A Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG) anunciou hoje a introdução de embalagens reutilizáveis e recarregáveis em alguns de seus produtos mais populares, como parte de um novo esforço que visa mudar a dependência mundial de embalagens de uso único e de resíduos descartáveis.

Davos, Switzerland (CNN Business)Has business finally woken up to the enormous challenges posed by climate change? This year's World Economic Forum provides some hope. Climate was a major theme in Davos, where panel discussions on everything from global warming to ocean sustainability and biodiversity drew large crowds. Naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough was given top billing and primatologist Jane Goodall appeared on a panel. A dinner hosted by climate and environmental groups was one of the hottest tickets of the week. The focus on climate reflects developments that have been hard to miss even for profit-obsessed CEOs. Damaging storms have in recent years resulted in major financial losses and a California utility company has been brought to its knees by billions of dollars in claims related to wildfires. Companies have also seen how easy it is for their reputations to be tarnished over environmental issues — and how easy it can be to change. "Things change instantly because of the power of social media," Burberry (BBRYF) board member Orna Ni-Chionna said during a panel discussion in Davos. Ni-Chionna knows what she's talking about. Burberry was caught in a PR firestorm when it emerged last year that unsold clothes were being destroyed. "When this was discovered, the social media theme that rocketed to the top was 'Burberry burns.' It took me about five minutes to send an email to our chief executive and ... it took our chief executive three weeks to have a completely new policy," she said. Call to action Talk is well and good, but there was widespread recognition in Davos that real change won't happen without action. For experts here, that means corporate and government policy reforms. Many speakers acknowledged progress won't be made until the economics change. "There are still fossil fuel subsidies from G7 countries — that's ridiculous," said Rachel Kyte, special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy. "Why we are subsidizing something we know is killing our children, poisoning them and affecting their ability to learn? That's beyond me," she added. There were new initiatives too. Procter & Gamble (PG), PepsiCo (PEP), Nestlé (NSRGY) and Unilever (UL) joined forces with waste management company TerraCycle to launch Loop, a project that will allow people to reuse containers for some of the world's most popular household products. 'Feel the fear'  The spirit of the event was reflected in two attendees with little in common: One is a former vice president of the United States; the other a 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl. What Al Gore and Greta Thunberg share is anger at corporate executives who aren't moving quickly enough to address climate change. "I don't want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic, I want you to feel the fear I feel every day," Thunberg told attendees. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg talks to journalists during her trip to Davos. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg talks to journalists during her trip to Davos. Gore participated in a friendly panel discussion with David Attenborough on Tuesday, where he warned that politicians are in denial about environmental risks. The former Democratic presidential candidate was downright fired up by the end of the week. On Thursday, he stood before a room packed with CEOs and climate change experts and warned that humanity's survival is at stake. "Who is with me?" he yelled into the microphone as the crowd roared their approval. The question everyone was asking: what will follow that roar?

(Photo: TerraCycle’s circular delivery system Loop. Credit: LoopStore.com) Global recycling organization TerraCycle unveiled a new circular delivery service for consumers called Loop. The coalition supporting this reusable and returnable system includes Procter & Gamble, Unilever, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Nestlé, Danone, and UPS. TerraCycle describes Loop as a circular shopping platform that replaces single-use disposable packaging with durable, reusable packaging. Consumers subscribe and order products that get delivered by UPS in a specially designed shipping tote instead of a box. Goods arrive in durable, reusable or fully recyclable packaging made from materials such as alloys, glass, and engineered plastics, according to UPS and TerraCycle. Once the products — such as ice cream, shampoo, and spices — are used, customers place empties back into the tote, schedule a free pick-up, and the system makes sure the products get automatically replenished. “Loop hygienically cleans and sanitizes the empty packaging you send back so they are ready for reuse, instead of ending up as waste after a single use,” the company’s site says. The system debuted at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Loop will not just eliminate the idea of packaging waste, but greatly improve the product experience and shopping convenience,” said TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky. A pilot program is slated for Paris and the metro New York area this year so the system can be optimized. P&G announced that its brands Pantene, Tide, Cascade, Crest, Ariel, Febreze, Oral B, Gillette, Venus, Pampers, and Always will be part of Loop. Nestlé says that Häagen-Dazs is debuting a reusable stainless steel double-walled ice cream container with the launch of the service. Unilever’s Dove, Axe, Degree, REN Clean Skincare, Hellmann’s, Love Beauty and Planet, Love Home and Planet, and Seventh Generation are also participating. “We want to put an end to the current ‘take-make-dispose’ culture and are committed to taking big steps towards designing our products for re-use,” said Unilever CEO Alan Jope.  

