTEMS” “It’s clear that recycling or substituting materials is not going to solve this problem; we need to see a focused reduction of plastic production in the first place,” he adds. “We need to shift our culture back to more reuse systems.” One result of the plastics backlash is the idea of the zero-waste supermarket. Brianne Miller, a marine biologist, was so sickened by the swaths of plastic that greeted her in different dive sites around the world — even the remote ones — that she left academia to co-found Nada, a zero-waste grocer that is not only the first of its kind in downtown Vancouver but in all of Canada. At Nada, everything, including fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, cheeses, nut butters, and sauces, is sold loose. Customers can load up their own jars, containers, and drawstring bags, or pick up cleaned and sanitized ones that are available for sale. Depending on what they need, they can pick up a barrel of crackers or just a handful. But customers are just one piece of Nada’s master plan; the store also works with its suppliers to deliver their products free of disposable packaging. “In many instances, suppliers are dropping off products every couple days or every week, so it’s quite easy, for example, to have things like coffee beans dropped off in a reusable Rubbermaid tote,” Miller says. “And then when the next shipment comes in, the container goes back to the supplier, and then it’s refilled and reused again, so we have this circular loop of containers that are coming and going from our store.” Nada sources as close to the store as possible, which helps with the minimalist approach, since products don’t have to be coddled across vast distances. “Instead of shipping cucumbers from across the country, we have the local farm, so that packaging isn’t necessary in the first place,” she says. Zero-waste supermarkets, especially full-service ones like Nada, may seem like an answer to our plastic packaging problem, except they’re still a rarity. In.gredients, an East Austin business that billed itself as America’s first zero-waste grocery store, shuttered permanently in 2018. There is a smattering of others in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Hong Kong, but they are largely boutique outfits with narrow aisles and more hipster appeal than options. For the vast majority of people, single-use plastics are still an inescapable aspect of their shopping reality. One other solution is a return to the old “milkman delivery” model of yore. The brainchild of TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based “waste solution development” firm, Loop offers popular products — think Häagen-Dazs ice cream, Hidden Valley ranch dressing, Tropicana orange juice, and Quaker Oats oatmeal — in durable glass and aluminum tubs designed to be returned, cleaned, and refilled. Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Danone are just some of the marquee names that have thrown in their support. Loop has also roped in a number of retail partners, including Kroger and Walgreens in the United States, Tesco in the United Kingdom, and Carrefour in France. “It’s super important to us to meet consumers where they’re already shopping,” says Heather Crawford, Loop’s vice president of marketing and e-commerce. Unlike with bulk or zero-waste supermarkets, customers don’t have to sling their own containers or wash them, which could help adoption. “People want a better, more sustainable option with less waste, but they’re not always willing to change their behaviors to get there,” she says. “Loop removes all of the friction from the systems that exist in the current zero-waste solution.” Tory Gundelach, vice president of retail insights at the consulting agency Kantar, sees a growing desire from customers for forward-thinking efforts such as Loop. “Younger shoppers, particularly, are becoming more attuned to the effect of their actions on the environment or society as a whole,” she says. “Shoppers increasingly want to see the retailers and brands they engage reflect their own personal values.” Nearly two-thirds of millennials and Gen Z-ers say they prefer “brands that have a point of view and stand for something,” Kantar’s research has found. And therein lies supermarkets’ business proposition. Reducing packaging through resource-efficient design or losing it altogether can save money on raw materials and shipping costs — always a plus for the bottom line — but it can also win over a demographic that is only going to grow into its spending power. “Shoppers are telling us, ‘I’m putting my dollars against the retailers and the brands that feel like they have values that line up with my values,’” Gundelach says. “And to do that, of course, brands and retailers have to put out what their values are that they stand for.”

