Consumidores de todo o país têm a oportunidade de participar gratuitamente de programas de coleta e reciclagem que assumem um compromisso com o desenvolvimento social ao proporcionar doações à instituições de caridade

SANTA FE NATURAL TOBACCO CO.

More than 100 million pieces of cigarette waste have been recycled since the fall of 2012, when Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co.(SFNTC) first partnered with TerraCycle to launch a pioneering program designed to help keep cigarette litter off of streets, beaches and public places and out of landfills. "This is a great accomplishment that testifies to the commitment of thousands of adults across the country who are helping to reduce cigarette waste," said SFNTC President Ryan Ball. "The program not only reinforces the need to dispose of cigarette waste responsibly, but also goes beyond that by actually making the waste useful." The Cigarette Waste Recycling Program, which SFNTC worked with TerraCycle to develop, lets adult volunteers across the United States collect cigarette butts and send them to TerraCycle, where they are combined with other recyclable materials to make useful, Earth-friendly items such as lumber, furniture, containers and more. SFNTC covers all of the costs of the program, and for every pound of cigarette waste collected, the company also donates $1 towards the Keep America Beautiful Cigarette Litter Prevention Program.

BOSTON, Mass. -- Scott Cassel, the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI)'s Chief Executive Officer and Founder, joined forces with Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of groundbreaking waste solutions company TerraCycle, on the mission to eliminate waste. Available nationwide today,Szaky's fourth book The Future of Packaging: From Linear to Circular (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2019) offers a roadmap out of the modern waste crisis through packaging design.

Supporters of Optometry Giving Sight raised enough funds for the 2018 World Sight Day Challenge to provide eye exams and glasses to more than 190,000 people in need of eye care. More than 160 companies and 360 optometry practices around the world participated in raising more than $970,000, according to a press release from Optometry Giving Sight. “Every World Sight Day Challenge, we’re blown away by the generosity and loyalty of our supporters. We’re thankful for each one: from the large companies generously donating to the small practices passionately fundraising,” Leigh Cleave, global director of development of Optometry Giving Sight, said in the release. Through bake sales, auctions, guessing competitions, talent shows, running events and walkathons, companies and providers got patients, employees and customers involved. According to the organization’s report, CooperVision, a longstanding Optometry Giving Sight supporter, had a record-breaking year, raising more than $260,000 through its employee fundraising campaign. “Our record-breaking 2018 World Sight Day Challenge donation represents approximately 52,000 eye exams for people around the world who could otherwise be at risk of a range of vision challenges,” CooperVision President Dan McBride,said in the release. Vision Source, another long-standing partner of Optometry Giving Sight, celebrated its 12^th year of participation in the World Sight Day Challenge. According to the organization’s press release, Vision Source donated more than $220,000 as part of its annual commitment. “I never cease to be amazed by the selfless generosity of the Vision Source family; we are proud to partner with Optometry Giving Sight as Vision Source’s international charity of choice,” Vision Source CEO Jim Greenwood said in the release. Additionally, Bausch + Lomb Australia pledged a donation of $1 for every kilogram of contact lens waste sent to TerraCycle, a program with the aim to keep contact lenses and blister packs out of landfills, turning plastic components into recycled materials. The University of Montreal was the highest fundraising optometry school, according to Optometry Giving Sight’s release, raising more than $7,000 through events including a silent auction and a 5@10 social night. The Wyanoke Group, parent company of Slack Inc., publisher of Primary Care Optometry News and Healio, supported the cause by hosting soup and lasagna lunches, a bake sale and a raffle.  