And what would be the way to make this possible? Tom Szaky: I think there are two ways: the first, which is what has been worked on the most, is to make it lighter, produce less and less packaging. But the problem here is that by becoming lighter and less recyclable, the concept becomes more linear at the same time. I think it is more interesting to see it from another angle, which is something that has been little considered so far. It's about adopting durable packaging, which is heavier and offers more properties and benefits at the same time. You have to think about how to achieve the properties of this possibility, which are convenience and affordability. We need to create the way to bring consumers a more innovative packaging, with different functions and properties and that could perhaps be reused, but not cost more; and the only way to do it, one that contemplates the real income to the circular economy, is to change a fundamental concept of packaging, closely linked to the old model, in which the consumer bought the container. Today, when you buy a coffee, you are also buying a package that you do not necessarily want, a package that started your life from the forest, that someone turned into a cup, which later the coffee brand acquired and then one receives, but discard after a very brief moment to turn it into waste. Why then possess something we do not want? What we really need to think about is the ownership of the package. What do you think will be the conclusions of the World Economic Forum regarding the waste crisis in the environment? Tom Szaky: The first thing is that I think that companies are taking the crisis of plastics and waste in the oceans very seriously, which is very important and encouraging. The second, something that is recognized, is to begin to accept that traditional models no longer work, and not assume that a single model represents the answer. You have to experiment, because there are as many models as possible directions. One model can propose to eliminate packaging, another increase recycling systems, another create packaging from waste, but you have to experiment again and again. There will not be a single solution but a broad set of solutions. Many governments, companies and NGOs in Latin America and the world are talking about a world without plastics. Do you think that an objective like this can be achieved? Tom Szaky: Something interesting in this regard is that the plastic has been demonized. I personally do not consider it that way, I think all the materials are equally harmful. Metal has its pros and cons, as well as glass, fibers, leathers, all, and plastic has them too. But in plastic, the main negative factor is its one-time use, which is the concept we must address in the first place. In that sense, what elements do you consider essential to make a successful transition from the linear model to the circular one? Tom Szaky: Several things have to happen and one of them depends on the actors. Retail sellers need to understand that there really is a problem, and the only way this happens is when consumers get up and let their voice be heard, and the media, the reporters, the politicians, the legislators act accordingly. But everything starts with consumers. If many consumers meet, the media will meet their demands, and politicians will start working. A large number of the actions of retailers respond to the wishes of consumers. The latter tend to think that they have no power, but I believe that they have everything. Addressing their wishes is what producers and sellers are looking for, so consumers have to take what they buy very seriously and start thinking about a different future. Nothing will happen before this happens. Once that platform is established, things will start to change. What we need to understand is why products are today linear, why something is recyclable or not, what makes something recyclable or not. There is a source of profits for companies that handle garbage and that is the only factor that makes something recyclable. Understanding the reasons that make something recyclable is of the utmost importance. Once this is understood, one can begin to move towards the circular economy concept and define a road map for today, tomorrow, next month, the next five years. What is the scope that you expect the work that you have just published, at this critical moment of the global crisis for waste impacting the environment? Tom Szaky: I do not expect results, what I want is for it to become a pillar for change, to create new models that allow consumers to manifest themselves. Let's talk now about the Loop initiative , which will be presented at this year's Economic Forum in Davos. What is the origin of this idea and how would you describe it? Tom Szaky: The essence of Loop is in the change of the concept of property, and from the passage of cheap disposable packaging to durable, beautiful and reusable packaging. It is a project in which the main world players participate, almost all of them. But let's wait for its launch to refer to this initiative in greater depth. But is it a possibility that will be offered only in the United States? Tom Szaky: No, once presented to the public, it will be extended, and in the spring we will see it applied in France, at the end of the year in London, and then it will be integrated into a global strategy. How long did you work on this idea? Tom Szaky: Two and a half years. And what do you think the impact of Loop will be? Tom Szaky: In the beginning there will be a lot of awareness, people will be very enthusiastic about the idea and then it will come alive in the spring. Then we can measure success with a real measure, which would be, for example, that one percent of consumers' personal purchases are reusable. And you at TerraCycle will continue with the supply project of plastic extracted from the oceans to manufacture new containers? Tom Szaky: Of course, it is necessary to do many things in parallel, we can not limit ourselves to a single solution. It's a crisis and you have to fight it like an army, and the armies have more than one weapon. In the circular economy, we also need more than one weapon, we need to do as many different things as possible. A road map to the circular economy The Future of Packaging: From Linear to Circular, where the perspectives of Tom Szaky and fifteen innovative leaders in the efforts towards sustainability are gathered, was defined by the director of one of the main producer groups of consumer goods as "a course intensive on the concepts of design for the circular economy ". The work contextualizes the historical and economic factors that have given rise to the growing concern of society for the way packaging is arranged, and explains the current state of its manufacture, recycling and resource management, to propose a look criticism of the true role of packaging in today's life. During the launch of the work, Tom Szaky said he had the privilege of creating the book together "with some of the most brilliant minds in the global packaging movement, people who have led this new conceptual framework for decades." The work includes topics such as the evolution of plastics and recommendations and warnings for production and consumption in the circular economy, and questions traditional concepts such as the sustainability of biodegradable plastics and biological base; declares the inability to recycle black plastics, among others. The book will be available from February 5 and could be ordered in advance at Amazon and the Barnes & Noble bookstore. Lilián Robayo Media Director for Latin America at PMMI

