By: Gabrielle Saulsbery February 24, 2022 7:25 am

Participating in the circular economy, in which businesses reuse materials, could help you reduce waste and attract customers.

BY ANNA MEYER@ANNAVMEYER     If your business isn't participating in the circular economy, you may want to spend part of Earth Day on Thursday asking yourself, "Why not?" While many companies follow a linear economy in which products are created, used, and thrown away, companies that participate in the circular economy continuously recycle and reuse their materials. It's designed to make doing business and combating climate change mutually beneficial. For many businesses, getting existing customers to remain loyal to their brand could require switching to a circular model. A 2020 study from IBM and the National Retail Federation found that 57 percent of U.S consumers are willing to change their purchasing habits to help reduce negative environmental impact. "Companies can't afford to not put the planet first," says Mera McGrew, founder of the soap company Soapply. "Companies that are not aligning with consumers' values will be left behind." Founded in 2015, Soapply bottles soap in recycled glass that can be refilled, reused, and recycled. The New York City-based company participates in the Loop program alongside brands like Gillette, Tide, and Clorox. Created by the recycling company TerraCycle, the program helps companies sell their products in reusable containers that are managed and cleaned by TerraCycle. Customers pay a refundable deposit for the reusable packaging.     Soapply.COURTESY COMPANY Many business owners think participating in the circular economy means more expenses, but doing so can actually save businesses money by reusing materials, says Kate Daly, managing director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners, an investment firm in New York City. "Right now, many companies are only selling something once that they could be selling multiple times," Daly says. During the past three years, the Center for the Circular Economy has hosted competitions funded by brands including Starbucks, Walmart, and McDonald's to design sustainable alternatives to paper to-go cups and single-use plastic bags, with winners receiving funding and access to the center's accelerator program. Switching to a circular model also has benefits for hiring. Nearly 80 percent of respondents to a 2019 Glassdoor survey indicated that they would consider a business's mission when thinking about whether to apply for a job. When implementing sustainability initiatives, Daly advises auditing any plans from a user experience perspective to make sure that your solutions are convenient and accessible. You should also consider publishing a public sustainability report, as the Berlin, Germany-based meal delivery company HelloFresh did with its 2020 sustainability report. Included in the initiatives published in the report are goals to lower the company's carbon emissions by 60 percent per euro of revenue and to reduce food waste at its facilities by 50 percent per euro of revenue between 2019 and 2022. It also cited clear steps it's taking to use sustainable packaging. While it's important for companies to invest in sustainable practices, particularly when customers demand them, not all environmentally friendly initiatives are going to be a boon for business. "There's no point in creating a product or service, however 'green,' that customers don't adopt," Daly says, adding that business owners should reach out to other companies in their industry that have already made transitions to a circular economy. "I would encourage companies, regardless of their size, to not feel like they have to go it alone," Daly says. "Collaborating with stakeholders, whether it's in policy or consumer education, is really important so that a transition to circularity feels accessible no matter what."

The way a product is packaged is important to reduce its carbon footprint. BY EMMA SEYMOUR, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING INSTITUTE AND BIRNUR ARAL, PH.D., GOOD HOUSEKEEPING INSTITUTE When seeking out sustainable products, you may only be thinking about the physical product itself — but how a product is packaged is just as important. Many forms of packaging cannot be recycled or reused and end up in landfills or the ocean. Even recyclable plastic packaging is often not enough, as 91% of plastics aren’t recycled, resulting in 25 million tons being dumped into the ocean each year. Nearly 30% of municipal solid waste is packaging and containers, contributing to a massive carbon footprint. Many products are packaged with too much material that can only be thrown in the trash, but "eco-friendly packaging" refers to alternatives to standard packaging that can easily be recycled, reused, or has other environmental benefits. The Good Housekeeping Institute launched our first-ever Sustainable Packaging Awards last year to draw attention to the environmental aspects of a product's packaging. Packaging is an important part of how a product is protected and how easy it is to use: We have always considered the efficiency of packaging and clarity of instructions as part of our product reviews, but for the Sustainable Packaging Awards, GH scientists and industry experts assessed 190 products' packaging based on materials, recyclability, design, minimalism, efficiency, and innovation. We awarded products that rose to the top based on our judges' scores and ensured that the products with the highest packaging scores met our Institute's effectiveness criteria — we would not endorse a product that does not work, no matter how sustainably packaged.

What is the most eco-friendly packaging?