The coalition of brands would like us to buy consumable products in reusable containers, and then ship them back for refills. Americans generate a lot of waste—so much that we’re running into problems with how to get rid of it. We’re poised to run out of space in landfills within two decades, according to one estimate. Historically, we’ve sent tons of our used plastic to China (693 metric tons in 2016, mostly from single-use food containers), but as of last year, it is no longer accepting that waste. A new possible solution to this problem comes from a surprising source: Major brands like Unilever and Procter and Gamble are collaborating to reduce waste in an innovative shopping platform called Loop, announced last week. When you order, say, Häagen-Dazs ice cream from the service, the company will ship it to you in a sturdy container for which you’ll pay a small deposit. You’ll get that money back when you return the container via UPS. The company cleans the container, and refills it with product to sell again. It kind of sounds like corporations are giving themselves a giant pat on the back for reinventing recycling—now with the annoyance of consumers having to do additional shipping! Luckily, it’s a bit better than that: Loop seems like a genuinely good idea that can tangibly help solve a clear problem, even if the process will inevitably face at least a few snafus as it gets up and running. Loop calls itself “the milkman reimagined,” which is a pretty catchy description. While you might immediately fret about an under-recognized carbon footprint of all this shipping, it turns out it thought of that. Reusing the containers will save more material and energy than fashioning new ones each time—even with all the additional shipping. In fact, the full process is predicted to be as much as 75 percent better for the environment, according to estimates Loop shared with Fast Company. There’s an additional possible benefit, too: Mindfully shepherding containers in and out of your house seems like a good way to be more aware of consumption more generally. Loop might even inspire you to reconsider some of your specific purchases: There’s a slightly higher mental barrier to impulse-purchasing lotion at CVS if you’re committing to this system of using the entire thing and investing in its carrier. That’s exactly the kind of additional consideration we should be giving all of this stuff. There are some kinks to be worked out. For example, the timing of the subscription service seems a little wonky: Another shipment of a product could be set to be triggered when you return a container, as Fast Company explains. This helpfully eliminates the hazard of a bunch of, say, toothpaste piling up at your house faster than you can use it. But it also leaves a gap of however long it takes new toothpaste to ship during which you’ll be toothpaste-less. And speaking of toothpaste, it won’t come in tubes in the Loop model, Fast Company notes—they’re too difficult to refill. Instead, Unilever designed a chewable toothpaste. The possibility that this toothpaste is good seems … low. Loop is at least aware that there will be pitfalls: a press release says it will launch in just two cities to start, New York and Paris, so the platform can conduct “in-market learning experiments.” For the consumer’s part, the logistics of shuttling these containers back and forth aren’t effortless, but it’s not as difficult as, say, taking beer bottles to the supermarket for reuse. You can send back several containers at once in a reusable Loop box, which is picked up from your door by UPS. Loop says it won’t require customers to clean the container before sending them back, which might make it an even lower lift than recycling. The annoyance factor seems in line with other successful services that involve a lot of shipping, like Rent the Runway or Trunk Club (but without the liability of sending multi-thousand dollar gowns via post). One other benefit? The sample container designs look much nicer than your average containers. Packaging displayed on Loop’s website includes a pair of Pantene Pro-V bottles made from lightweight aluminum. The marketing claims are less blaring, the brand lettering is smaller. Instead there’s “I reuse, I love the oceans” in faux-cursive on the side along with illustrations of friendly sea life. Honestly, seems like a nice thing to have in your bathroom! I’m into personal care products that don’t make it seem like you need to buy a zillion things to look good. It’s also clear that this green halo presents a real upside for companies that participate. If consumers get into Loop, they’ll loosely lock themselves into a suite of specific products, something brands are eager to do. (This is the point of Amazon Dash buttons.) Companies participating will no doubt enjoy this benefit, along with the positive branding boost that comes from being involved in an innovative recycling platform. Plus, they’ve made no commitment to stop filling up landfills with traditional non-Loop packaging in addition to participating in Loop. Still, I’m inclined to root for Loop, even if it will be hard to execute. It’s this very element—how hard it will be—that confirms how lofty its goals are. This isn’t a feel-good baby step like banning plastic straws, nor is it a feel-good commercial about using more wind power. It’s an attempt to change how we think about the products we currently consume mindlessly. In that light, its first victory might be making us think about them at all.

Scott Cassel, the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI)’s Chief Executive Officer and Founder, joined forces with Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of groundbreaking waste solutions company TerraCycle, on the mission to eliminate waste. Available nationwide, Szaky’s fourth book The Future of Packaging: From Linear to Circular (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2019) offers a roadmap out of the modern waste crisis through packaging design. More than 50 million tons of packaging and paper products are disposed of in the U.S. each year, representing a missed opportunity to recover valuable resources. For over a decade, PSI has sought circular solutions by bringing stakeholders together to advance product stewardship for packaging, with a focus on producer responsibility. Cassel’s chapter in The Future of Packaging dives deeper into the rationale behind this approach and the benefits to be gained from holding brand owners responsible for reducing the impacts of their packaging choices. “By sharing diverse perspectives from governments, brand owners, and waste management firms, this book powerfully transforms the issues we’ve avoided into ones we are motivated to tackle head-on,” says Scott Cassel. “My chapter calls for a paradigm shift in producer responsibility, placing waste and materials management in the hands of the producer as an asset, not a burden.” Designed to be a primer on packaging design for the circular economy, The Future of Packaging integrates perspectives from Szaky and 15 innovators in sustainability -including government leaders, corporate risk takers and international waste management experts – to create a guide that can help everyone from a small startup to a large corporation move towards a future of innovation and growth with less waste. The co-authors for The Future of Packaging: From Linear to Circularare:

• Attila Turos, former Lead, Future of Production Initiative, World Economic Forum
• Christine “Christie” Todd Whitman, President, The Whitman Strategy Group; former Governor of New Jersey; and former Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
• Jean-Marc Boursier, Group Senior Executive Vice President, Finance and Recycling Recovery (Northern Europe), SUEZ
• Scott Cassel, founder and CEO, Product Stewardship Institute; President, Global Product Stewardship Council
• Stephen Sikra, Global Lead, Packaging Material Science & Technology, Procter & Gamble
• Ron Gonen, cofounder and Managing Partner, Closed Loop Partners, and cofounder and former CEO, Recyclebank
• Michael Manna, founder and Managing Director, Organic Recycling Solutions
• Chris Daly, Chief Sustainability Officer, PepsiCo Western Europe
• Lisa McTigue Pierce, Executive Editor, Packaging Digest
• Tony Dunnage, Group Director, Manufacturing Sustainability, Unilever
• KoAnn Skrzyniarz, founder and CEO, Sustainable Life Media and Sustainable Brands
• Raphael Bemporad, and Liz Schroeter Courtney, BBMG
• Virginie Helias, Vice President, Global Sustainability, Procter & Gamble
• Lisa Jennings, Vice President, Global Hair Acceleration, Procter & Gamble