And what would be the way to make this possible? Tom Szaky: I think there are two ways: the first, which is what has been worked on the most, is to make it lighter, produce less and less packaging. But the problem here is that by becoming lighter and less recyclable, the concept becomes more linear at the same time. I think it is more interesting to see it from another angle, which is something that has been little considered so far. It's about adopting durable packaging, which is heavier and offers more properties and benefits at the same time. You have to think about how to achieve the properties of this possibility, which are convenience and affordability. We need to create the way to bring consumers a more innovative packaging, with different functions and properties and that could perhaps be reused, but not cost more; and the only way to do it, one that contemplates the real income to the circular economy, is to change a fundamental concept of packaging, closely linked to the old model, in which the consumer bought the container. Today, when you buy a coffee, you are also buying a package that you do not necessarily want, a package that started your life from the forest, that someone turned into a cup, which later the coffee brand acquired and then one receives, but discard after a very brief moment to turn it into waste. Why then possess something we do not want? What we really need to think about is the ownership of the package. What do you think will be the conclusions of the World Economic Forum regarding the waste crisis in the environment? Tom Szaky: The first thing is that I think that companies are taking the crisis of plastics and waste in the oceans very seriously, which is very important and encouraging. The second, something that is recognized, is to begin to accept that traditional models no longer work, and not assume that a single model represents the answer. You have to experiment, because there are as many models as possible directions. One model can propose to eliminate packaging, another increase recycling systems, another create packaging from waste, but you have to experiment again and again. There will not be a single solution but a broad set of solutions. Many governments, companies and NGOs in Latin America and the world are talking about a world without plastics. Do you think that an objective like this can be achieved? Tom Szaky: Something interesting in this regard is that the plastic has been demonized. I personally do not consider it that way, I think all the materials are equally harmful. Metal has its pros and cons, as well as glass, fibers, leathers, all, and plastic has them too. But in plastic, the main negative factor is its one-time use, which is the concept we must address in the first place. In that sense, what elements do you consider essential to make a successful transition from the linear model to the circular one? Tom Szaky: Several things have to happen and one of them depends on the actors. Retail sellers need to understand that there really is a problem, and the only way this happens is when consumers get up and let their voice be heard, and the media, the reporters, the politicians, the legislators act accordingly. But everything starts with consumers. If many consumers meet, the media will meet their demands, and politicians will start working. A large number of the actions of retailers respond to the wishes of consumers. The latter tend to think that they have no power, but I believe that they have everything. Addressing their wishes is what producers and sellers are looking for, so consumers have to take what they buy very seriously and start thinking about a different future. Nothing will happen before this happens. Once that platform is established, things will start to change. What we need to understand is why products are today linear, why something is recyclable or not, what makes something recyclable or not. There is a source of profits for companies that handle garbage and that is the only factor that makes something recyclable. Understanding the reasons that make something recyclable is of the utmost importance. Once this is understood, one can begin to move towards the circular economy concept and define a road map for today, tomorrow, next month, the next five years. What is the scope that you expect the work that you have just published, at this critical moment of the global crisis for waste impacting the environment? Tom Szaky: I do not expect results, what I want is for it to become a pillar for change, to create new models that allow consumers to manifest themselves. Let's talk now about the Loop initiative , which will be presented at this year's Economic Forum in Davos. What is the origin of this idea and how would you describe it? Tom Szaky: The essence of Loop is in the change of the concept of property, and from the passage of cheap disposable packaging to durable, beautiful and reusable packaging. It is a project in which the main world players participate, almost all of them. But let's wait for its launch to refer to this initiative in greater depth. But is it a possibility that will be offered only in the United States? Tom Szaky: No, once presented to the public, it will be extended, and in the spring we will see it applied in France, at the end of the year in London, and then it will be integrated into a global strategy. How long did you work on this idea? Tom Szaky: Two and a half years. And what do you think the impact of Loop will be? Tom Szaky: In the beginning there will be a lot of awareness, people will be very enthusiastic about the idea and then it will come alive in the spring. Then we can measure success with a real measure, which would be, for example, that one percent of consumers' personal purchases are reusable. And you at TerraCycle will continue with the supply project of plastic extracted from the oceans to manufacture new containers? Tom Szaky: Of course, it is necessary to do many things in parallel, we can not limit ourselves to a single solution. It's a crisis and you have to fight it like an army, and the armies have more than one weapon. In the circular economy, we also need more than one weapon, we need to do as many different things as possible. A road map to the circular economy The Future of Packaging: From Linear to Circular, where the perspectives of Tom Szaky and fifteen innovative leaders in the efforts towards sustainability are gathered, was defined by the director of one of the main producer groups of consumer goods as "a course intensive on the concepts of design for the circular economy ". The work contextualizes the historical and economic factors that have given rise to the growing concern of society for the way packaging is arranged, and explains the current state of its manufacture, recycling and resource management, to propose a look criticism of the true role of packaging in today's life. During the launch of the work, Tom Szaky said he had the privilege of creating the book together "with some of the most brilliant minds in the global packaging movement, people who have led this new conceptual framework for decades." The work includes topics such as the evolution of plastics and recommendations and warnings for production and consumption in the circular economy, and questions traditional concepts such as the sustainability of biodegradable plastics and biological base; declares the inability to recycle black plastics, among others. The book will be available from February 5 and could be ordered in advance at Amazon and the Barnes & Noble bookstore. Lilián Robayo Media Director for Latin America at PMMI

