LOS ANGELES: Leading toy and consumer products manufacturer ZURU Inc, announced today the Bunch O Balloons Recycling Program powered by a long-term strategic alliance with the innovative recycling giant TerraCycle.   The partnership encourages consumers to think 'green' and recycle 100% of their used balloon plastics and packaging. Beginning September 1st 2019 all ZURU Bunch O Balloons products in the USA, Canada, U.K., Australia and New Zealand will be fully recyclable. Consumers will be able to ship or drop off used Bunch O Balloons packaging, balloon pieces and fast-fill stems - at TerraCycle recycling stations, where they will then be processed and recycled into new materials. Taking steps to make our products more sustainable is a top initiative especially when it comes to left-over balloon latex and packaging from our Bunch O Balloon brands, said Anna Mowbray, COO & Founder, ZURU. Through our partnership with TerraCycle, we're providing consumers a simple way to recycle material, reduce the amount of landfill plastic around the world and produce recycled materials. TerraCycle and ZURU will make it easy for consumers to collect all their ZURU Bunch O Balloons materials after use, pack into any available box, print off their shipping label after signing up and then simply ship out or drop off to be recycled. We're thrilled to partner with ZURU on their Balloon Recycling Program, said Global spokesperson Tom Szaky, TerraCycle CEO. Together, we are working to encourage consumers to take action to reuse and recycle waste instead of incinerating or landfilling it. This moves waste from a linear system to a circular one, allowing it to keep cycling in our global economy. The multi-market TerraCycle program, is one part of ZURU's 10-year sustainability program to rethink how they design new and existing products, reduce usage of plastics in items while still delivering a top quality experience and how they encourage recycling at all touchpoints. For example the company consciously built sustainable practices into ZURU Bunch O Balloons Self-Sealing Party Balloons, the latest addition to the category-leading Bunch O Balloons brand, ensuring the fast-fill stems make all party balloons reusable. Bunch O Balloons Party allows consumers to fill, tie and string 40 party balloons in 40 seconds. There is no more blowing, no more tying and no need to add ribbon or string. Simply attach the balloon stems to the Electric Party Pump and press go. Additionally, Bunch O Balloons Party can also be filled with helium. ZURU also encourages safe use of party balloons and advises consumers not to release balloons, especially helium, into the atmosphere.

The receptacles will collect butts to be shipped for free to Terracycle, a company that helps connect hard-to-recycle waste with recycling programs funded by brands, manufacturers and retailers around the world. The cigarette waste will be melted into hard plastic that can be remolded into new products, like industrial plastic pallets and benches, while the ash and tobacco are separated and composted, according to the company’s website.

The receptacles will collect butts to be shipped for free to Terracycle, a company that helps connect hard-to-recycle waste with recycling programs funded by brands, manufacturers and retailers around the world. The cigarette waste will be melted into hard plastic that can be remolded into new products, like industrial plastic pallets and benches, while the ash and tobacco are separated and composted, according to the company’s website.

It’s challenging to change patterns. I feel strongly that we are responsible for not only the items we buy but the packaging it comes in. That plastic at the top of a tincture bottle I buy is my responsibility. So I invested in TerraCycle recycling boxes- I can put any plastic item in it and it will be upcycled. I am paying for an alternative to the landfill. It’s not the answer but a step in the right direction. But every time I take out the trash, I find plastic bits that me and my family members have thrown away because we are still learning to shift our patterns. My next step is to look at offsetting my carbon footprint. I drive an electric car but am on a plane often, which I know contributes to carbon emissions. I’m not ready to give up travel but I want to offset the pollution I am participating in creating.

Students, parents and community members gathered more than 18,000 recyclable items and sent them to TerraCycle, a recycling company in New Jersey. The school took second place in the Northeast region contest and won a playground made of recycled materials worth $25,000.

If you walk down any drugstore aisle, you become quickly aware of how plastic packaging enwraps most of the cosmetics and personal care products we use daily. Estimates of the cosmetics industry’s annual plastic packaging production range between 76.8 billion and 150 billion units.

Plastic packaging became the norm for the cosmetics industry starting in the 1950s due to its versatility in shape and size, as well as cultural shifts in the U.S. around hygiene and beauty that emerged during World War II. As showers became standard in Americans’ morning routines, so did the demand for liquid personal care products that could wash easily down the drain.