TerraCycle’s Loop leads the charge as brands, retailers and consumers all express a desire to reduce packaging waste TerraCycle launched its Loop initiative in the spring, giving consumer packaged goods brands a platform to have their products delivered in reusable containers, as in the old days of the milkman bringing glass bottles to the doorstep. What followed was a small pilot in the Northeast that quickly garnered a waiting list of 90,000 consumers requesting the service.   “If we tried to launch [Loop] five years ago, I don’t know if it would’ve worked,” says Anthony Rossi, the program’s global vice president of business development. “But if there’s one thing we’ve seen so far, it’s that the consumer is now ready.”   A recent Nielsen survey found that 75% of consumers globally would “definitely” or “probably” change their consumption habits if doing so would have a positive effect on the environment; nearly half of U.S. consumers said likewise.   “And these consumers are putting their dollars where their values are, spending $128.5 billion on sustainable fast-moving consumer products this year,” says Kyle McKinley, vice president of design solutions at Nielsen. “Since 2014, these influential shoppers have grown sustainable product sales by nearly 20%, with a compound growth rate that’s four times larger than conventional products.” Nielsen expects sustainable-friendly shoppers in the U.S to spend upward of $150 billion on sustainable goods by 2021.

Good for Business

  Reducing waste isn’t just good for the world, it’s good for business. With consumers showing signs of wanting to play their role in reducing waste, brands and retailers are motivated to develop more sustainable goods and packaging options. Just this summer, a coalition of industry companies including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and SAP founded the Brands for Good coalition; separately, a host of CPGs, retailers and packaging providers formed the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. (Neither group responded to requests for an interview.)   Participants in the Brands for Good coalition are making commitments to embed social purpose into their brand promises and products; to use brand influence to make sustainable living accessible for consumers; and to collaborate with other players to change behavior to create a positive impact on the planet. Each company will launch its own projects with that shared mission in mind.   P&G played an integral role in the launch of Loop and is one of more than 100 brands already working with the platform. Three years ago, the CPG giant stood side by side with TerraCycle at the World Economic Forum to discuss its use of ocean plastics in Head & Shoulders bottles, and at that time began discussing the idea of reusable services. It has since also launched Tide Purclean, a plant-based liquid detergent, and has an overall goal to make all product packaging recyclable or reusable by 2030.   Other major CPGs such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, Unilever and Diageo, to name a few, have set similar public goals in an effort to reduce global waste by making packaging more recyclable.

Making a Commitment

  Nestle, another founding Loop partner, has “committed to making 100% of our packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025,” says Elizabell Marquez, director of marketing for the company’s Haagen-Dazs brand. The Nestle Institute of Packaging Sciences was created last year to advance these efforts, she notes.

  Clorox Co., also a Loop partner, is expected this month to announce an “ambitious product and packaging-related sustainability strategy as part of our broader environmental, social and governance strategy,” promises Andrea Rudert, associate director, corporate responsibility. Clorox previously set a goal to improve the sustainability of half of its product portfolio by 2020, with 2011 being the baseline year.   “We surpassed that goal two years early,” Rudert says. “In fact, as of the end of our 2019 fiscal year, we made sustainability improvements to 58% of our product portfolio.” The company has recyclable primary packaging for 92% of its lineup.   Other manufacturers making sustainable commitments include SC Johnson, which last spring launched Windex in special packaging at Target, Walmart and other retailers. The bottles are made from 100% recycled ocean plastic and are non-toxic and cruelty-free.   Windex is also planning this fall to launch a “Social Plastic” bottle that will include recycled ocean-bound social plastic sourced by Plastic Bank from Haiti, the Philippines and Indonesia. The effort is designed to help the environment but also provide social benefits to people living below the poverty line in those nations, according to a company release.   SC Johnson also expanded Windex’s concentrate cleaner offerings into products from such brands as Pledge, Scrubbing Bubbles, Shout and Fantastik. The concentrate refill bottles use 80% less plastic compared to a brand new, larger trigger bottle; consumers mix tap water with the concentrate into a reusable trigger bottle to significantly reduce plastic waste.   Elsewhere, Hasbro will phase out the use of plastics in its packaging beginning in 2020, doing away with the polybags, elastic bands, shrink wrap, window sheets and blister packs that have long been part of the toy buying experience. The company eliminated wire ties from packaging in 2010, and has been working with TerraCycle to recycle materials from old toys and games to make innovative social spaces and items like play areas, flowerpots and park benches.   Yet another TerraCycle partner, Colgate-Palmolive, has been recycling used toothpaste tubes and toothbrushes into playground materials. The company also recently unveiled a recyclable toothpaste tube that will launch in 2020 via the Tom’s of Maine brand but extend to all brands by 2025. The tube uses the “number 2” plastic commonly found in soda bottles.