It’s the early 1960s. Girls are fainting over the Beatles, Sean Connery is James Bond and a revolutionary trend is sweeping the nation: Plastic. Plastic is about to have its breakthrough moment in the food industry. The plastic milk jug, specifically, is on the brink of taking off: the “market potential is huge,” the New York Times correctly notes. To American families, a third of which are still getting their milk from a milk man, plastic is a wonder package. It’s lighter than glass. It doesn’t break. Unlike paper cartons, it’s translucent. You can see how much liquid is left in the jug. With a plastic container, everybody wins. Except for the milk man. And, as it would turn out, the planet. Recycling is a failing industry.” TOM SZAKY, TERRACYCLE CEO Fast forward to now. Plastics are expected to outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050.  Marine life is choking on the debris: Microplastics are in our soil, our water, our air, getting into our bodies with potential consequences that we don't fully understand yet. Massive amounts of plastic have piled up in landfills, some emitting greenhouse gases and contributing to global warming over the seeming eternity they take to degrade. Plastics are threatening the health of the planet and its inhabitants, and they’re not going away. Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Danone, Mars Petcare, Mondelēz International and others — some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies — are partnering on a potential solution to limit future waste. They’re working together on a project known as Loop, to be announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday. It offers consumers an alternative to recycling — a system that isn't working well these days. At this point, the partners are testing the waters. It’s an experiment they’ll roll out to several thousand consumers in New York and Paris this May, with plans to expand to London later in 2019 and Toronto, Tokyo and San Francisco in 2020. The Loop tote bag (Mark Kauzlarich for CNN) Loop is a new way to shop, offering about 300 items — from Tide detergent to Pantene shampoo, Häagen-Dazs ice cream to Crest mouthwash — all in reusable packaging. After using the products, customers put the empty containers in a Loop tote on their doorstep. The containers are then picked up by a delivery service, cleaned and refilled, and shipped out to consumers again. In other words, it’s the 21st century milk man — here to save the world from single-use plastics. Maybe. From trash in Trenton to a global stage Two years ago, Tom Szaky traveled from Trenton, New Jersey to Davos with a half-baked idea and a loose plan to pitch it to the leaders of the world’s biggest brands. Szaky, now 37, is the CEO of TerraCycle, a modest waste management company. TerraCycle expects its global 2018 sales to amount to $32 million and is currently trying to raise $25 million from small investors. A Princeton dropout with big ideas and a casual demeanor, Szaky spent the first years of his career talking about “worm poop,” a phrase he used to market his fertilizer business in a way that got him a ton of media attention. By the time he was 24, he had landed contracts with Walmart and Home Depot. His mission — to eliminate waste first and make a profit second — is so seductive, some employees have taken major pay cuts to work for TerraCycle. The company’s Trenton headquarters is decorated with garbage; Szaky’s office walls are hanging curtains made from empty plastic bottles. Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle and the brains behind Loop. (Mark Kauzlarich for CNN) At Davos, he said, a certain vibe made top business leaders amenable to his idea. “Have you ever been to Burning Man?” Szaky asked during an interview with CNN Business. “The closest comparison —and it’s a weird comparison to me — is going to Burning Man.” At Burning Man, the annual week-long event where participants build a temporary community in the Nevada desert, people inherently trust each other, he said. At Davos, he was able to approach any business leader and, because of a similar type of openness, be granted an audience.