However, ongoing public outcry across the globe about plastics in oceans has encouraged cosmetics brands to rethink plastics and develop more responsible packaging. Notable cosmetic companies tackling the plastic packaging problem are L’Oréal and Garnier. For example, Garnier has teamed up with TerraCycle—a recycling and “upcycling” company that says it is determined to “eliminate the idea of waste”—to offer a take-back program for specific Garnier beauty products. L’Oréal signed with PureCycle Technologies, a company that uses waste plastic to produce virgin-like plastic, to get closer to its 2025 goal for 50 percent of its packaging plastics to be bio-sourced or of recycled origin.

While the work of Garnier and L’Oréal is a step in the right direction, their solutions do not remove plastic from the packaging equation entirely, nor do they remove the emissions from transportation further down the value chain.

'Carbon positive’ packaging: Sailing ships and regenerative forestry

Lush—a United Kingdom cosmetics company that boasts a line of package-free products—has developed what it calls a "carbon positive" packaging process that removes additional carbon dioxide from the air. The process does not use plastic packaging or container ships and results in what will encase some of Lush’s shampoo bars.

The packaging process is considered carbon-positive because it uses commercial sailboats instead of cargo ships to ship finished cork containers from Portugal to the United Kingdom. Lush also sources the cork at premium prices from forest owners who grow cork oak regeneratively.

“The [Lush] team’s calculations suggest that each cork pot sequesters over one kilo of carbon dioxide gas (and this is a very conservative estimate),” Miles King, a nature writer who works with Lush, told the Telegraph.

A revenue stream encouraging regenerative cork forests in Portugal

It is through Lush’s buying partnership with Eco Interventions, a nonprofit that works to restore Portugal’s Cork Oak forests, that regenerative practices have returned to the Portuguese cork industry. In recent years, forest owners’ ambitions to produce more cork have had a negative effect on the cork oaks’ well-being. Monte De Vida details how there has been a widespread die-off of cork oaks in Portugal due to a fungal disease and Portuguese cork harvesters’ excessive cultivation of land, which damages the shallow cork oaks’ roots and degrades the soil.

The 5 euros that Lush pays to Eco Interventions for each cork pot helps provide forest owners with the resources to cultivate native plants to replant around the trees and to transition away from pesticide usage. The 5 euros per container could quickly add up to bring meaningful change to the Portugal cork forest landscape, as Lush says it plans to purchase 500,000 cork containers by the end of the year.

Lush launches program that ships cork by sail

Lush also brought the regenerative philosophy of cork harvesting to the transportation portion of its “carbon positive” packaging process. The company launched a trial to ship 6,000 cork containers via a commercial sailing ship from Portugal to the United Kingdom at the beginning of July 2019.

“Transporting goods by sail cargo is a good fit with our ethics and ambition to reduce harm to the planet as it’s largely carbon neutral,” Derek Hallé, trade compliance manager for Lush U.K., told Fast Company.

At the same time, Lush is aware of the challenges of shipping by sailboat, such as the longer shipping time and lack of infrastructure that could increase costs drastically. It is important to Lush that acting ethically doesn’t get in the way of profitability, as it is essential in scaling up solutions such as shipping by sailboats. While shipping the containers by sail for now is unique to the cosmetics industry, entrepreneurs and academics believe the benefits of shipping cargo by sail will outweigh the challenges in the long run, according to Jeff Spross of The Week.

This process is a reminder that sustainable packaging requires a system reset—one that dares to redefine traditional logistics that make up not only the global cosmetics industry but also most other industries. Since 90 percent of what the global economy buys comes from container ships (which account for 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions) and 6.3 billion tons of plastic have found refuge in our oceans, more companies need to act on innovative transportation and material solutions similar to Lush’s process to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. The more companies that try to reinvent their logistics with the environment in mind, the closer our global society is to finding regenerative solutions that can work in the long term.