In the Loop

  With TerraCycle’s two-decade-long history of working with brands to eliminate waste, it’s no surprise the company was able to partner up with manufacturers such as P&G, Unilever, Bic, Mars and Danone to launch a strategy around reusable packaging. TerraCycle began as a solution to help brands recycle products that aren’t recycled at traditional facilities, such as cigarette butts, chip bags and various personal care products. That remains the company’s largest operation. Second to that effort is working with brands to integrate recycled content into its packaging, as it did through the aforementioned efforts with P&G’s Head & Shoulders on the ocean plastics and Colgate for playground materials.   TerraCycle’s newest business unit is Loop, which Rossi describes as “dusting off the idea of the milkman and bringing it to any product that’s single-use today.” Loop is, in fact, a way to completely eliminate packaging waste. “Recycling is a Band-Aid on a cut, and what we need to do is attack the problem at its core. And the problem is single use and disposability.”   Nestle became a founding partner of Loop because the concept presents an “innovative and disruptive approach to changing how products are packaged – and delivered – and how consumers enjoy them,” says Marquez.   The short of it: Shoppers buy a brand’s durable, reusable (and exclusive) Loop packaging, which gets delivered through Loop in a special tote bag. When the contents are up for a refill, the user puts the packaging back in the Loop bag for free pickup; Loop then sanitizes the packaging to be refilled by the brand and shipped back to the user.   Kroger and Walgreens in the U.S, as well as Carrefour and Tesco in Europe, are Loop’s current retail partners. They help sell and distribute the Loop platform, with consumers signing up for Loop through the retailers.   A key element to the model is the brand’s involvement with the packaging. While Loop helps brands develop containers that can be used hundreds of times, can be sanitized and are strong enough to withstand the frequent shipping, they remain the brand’s asset.   Nestle, for example, owns the sleek, steel Haagen-Dazs container it developed for Loop, which Marquez says is a way to show that sustainability can be delivered in upscale, premium wrapping. The stainless steel container is etched with the familiar Haagen-Dazs tapestry, carries double lining for extra cooling and has an easy twist-off top, she explains.   “Loop is encouraging participating brands to create durable and reusable packaging designs that are more visually appealing,” says Rudert at Clorox. “The hope is that consumers will keep products on their countertops because they are ‘show off’ worthy.”   Clorox teamed with Loop for its pilot launch, testing a container for Clorox disinfecting wipes and a bottle for Hidden Valley Original Ranch dressing. (Glad food protection products are in the works.) Other Loop packaging examples include a simple, white container for Mars pet food; a Nature’s Path granola jar; and P&G’s range of chic steel or glass bottles for Tide, Crest mouthwash and other products.   “A lot of times, innovation in sustainability is perceived to start with these smaller, grassroots brands, and we keep sustainability on the fringes and we target that eco-friendly person,” Loop’s Rossi says. “What’s exciting about Loop is we’re trying to make sustainability irresistible to everyone. We’re working with big national brands and big national retailers, because for us to have the positive environmental impact that we want to have, sustainability can’t be kept to the fringes of society. It needs to be in everyone’s house.”