Advertisement

Szaky was at Davos in 2017 because TerraCycle had helped Procter & Gamble launch a line of Head & Shoulders shampoo that came in bottles made with plastic collected from beaches. While he was there, Szaky — a slick, charismatic pitchman — landed a spot on stage with the CEOs of Walmart, Alibaba and Heineken. He also secured short meetings with the leaders of consumer packaged goods companies and pitched them on his big idea. Szaky asked companies to think differently about who owns their packaging. Today, companies sell consumers both the product and the package it comes in. Ultimately, it’s up to the customer — and also the municipality where they live — whether an empty bottle gets recycled or tossed in a landfill. Under the current system, the fate of the bottle is out of the manufacturer’s hands, so companies aim to produce the cheapest possible packages, Szaky said. But what if, instead, the manufacturer retained ownership of the bottle by collecting and reusing it? The company could count it as a longer-term asset on its balance sheet and depreciate it over time. Under that system, the manufacturer would be incentivized to invest more resources in an elegant, durable design, Szaky argued. At Szaky’s pitch meetings, some important subtext went unsaid. The plastic waste that ends up in landfills and oceans has the logos of the world’s biggest brands all over it. He had specifically targeted companies that were featured on a Greenpeace list of worst plastics polluters, because he knew they had a potential public relations crisis on their hands. “I don’t have to rub this in their face,” Szaky said, because the companies are “painfully” aware of their reputations. The consumer goods giants got on board. And after that trip, Szaky got serious about making Loop a reality by Davos 2019. Now, eight of the 10 companies mentioned in the Greenpeace report are Loop partners. How it works Loop customers have to make an account and fill up a basket online. The prices for the items should be comparable to what they would be at a nearby store, Szaky said. In addition to the regular cost of the item, customers must put down a fully refundable deposit for each package. The deposit varies from about 25 cents for a bottle of Coca-Cola to $47 for a Pampers diaper bin (which TerraCycle said eliminates the need for a Diaper Genie). Shipping becomes free after the customer buys about five to seven items, depending on the size and bulk of the products.

Advertisement

In the United States, the items arrive via UPS in a Loop tote bag.  Frozen items, like ice cream, come in a cooler within the tote. As customers go through products — use all the shampoo, eat all the ice cream — they fill up the totes with the empties. Unlike traditional recyclables, the packages don’t need to be washed. At the end of the cycle, a UPS driver picks up the tote. Customers can keep repeating the cycle or opt out and recover their deposit. Even banged up packages earn back the deposit — customers only lose that money if they fail to make a return. When the packages are no longer suitable for use, TerraCycle recycles them. Loop may be convenient for users in some ways, but there are potential drawbacks. Szaky acknowledged that it’s a lot to ask people to use yet another retail website. He hopes that Loop will eventually be integrated into existing online shops, including Amazon. “We’re not trying to harm or cannibalize retailers,” Szaky said. “We’re trying to offer a plug-in that could make them better.” Already, two large retailers, Carrefour in France and Tesco in the United Kingdom, are Loop partners and more may join the project. Eventually, Loop packages may also be sold on store shelves. Shoppers who want to be a part of Loop’s soft launch in May have to apply. The first group of users will be selected based on location and overall interest in the platform, according to TerraCycle. The test will allow Loop to iron out any kinks before the program is open to the broader public, Szaky said.  