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In October 2014, I took a trip to New York City where I made the editorial rounds to introduce Slow Flowers to members of the media (remember, the online directory launched earlier that year). At each of these meetings, I unveiled the first of what has since become the annual Slow Flowers Floral Insights and Industry Forecast.   And then, of course, as I love to do whenever I travel, I gathered with a group of Slow Flowers members to meet them, hear about their journeys, learn what encourages and even challenges each of them in them in their floral enterprise.   Summer wedding flowers, designed by Molly Oliver Flowers (c) Cheyanna di Nicola   The woman who generously helped me find a location for this gathering, and who brought beautiful flowers to the first-ever New York area Slow Flowers Meet-Up was Molly Oliver Culver, today’s guest.   A small, dynamic group of florists and growers joined us that night. And after the party wrapped, Molly agreed to stay for an interview for the Slow Flowers Podcast. We sat in the rather dark, brick-lined upstairs room of a Brooklyn eatery and recorded the conversation which you can hear from the Slow Flowers Podcast archives – episode 172, which originally aired December 17, 2014.   A vivid seasonal floral palette featuring all locally-grown New York blooms, designed by Molly Oliver Flowers (c) Iris Photograph   Today, we’re catching up with Molly and I’m so pleased that she has returned to talk about the changes in the local floral landscape in New York and Brooklyn, where most of her clients’ wedding ceremonies take place, and in the surrounding areas such as Hudson Valley, further Upstate New York, and on Long Island, where most of the local flowers for Molly’s designs are grown. So much has changed in five years and it’s so encouraging – I’m excited to share this conversation with someone I consider a Slow Flowers pioneer and valuable friend.     A lovely altar piece by Molly Oliver Flowers © Khaki Bedford Photography   Here’s more about Molly Culver and Molly Oliver Flowers:   Molly Oliver Flowers is a sustainable floral design company founded in 2011 by farmer/educator, Molly Oliver Culver. She has been recognized by Brides.com as one of the top five wedding professionals using sustainable practices and was featured on the list of best sustainable florists in NYC by Ecocult.     Molly’s aesthetic is translated into stunning, lush, local and evocative wedding flowers © Khaki Bedford Photography   Molly writes this on the “about” page of her web site: A desire to help grow social justice and care for our beautiful planet led me to community organizing around food justice, then to rural organic farming, and eventually, to education and flowers. I’m proud to say I’ve helped to nurture soil, and have grown my own food and flowers, on my own and with others, for the past 15 years.     Sweet blooms (c) Weddings by Two   I love that floral design allows me to meet fun, loving and mindful clients and connect them with seasonal flora and our local flower, herb, perennial and foliage farmers. I’ve had many lives in my 38 years: Audrey Hepburn/NYC-obsessed teenager; literature major; novice journalist and ESL instructor in Santiago, Chile; urban farming educator and farmers market manager; community garden outreach coordinator; compost educator; urban farm manager…and now, a business owner and floral designer.   Throughout these many experiences, the connective tissue has always been people, soil, and plants. At core, I care deeply about equity, inclusion, sustainability and loving kindness and works to help these values emanate through this business.   Urban wedding-local blooms by Molly Oliver Flowers   Molly Culver on her design style: I continue to be deeply inspired by all of the local blooms and foliages, from cultivated to wild and foraged, that any given season has to offer. Our region’s climate and four-season evolution offers something just right for every occasion, all year round. I am interested and inspired by my clients’ vision, and whenever they are needing guidance, I’m happy to share my love of wild, natural designs. In other words, I love to bring your vision to life using the gorgeous product we have available locally.   Molly Culver on “Why Local?” I love to connect my clients with locally grown flowers, to share the fun of learning about what’s in season at the time of their event, and to create gorgeous arrangements that evoke time, place, mood and my clients’ individual style.   I source 90-100% of the flowers we use within 200 miles of New York City, from both regional and urban farms. An organic grower of 10+ years myself, I love supporting the talented community of dedicated farmers who grow an incredible diversity of beautiful flowers, cut days or even hours before, and delivered at peak quality to the city. Collaborating with these new growers to share experiences, discuss trending varieties and colors, and celebrate our successes is one of the most exciting aspects of this work.   Bridesmaids bouquets by Molly Oliver Flowers (c) Tim Ryan Smith   In the studio and for her events, Molly puts a priority on waste reduction and composting. Here are some of her practices, which I hope inspires change in your studio or shop:   Emphasis on waste reduction and composting: It’s par for the course in the NYC event world to throw away much of the decor at the end of the night — this waste (vases, flowers, candles, etc.) winds up in a landfill.   Unfortunately, many flower studios still rely heavily on floral foam and other synthetic, non-biodegradable products to create designs — all of this goes into landfills as well. Need I go on? There are a number of ways I work to reduce waste, both in my day-to-day work in the studio and on event days:  

• I offer a variety of vessels as rentals, and re-use these as long as possible.
• I make complimentary ‘grab and go’ bouquets for your guests, and generally ensure you and your guests go home with as many peak quality flowers at the end of your event as desired.
• All unclaimed flower waste is composted locally at urban farms and becomes a nutrient-rich soil amendment.
• All items not accepted by NYC’s municipal recycling program are recycled through a partnership with TerraCycle
• Much of the cardboard and paper packing and packaging from vessel shipments is re-purposed or recycled.
• I avoid all use of synthetic floral foam or other non-biodegradable products and chemicals.