Going Forward

  Rossi’s somewhat Utopian vision is to see Loop operating nationwide, in every ZIP code, within five years. In the meantime, he encourages brands to think about incorporating more recycling into the design process. For example, if a detergent brand has decided to use “number 2” plastic (one of the most recyclable materials) but designs it in black, that’s a color that recycling machines often don’t pick up.   The Rochester Institute of Technology has been studying sustainability in packaging since the 1980s, says Dan Johnson, professor and chair of the school’s department of packaging science. Its efforts take a full supply chain view, examining issues such as transportation energy and product damage, not just material use and formats.   “Brands need to remember that not all successes in sustainability need to be customer-focused,” Johnson says, adding that consumer behavior around sustainability can be a bit of a wild card. “A good deal of the wins are only detectable by packaging geeks like our faculty, but [those actions] may be the largest contributor to meeting corporate sustainability goals around packaging.”   Johnson is inspired by some of the brand activity out there today, but warns that “economic and technical challenges in the recycling process are creating a shortage of both quality recycled raw material and credible outlets for collected recyclables. Thankfully, this gap in technology is beginning to be addressed by advances in areas like chemical recycling and advanced mechanical sortation technology.”   Back on the consumer-facing front lines, Nielsen’s McKinley says brands must stay true to who they are when considering their sustainable packaging designs. “As you act on collective sustainability needs in an authentic way for your brand, leverage the tools you already have: everyday analytics, innovation testing, consumer resonance and more.”   Clorox’s Rudert adds that brands and retailers should continue to raise greater consumer awareness on the urgent need for more sustainable commerce models. “When consumers are willing to pay for these products, companies will be incentivized to invest in the innovations needed to create sustainable change.”

An alarm sounds, the blockage is cleared, and the line at Green Recycling in Maldon, Essex, rumbles back into life. A momentous river of garbage rolls down the conveyor: cardboard boxes, splintered skirting board, plastic bottles, crisp packets, DVD cases, printer cartridges, countless newspapers, including this one. Odd bits of junk catch the eye, conjuring little vignettes: a single discarded glove. A crushed Tupperware container, the meal inside uneaten. A photograph of a smiling child on an adult’s shoulders. But they are gone in a moment. The line at Green Recycling handles up to 12 tonnes of waste an hour. “We produce 200 to 300 tonnes a day,” says Jamie Smith, Green Recycling’s general manager, above the din. We are standing three storeys up on the green health-and-safety gangway, looking down the line. On the tipping floor, an excavator is grabbing clawfuls of trash from heaps and piling it into a spinning drum, which spreads it evenly across the conveyor. Along the belt, human workers pick and channel what is valuable (bottles, cardboard, aluminium cans) into sorting chutes. “Our main products are paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, mixed plastics, and wood,” says Smith, 40. “We’re seeing a significant rise in boxes, thanks to Amazon.” By the end of the line, the torrent has become a trickle. The waste stands stacked neatly in bales, ready to be loaded on to trucks. From there, it will go – well, that is when it gets complicated. You drink a Coca-Cola, throw the bottle into the recycling, put the bins out on collection day and forget about it. But it doesn’t disappear. Everything you own will one day become the property of this, the waste industry, a £250bn global enterprise determined to extract every last penny of value from what remains. It starts with materials recovery facilities (MRFs) such as this one, which sort waste into its constituent parts. From there, the materials enter a labyrinthine network of brokers and traders. Some of that happens in the UK, but much of it – about half of all paper and cardboard, and two-thirds of plastics – will be loaded on to container ships to be sent to Europe or Asia for recycling. Paper and cardboard goes to mills; glass is washed and re-used or smashed and melted, like metal and plastic. Food, and anything else, is burned or sent to landfill. Or, at least, that’s how it used to work. Then, on the first day of 2018, China, the world’s largest market for recycled waste, essentially shut its doors. Under its National Sword policy, China prohibited 24 types of waste from entering the country, arguing that what was coming in was too contaminated. The policy shift was partly attributed to the impact of a documentary, Plastic China, which went viral before censors erased it from China’s internet. The film follows a family working in the country’s recycling industry, where humans pick through vast dunes of western waste, shredding and melting salvageable plastic into pellets that can be sold to manufacturers. It is filthy, polluting work – and badly paid. The remainder is often burned in the open air. The family lives alongside the sorting machine, their 11-year-old daughter playing with a Barbie pulled from the rubbish. Westminster council sent 82% of all household waste – including that put in recycling bins – for incineration in 2017/18 For recyclers such as Smith, National Sword was a huge blow. “The price of cardboard has probably halved in the last 12 months,” he says. “The price of plastics has plummeted to the extent that it isn’t worth recycling. If China doesn’t take plastic, we can’t sell it.” Still, that waste has to go somewhere. The UK, like most developed nations, produces more waste than it can process at home: 230m tonnes a year – about 1.1kg per person per day. (The US, the world’s most wasteful nation, produces 2kg per person per day.) Quickly, the market began flooding any country that would take the trash: Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, countries with some of the world’s highest rates of what researchers call “waste mismanagement” – rubbish left or burned in open landfills, illegal sites or facilities with inadequate reporting, making its final fate difficult to trace. The present dumping ground of choice is Malaysia. In October last year, a Greenpeace Unearthed investigation found mountains of British and European waste in illegal dumps there: Tesco crisp packets, Flora tubs and recycling collection bags from three London councils. As in China, the waste is often burned or abandoned, eventually finding its way into rivers and oceans. In May, the Malaysian government began turning back container ships, citing public health concerns. Thailand and India have announced bans on the import of foreign plastic waste. But still the rubbish flows.