The engineering challenge

Partner companies have to pay to participate in Loop. Szaky didn’t disclose the buy-in amount, but said it’s in the low six figures. On top of that, many are redesigning their traditional packages — an expensive endeavor that could cost another seven figures, Szaky said. Szaky said TerraCycle asked the Loop partners to design packages that can survive at least 100 reuses. Rick Zultner, TerraCycle’s director of product and process development, is more measured; he called that figure a “nice goal to meet.” “Some things can definitely meet that,” Zultner said, adding that if the packages are reused at least 10 times, they’re probably still better for the environment than single-use plastics. TerraCycle needs to conduct its beta test to make sure that hypotheses like these are right. “There is a fundamental advantage of reuse versus recycle,” Virginie Helias, Procter & Gamble’s chief sustainability officer, said. But “we need to have certain conditions” to make it work, she added. Carbon emissions from trucking and other factors could outweigh the environmental benefits of Loop if packages are only reused a few times, or if the transportation system is too spread out. Loop has conducted life-cycle analyses to try to estimate the environmental impact in a variety of situations. To maximize the number of reuses, Loop packages are made out of durable materials like stainless steel, aluminum, glass and engineered plastic, which is stronger than disposable plastic.

Single-use vs. Loop’s reusable packages

         

Loop/CNN

Loop packages are sleek and innovative. Degree’s refillable deodorant in silver and white looks like something Apple would make. Ingredients and, when relevant, nutritional information for all products appear in an insert inside the Loop tote instead of on the packages. In Paris, Loop users can recycle soiled Pampers diapers and Always menstrual pads in this bin. (Procter & Gamble) One package — a bin launched by Procter & Gamble in the Paris test — is designed to hold soiled Pampers diapers and Always menstrual pads. It has a carbon filter to block odors. The hygiene items, which are traditionally thrown out, are instead recycled, while the bin is sanitized and sent out again. Nestlé’s new Häagen-Dazs container, part of the New York launch, is designed to keep ice cream cool in the Loop tote and cooler for 24 to 36 hours. Kim Peddle-Rguem, president of Nestlé’s US ice cream division, called the redesign a “torture test.” It took 15 tries to get the container, a double-walled stainless steel vessel, right. In one prototype, the ice cream wouldn’t harden at a critical stage. Another package was too difficult for customers to open. For now, Nestlé is making 20,000 containers for the Loop test. Five flavors will be available: Strawberry, vanilla, non-dairy chocolate salted fudge truffle, non-dairy coconut caramel and non-dairy mocha chocolate cookie. Häagen-Dazs Loop containers. (Brinson+Banks for CNN) Because the test is so small, Nestlé isn’t making Loop products in any other facility — which means it has to truck everything from California to the East Coast. If the project takes off, Nestlé will rethink that route to make sure it’s environmentally sound. “This process isn’t yet perfect and we know it will need to continue to be updated and refined,” said Peddle-Rguem. “We will be analyzing all parts of the process, including shipping and how many times consumers are reusing the container to find those areas for adjustment.” A plastics crisis Consumer goods companies say their customers are demanding more environmentally-friendly packaging. “We’re seeing that very clearly in our research,” said Procter & Gamble’s Helias, adding that wasteful packaging is “becoming a deterrent for purchase.” Mondelēz, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and others are aiming to make all or some of their packaging out of recycled materials by 2025. Szaky doesn’t think they’ll be able to pull it off. “Recycling is a failing industry,” he said. Roughly 30% of US recyclables are exported overseas. But in 2017, China — then the world’s largest importer of waste and scrap  — stopped accepting unsorted paper and some types of plastic from other countries, throwing the US recycling system into a tailspin. The Chinese ban left many communities scrambling for a new place to send their recyclable waste. Some municipalities halted curbside pickup for recycling, others recycled fewer items or raised prices. The operators of some recycling facilities reportedly stashed recyclable waste, looking for a new buyer, but ultimately dumped it in landfills. Unaware consumers may continue as usual, without realizing their recyclables aren’t being recycled at all. Last year, “we saw a global shift in how recycling works,” said Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit group that uses corporate funding to help develop recycling infrastructure. We want to put an end to the current ‘take-make-dispose’ culture and are committed to taking big steps towards designing our products for re-use.” ALAN JOPE, CEO OF UNILEVER China’s ban is not the only reason that recycling is struggling. Ironically, an effort to reduce packaging called lightweighting — making plastic packages, like water bottles, lighter as a way to use less plastic and reduce the amount of fuel needed to move packages by truck — poses recycling challenges because light packages fly off recycling conveyor belts and get lost. Plus, low oil prices make it cheaper for companies to just make plastic from scratch, Szaky noted. Overall, about 91% of all the plastic waste ever created has never been recycled — a statistic so “concerning,” the Royal Statistical Society named it the 2018 international statistic of the year. Recycling is not the best way to cut down on waste. “Preventing in the first place is always better than cleaning up after,” Harrison noted. If Loop works correctly, it would do just that. The question is: will it work?