“Acknowledging the tall order of changing course away from climate catastrophe means addressing it from several angles,” says author Tom Szaky. “I have had the privilege to co-author this book with the best minds in the global packaging movement-folks who have been championing this new frame of thinking for decades. Together, they provide the tools for anyone, consumer to corporation, interested in innovating upwards out of this mess and into abundance.” Called “a crash course for designing for the circular economy” by Unilever CEO Paul Polman, The Future of Packagingcontextualizes the historical and economic factors that spurred modern society’s “business as usual” preoccupation with disposability, explains the current state of manufacturing, recycling, and resource management, and inspires critical thinking about the true function of our packaging.

Entre os parceiros do Loop estão as empresas Dove, Pantene, Gillette e Hellmann’s

Pure + Simple is a Toronto-based skincare chain that has committed to going 100 per cent plastic-free! We asked their President and Co-owner Jean Eng to tell us a little more about what changes they’ve made, and why they decided to make them.

Can you introduce yourself and this issue a little?

Plastics have made a home in our lives. As a skincare and spa business owner, I find it everywhere – from shopping bags and product packaging to the microplastics in the actual contents of the bottles. Having approached esthetics from a holistic perspective, I am a firm believer that beauty is health, for you and the planet. When starting my business, I knew a company could not be celebrating our beautiful planet through “clean beauty” and “green skincare” while using plastic and contributing to waste. It had to be sustainable. These bottles have been returned for recycling by TerraCycle

So what have you done to reduce your plastic footprint?

Pure + Simple has been operating sustainably from the get-go in October 2000. Going 100 per cent plastic-free has been a challenge and is still a work-in-progress, but we’ve tried to implement a few programs that help us reduce the use of plastics. Little changes like using washable compressing cloths instead of plastic sponges not only helped us reduce waste, but also made our services more relaxing and reminded clients that these choices make a difference. Another way was encouraging recycling and educating clients about how easy it is and why it makes a difference. We introduced a Bottle Return Program where we encouraged clients to return their empties for us to recycle and reuse. Out of the returned bottles, the glass bottles are sterilized and prepared for reuse in a laboratory sterilizer, and the plastic ones passed on to our recycling partners – TerraCycle. We also implemented the use of single material packaging. All our plastic bottles are made of 100% PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) making them easier to recycle and reuse, and over the next couple of years we plan to shift away from plastic packaging altogether.

Why is plastic in beauty products such a problem?

Plastics are very commonly used as ingredients in different forms. Many scrubs used to contain plastic microbeads used to remove dead cells from the skin. They’re the tiny, colourful, spherical particles made of plastic that provide a gentle grainy texture. They seem innocent enough at first look, but actual wreak havoc on the environment, which is why we were happy to see them banned from beauty products last year. Once these microplastic particles are washed down the drain, they make their way into the water system. Since they’re too small to be captured by wastewater facilities and don’t biodegrade, they then end up in our lakes, rivers, and oceans. Even worse, plastics in water attract chemicals, which then end up in the tissue of the fish and other wildlife that eats the plastic. From there, they work their way up to the food chain – to us. Microbead particles in beauty products, banned last year, literally washed plastic pollution down the drain Exfoliation is important, but this is way too big a compromise for the sake of healthy skin.  That’s why we have always opted for environment-friendly alternatives like using fruit enzymes, sea salt, and jojoba beads in our services and products.

What would you say to someone else who wanted to get involved?

We have been lucky to work with people who understand and support our sustainability efforts. It’s important to be aware that our everyday choices have a direct impact on the environment. We thrive when we live in a community where each member does their part to support and sustain the environment, and it’s up to us to help each other out. So I would say inform yourself, recognize the efforts of others, and make the right choice. Guest blogger Jean Eng is the President and Co-owner of Pure + Simple, Toronto’s first chain of sustainable, all-natural skincare and wellness spas.  

Both Loop and L'OCCITANE know how important it is to keep plastic in the economy and out of our shared environment.  This agreement supercharges L'OCCITANE's ability to close the loop on its plastic bottles. L'OCCITANE is going even further and is providing in-store recycling facilities to encourage its customers to participate as well. Since 2014, L'OCCITANE has been working with TerraCycle® to provide in-store recycling facilities for empty cosmetics containers and now offers in-store recycling at 30% of its owned stores across the world, aiming to reach 100% by 2025.

Both Loop and L'OCCITANE know how important it is to keep plastic in the economy and out of our shared environment.  This agreement supercharges L'OCCITANE's ability to close the loop on its plastic bottles. L'OCCITANE is going even further and is providing in-store recycling facilities to encourage its customers to participate as well. Since 2014, L'OCCITANE has been working with TerraCycle® to provide in-store recycling facilities for empty cosmetics containers and now offers in-store recycling at 30% of its owned stores across the world, aiming to reach 100% by 2025.