    The wedding party’s florals by Molly Oliver Flowers   Learn more about (and follow) this wonderfully inspiring creative floral artist at these social places: Molly Oliver Flowers on Facebook Molly Oliver Flowers on Instagram   Thank you so much for joining me today as we visited Brooklyn’s Molly Culver. I learned a lot and appreciate hearing Molly’s timely update about one of the most important markets for local and seasonal flowers. Molly is in an influential marketplace and her devotion to the Slow Flowers Movement is essential to the cause.   The recently renovated and restored Hay Barn at USCS-CASFS, our venue for the Slow Flowers Summit 2020! (c) Cesar Rubio   You may have picked up on the fact that I’m lobbying to bring Molly to the 2020 Slow Flowers Summit, which will take place at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. As Molly is a graduate of that program at University of California, Santa Cruz, I’m eager to involve her and together we are brainstorming a panel on the influences of sustainable flower farming for the farmer-florist. Watch this space and I promise you’ll hear more details soon.   Maegan Williams of Gilsum Gardens in Gilsum, NH   Our theme for 2019 – Fifty States of Slow Flowers – continues today with Maegan Williams of Gilsum Gardens, based in Gilsum, New Hampshire. Gilsum Gardens was founded by Barry Williams and Barbara Kelly in 1993 and is now run by dad Barry and daughter Maegan.   Greenhouses share space with field-grown peonies at Gilsum Gardens   Maegan explains: Possessing no formal education in horticulture, I chose the family business after much consideration of nearly any other profession. About the time I realized I couldn’t picture my life without greenhouse season, I fell in love with cut flowers. What I lacked in classroom hours I made up for in my unique life experience of growing up in my parents’ greenhouses and countless hours spent roaming our woods and acreage. I have loved building upon and diversifying what my parents created, and feel fortunate to be guiding the business forward into its next chapter balancing seasonal nursery plants and specialty cut flowers for wholesale customers.     You’ll want to find and follow Maegan and Gilsum Gardens at these social places:   Gilsum Gardens on Facebook Gilsum Gardens on Instagram     Spanning the seasons: Beautiful & New Hampshire-grown from Gilsum Gardens, including ranunculus and dahlias. As our movement gains more supporters and more passionate participants who believe in the importance of the American cut flower industry, the momentum is contagious. I know you feel it, too. I value your support and invite you to show your thanks and with a donation to support my ongoing advocacy, education and outreach activities. You can find the donate button in the column to the right.

The L.O.L. Surprise! phenomenon will get a big push in China, thanks to a new licensing partnership between MGA Entertainment, Inc. and iQIYI.   Under the new agreement, iQIYI will identify and manage third-party licensing for the L.O.L. Surprise! brand, while leveraging its expertise in the online content space to expand the brand’s reach throughout the territory.   “The deep knowledge and understanding that the iQIYI team possesses regarding the Chinese market is invaluable to further expanding L.O.L. Surprise!,” says Isaac Larian, CEO and founder of MGA Entertainment. “With agents on the ground in China, who live and breathe the Chinese culture, we are confident that they will make incredible strides to strengthening the L.O.L. Surprise! brand.”   Outside of the standard distribution channels for the toys themselves, the newly inked agreement marks the first time that L.O.L. Surprise! will receive a complete licensing program in China.   “We are delighted to partner with MGA Entertainment and become the company’s first and exclusive licensee in China to promote the world-renowned IP brand L.O.L. Surprise!,” says Wu Gang, vice president, iQIYI. “Since its launch in December 2016, L.O.L. Surprise! has become one of the world’s most popular toy brands. With iQIYI’s massive user base, our deep understanding of the China market, and our strong development capability of the full IP value chain, we are confident that we would bring the L.O.L Surprise! brand to more children and families in China and further promote its brand and development in the market.”   This year, L.O.L. Surprise! hit a milestone 1 million subscribers on YouTube, debuted a subscription box with CultureFly, and launched a packaging recycling program in partnership with TerraCycle. Additionally, the new L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. dolls hit retail this month, quickly selling out in some locations.