The 2019 Waste360 40 Under 40 award recipient discusses how he got his start in the industry as well as TerraCycle’s mission to eliminate waste. When Tom Szaky was a freshman at Princeton University, he and several friends during a fall break ended up feeding kitchen scraps to red worms and using the resulting fertilizer to feed some of their indoor plants. The results amazed Szaky and the idea for TerraCycle was born: to help eliminate the idea of waste by making quality fertilizer from food waste. Szaky emptied his savings accounts, borrowed money from friends and family and maxed out his credit cards to create a massive worm feces conversion unit. He eventually decided to leave Princeton and pursue TerraCycle fulltime. The company has since evolved, and earlier this year, TerraCycle created Loop, a first-of-its-kind circular shopping system, in partnership with major retailers and brands. It aims to change the world’s reliance on single-use packaging, offer a convenient and enhanced circular solution to consumers and secure meaningful environmental benefits. The system, which also launched in Paris and will continue to roll out to more markets throughout 2019 and 2020, allows customers to responsibly consume a range of products in customized, brand-specific, durable packaging that is collected, cleaned, refilled and reused. The content, if recoverable, is either recycled or reused. Szaky has been named a 2019 Waste360 40 Under 40 award recipient. He was nominated by Kimberly Frost, who never met him but has been interested in and following Terracycle’s growth through the years. “He's a self-made guy,” says Frost. “He invested in his passion and grew from there. He stayed local. He invested in his community. He took his solutions global. He is someone who harnesses challenges and morphs them into opportunities. His solutions benefit the environment and show the human capacity for creative problem-solving.” We recently sat down with the 40 Under 40 awardrecipient to discuss how he got his start in the industry as well as TerraCycle’s idea to eliminate waste. Waste360: How did you get your start in the industry? Tom Szaky: I started my company in the middle of my freshman year of college, and I left college in my sophomore year to pursue it, so I sort of fell into the industry. I think waste is an amazingly big topic and relative to its immense scale; it’s incredibly un-innovative. So, that to me was a way to create a business that focused on purpose, as in making the environment better and, in a secondary way, making society better while making a profit. And that was very attractive to me. Waste360: Please tell us about your brief time at Princeton. Tom Szaky: When I was in college, I was very interested in behavioral economics—that was my major. I think the big turning point for me in economics overall and sort of thinking about business in different ways was actually the first class of economics. The professor got up on stage and the first thing she said was, ‘Let’s define the purpose of business.’ And the answer she was looking for was profit to shareholders. I sort of had a problem with that in the sense that I thought there are so many people who interact with a business—employees, vendors, customers, etc.—and so few do it for profit to shareholders and don’t think it’s the reason for its existence. So, I sort of started exploring that conflict a little bit and where I landed was at, ‘No, the purpose of business is for society and the planet and it should do so at a profit, but profit isn’t the reason of being.’ So, that’s where I picked up this whole exploration. Waste360: What was your initial inspiration for starting TerraCycle and eventually the Loop shopping system? Tom Szaky: TerraCycle, for me, was inspired around garbage and around how people don’t like garbage and pay to discard it. That's a big issue, and although everything one day becomes waste, the innovation is relatively small. That, to me, was a really interesting opportunity, and that’s how TerraCycle began—starting with the organic fertilizer and then emerging to recycling programs and other exciting things. Fast forward to a few years ago in 2016 or 2017, we were thinking, ‘Is recycling really the foundational solution to waste?’ And we realized that it is a solution for the symptom of waste but not the root cause of waste. That began a big exploration that landed us launching Loop, which was announced in January and went live in May. Waste360: How are things going with Loop since the pilot program has expanded into new areas? What kind of feedback have you received from that project so far? Tom Szaky: Loop went live on May 14 in France and on May 21 with Kroger and Walgreens in the U.S. The launch is coming up in London in January 2020 with Tesco, in April 2020 in Germany and Canada and then in late 2020 with Australia and Japan. So, there’s a lot coming up. In the platforms that are live today in the U.S. and France, we are finding that people really like Loop for two reasons: for the reuse and the design that it brings to the products in their home. And that was really interesting to see how much people gravitated to Loop because of the design. We are also seeing people are less sensitive on the price end of the project. People want to make sure the product itself is a reasonable price, but they’re open to paying a deposit equal to the value of the package, which is really quite exciting. Waste360: How is TerraCycle eliminating the idea of waste? Tom Szaky: We are doing that in four ways. One is that we help make things that are not recyclable recyclable. That is one of our major business units—we recycle everything from dirty diapers to cigarette butts and flexible food packaging to toothbrushes. Our second division focuses on how do we integrate waste back into consumer products? For example, ocean plastic into shampoo bottles and many other such examples. But again, always with major brands. The third is Loop—moving from disposable to durable consumption. We also have an emerging division around diagnostics, which looks at certain waste streams that carry diagnosable samples, like the saliva on your toothbrush or the fecal matter in your child’s diaper, and are creating a solution to that. For example, many toothbrushes have saliva samples, razor blades have skin samples, tampons have menstrual blood and kitty litter can contain cat urine and fecal matter from the pet. In all those cases, we can create an opportunity—which we are developing now—where you buy a diagnostic kit and put in one of the samples from those waste streams and then when it comes back to us, we analyze it to tell you about the health of yourself, your child, your pet or whatever it may be. Waste360: Terracycle has partnered with organizations like Keep America Beautiful, Subaru and Tweed, among others. What other notable partnerships are in the works for the company? Tom Szaky: Oh wow, yeah. We work with so many amazing brands and retailers across 21 markets. It’s hard for me to tell you about what is coming up because those will be formally announced as they come. Waste360: You’ve authored four books, starred in a TerraCycle reality show and have received more than 200 social, environmental and business awards. What’s next for you personally and for TerraCycle? Tom Szaky: Personally, I am going to write another book. It will be the fifth book, most likely on marketing and communications. I am really enjoying my family now. I have two young boys—a 4 year old and 2 year old—so I am spending a lot of time with them. For the company, we are becoming more mature. We acquired a light bulb recycling company last year, and we are looking to start another acquisition this year and finish it next year. We are also looking toward expanding into more countries. I think that is very likely with our foundation that we’ve opened in Thailand and our for-profit we will be opening in Southeast Asian region countries, like Indonesia and Malaysia. We are looking at developing other business units, like how do we bring this idea of really high-end waste management and recycling to residential homes and small businesses? We are really trying to think through how to increase the geography but really increase the range of all the capabilities that we can bring. Waste360: What advice would you give people who are either reluctant to join the waste and recycling industry or those just getting their feet wet in the industry? Tom Szaky: I would say it’s an incredible opportunity right now and people are really focused on [waste and recycling]. We are in the middle of a garbage crisis. But because people are repulsed by waste, there is little innovation, so there is a great opportunity for an entrepreneur to get involved because it is very easy to innovate when there is very little innovation going on. Waste360: What keeps you motivated in your daily work? Tom Szaky: It’s the purpose. It’s the ability to know that what I am doing is not just to make money, it’s going to leave the world better than I found it. And that purpose really drives me. It’s nice and it’s a cherry on the cake that it is also financially rewarding, but what gets me out of bed is working to make the world better than I found it, and it’s a constant driver no matter what.