When garbage was glamorous

Single-use packages were touted as convenient and elegant in mainstream media from the 1930s to 1960s.

     

   

Sourced from Life Magazine

Can the milk man make a comeback? For the largest players, Loop is a relatively small experiment. The partners are among the largest advertisers in the world. If they wanted to, they could throw their full weight behind promoting reusable packaging. But at this point, the companies are moving forward with caution and pointing to Loop as one part of their broader sustainability efforts. Nestlé will decide after about 12 weeks whether or not to expand its participation with Loop. Other partners are giving Loop more time. Unilever will evaluate the project over the course of about 12 months. “We want to put an end to the current ‘take-make-dispose’ culture and are committed to taking big steps towards designing our products for re-use,” Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever, said in a statement. Unilever is testing nine brands in the Loop launch, including Axe, Dove and Degree deodorants, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Seventh Generation soaps. Like Nestlé, the company will evaluate the project’s success by tracking the number of repeat customers. We’re “not yet worried about the financial side of this,” said David Blanchard, Unilever’s chief research and development officer, noting the company is more interested in evaluating whether Loop triggers a “behavior change” among some consumers. It’s easy to see how Loop could fail. It asks customers to completely rethink how they shop. It asks them to dole out deposit money upfront, something many people can’t afford to do. It assumes that, all things being equal, people prefer their detergent in a spiffy container and their deodorant in a sleek pod. In reality, people may not care. Loop could be a dreamy, idealistic house of cards. But it also could work. Small dairies throughout the country are already reviving the milk man by offering delivery services. And it’s not just milk. Refillable beer growlers are staging a comeback, with Whole Foods and Kroger offering in-store beer taps. Startups are trying to help people refill reusable soap containers at home, and millions of consumers are already refilling SodaStream bottles in their kitchens, a sign that there’s a market for reusable bottles. If there’s ever a time that these new models can succeed, it’s now, said Bridget Croke, who leads external affairs for Closed Loop Partners, which invests in recycling technologies and sustainable consumer goods. (Despite the similar name, Closed Loop Partners has no formal relationship with TerraCycle’s Loop project.) To make Loop work, she added, TerraCycle will “need the right investments, the right consumer goods partners.” And “they’re going to really need to understand how to make the consumer experience better than what they have today.” And with so many big companies on board, they have a “solid shot,” she said. Photo Illustration: Getty Images / Loop / CNN If TerraCycle manages to find a solution to plastics pollution — to dust off the milk man, spruce him up, give him a website and get people to shop — things will start to change. “Once these trends start to shift,” Croke noted, “then it starts to catch fire.” Szaky hopes that by the 2060s — a century after plastics came on the food scene —  things will have come full circle. “Hopefully 50 years from now,” Szaky said, “we look at waste as a strange anomaly and we’re happy it’s over.”

Major brands are testing out reusable packaging in an attempt to cut down on plastic waste. By Gaby Del Valle@gabydvjgaby.delvalle@voxmedia.com  Jan 24, 2019, 5:10pm EST SHARE Häagen-Dazs ice cream in a reusable metal container. Loop Some of the world’s biggest companies, including Unilever, Nestlé, and PepsiCo, are rolling out reusable packaging for certain products in an attempt to phase out single-use plastics — and to alleviate their own reputations as polluters. This move, still in the planning stages, is a necessary step in shifting the conversation on reducing carbon emissions from a consumer focus to one that holds companies responsible. Starting in May, Unilever’s Axe and Dove deodorants will come in refillable steel containers that are expected to last eight years. PepsiCo will start selling Tropicana orange juice in glass bottles and certain flavors of Quaker cereal in steel containers. Häagen-Dazs, owned by Nestlé, will come in refillable stainless steel tins. Procter & Gamble’s Pantene shampoo will come in aluminum bottles, and its Tide brand detergent will come in stainless steel containers. The idea is to get consumers to cut back on the single-use plastics that have become an indispensable part of everyday life. Businesses and consumers have long concentrated on the third “R” in “reduce, reuse, recycle,” but with this initiative, companies are renewing focus on the first two. (By the way, an estimated 25 percent of all recyclable products end up in landfills anyway.) And instead of encouraging changes on the supply side — i.e., putting the onus for sustainable living on the consumer, which was a common theme in arguments about whether plastic straws should be banned — this move indicates that companies are starting to accept their outsize contribution to global carbon emissions. This initiative, which is part of a partnership with the recycling company TerraCycle, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, suggests that businesses are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the suggestion that their practices contribute to global pollution. “I sometimes wonder if it’s a fair accusation that we’re in the branded litter business,” Unilever CEO Alan Jope reportedly said at a conference this week. Helping people cut down on plastics is certainly a good way of challenging that accusation, but there’s a catch. For now, the TerraCycle program is in a pilot phase. It will be available to 5,000 shoppers in Paris and New York City in May, according to the Journal’s report, and will expand to London later this year and to 10 additional cities, including Toronto and Tokyo, in 2020. Here’s how it works: Consumers who get selected for the trial get the chance to order hundreds of products online. Those products arrive in a reusable tote bag with no extra packaging. Once the containers are empty, TerraCycle picks them up, cleans them, and delivers refilled containers back to customers. “People talk about recyclability and reuse and say they’d like to be involved in helping the environment, so let’s see if it’s true,” Simon Lowden, the president of PepsiCo’s global snacks group, told the Journal. “You simply have to start somewhere to test it and see what the barriers are and who actually buys into the model,” David Blanchard, chief of research and development at Unilever, told the paper. It’s not surprising that these companies would want to test out costly new initiatives before offering them to the general public. But given the urgency of climate change — an October 2018 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said we have just 12 years to make unprecedented changes if we want to stave off the worst effects of global warming — it’s worth asking whether a lack of consumer interest or a perceived lack of sufficient profits will prevent reusable products from being offered to a wider consumer base. Nestlé, one of the companies participating in the TerraCycle initiative, is also planning to phase out many of its single-use plastic products and make all of its packaging recyclable by 2025. The company plans to completely eliminate certain “hard to recycle” plastics — like films, ice cream cone wrappers, and laminated paper cups — from its packaging. As Fast Company’s Mark Wilson pointed out, this isn’t going to come cheap — there’s “no immediate financial gain” to be made from going green. Companies can either absorb those costs, as Nestlé appears to be doing here, or pass them on to shoppers, which seems to be the case with the TerraCycle program. According to the Journal’s report, the reusable versions will cost “roughly the same” as their single-use counterparts, but users will have to pay deposits of $1 to $10 per container. Shipping starts at approximately $20. Given a choice between cheaper single-use products and more expensive reusable ones, why wouldn’t a cash-strapped shopper go with the cheaper option? (The answer, of course, is existential guilt and fear of watching a climate catastrophe play out in their lifetime, but not everyone can afford to go green.) Megacorporations aren’t the only ones redesigning products to make them more eco-friendly. The period underwear company Thinx recently designed a reusable tampon applicator that retails for $60, and other startups are making reusable versions of common household products like plastic wrap and Ziploc bags. In a world where consumers are often blamed for not being green enough — remember all the debates about whether banning plastic straws is actually good for the environment? — the TerraCycle program, despite being in its initial stages, suggests a future where the onus for changing consumption habits is placed on corporations rather than individuals.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEJ68JA59s8&feature=youtu.be