We know that between greenwashing claims and confusing industry terms and regulations, it can be difficult to find what products are actually eco-friendly or sustainable. Here's how to find the best eco-friendly packaging and ways to make more sustainable choices when shipping products:

• Reuse as much as possible. First and foremost, cut down on the amount of packaging you're consuming. We recommend collecting tissue paper, wrapping paper, and shipping envelopes to reuse when needed. Save cardboard boxes from online orders. Even if they break down during travel, the pieces can be used as cushioning material.
• Remember that the less material, the better. Lighter weight materials can mean less CO2 emissions during transportation and production.
• Know that paper is a great packing alternative to plastic as it is recycled more commonly and is biodegradable. Ideally, look for cardboard and paper that is uncoated and unwaxed instead of bubble wrap.
• Biodegradable packing peanuts are made of potato and corn starch instead of styrofoam, so they will break down when thrown away when standard packing peanuts will not.
• Corrugated cardboard is a great replacement for plastic containers. It can easily be reused and recycled.

How to spot eco-friendly packaging when shopping in stores

Beyond shipping and mailing, you can also help to reduce your carbon footprint by shopping for products that are packaged sustainably. Here's what to look for when shopping: ✔️Prioritize packaging with recycled content. Repurposing old materials is a great way for a brand to reuse previous waste. ✔️Seek out recyclable materials that can be easily recycled curbside at home. It's a good idea to be familiar with recycling symbols too. Here are common recyclable materials:

• PET (polyethylene terephthalate)
• HDPE (high-density polyethylene)
• LDPE (low-density polyethylene)
• PE (polyethylene)

✔️ Look for “zero-waste packaging,” meaning the product’s packaging gets returned to the manufacturer or a third party to be cleaned and refilled or upcycled instead of thrown away. A great example: Loop x Ulta partnership, which essentially rents out packaging to consumers who purchase beauty products online. The products are delivered to your doorstep in a fully reusable Loop Tote, and when you’ve used up the product, empties get picked up in the same tote and shipped back to Loop to be cleaned and reused. There's a small deposit fee for the packaging when you order the product (it's reimbursed upon the packaging's return), and the flat $10 shipping fee also covers the return of the empty containers. ✔️Avoid mixed-material packaging. If you see something packaged in multiple types of materials such as paper and plastic, remember this makes recycling difficult. You may be able to recycle each component, but you'll have to separate them first. ✔️Shop for clear glass which can be recycled, while colored glass cannot. ✔️Opt for aluminum and steel like soda cans and canned food that can easily be recycled curbside. ✔️ Avoid products with secondary packaging such as plastic ties, cardboard dividers, and packing, as many cannot be recycled. ✔️Shop simple packaging. Less coloring on the box and labels makes recycling easier. ✔️Look for refillable containers. Some products are designed so you buy packaging once and then continue to refill it over and over instead of rebuying and tossing the same product. ✔️Only buy cosmetics with primary packaging, which means no additional waste from tossed boxes or plastic packaging. A simple seal to ensure the product's integrity is all you need. Avoid packaging with pumps, droppers, and pressurized aerosol cans: None of these can be easily disposed of. ✔️Shop "naked" food. Flexible plastic wraps, films, and Styrofoam cannot be recycled or reused, so instead, look for minimal, recyclable packaging like Loop. Alternatively, shop for groceries in bulk and bring your own reusable containers. ✔️Use organic fabric reusable bags to replace single-use plastic bags while shopping. You can use them over and over again, cutting down on unnecessary waste. ✔️Buy clothing from sustainable fashion brands or better yet, buy secondhand from local thrift stores and online programs such as ThreadUp or Poshmark to reduce environmental impact.

SIMPLE PACKAGING

Fire Truck

GREEN TOYSamazon.com

$27.99

$17.91 (36% off)

SHOP NOW

LIGHTWEIGHT AND MINIMAL PACKAGING

100% Natural Glossy Lipstick

BURT'S BEESamazon.com

$8.99

$6.59 (27% off)

SHOP NOW

ALUMINUM TUBE

Shea Butter Hand Cream

L'OCCITANEamazon.com

$29.00

SHOP NOW

SEEDS INCLUDED

Body Moisturizer

SEED PHYTONUTRIENTSamazon.com

SHOP NOW

REFILLABLE CANISTER

Clorox Disinfecting Wipes

LOOP STOREloopstore.com

$5.95

SHOP NOW

SUSTAINABLY SOURCED CARDBOARD

Black Clay Facial Soap

OSMIA ORGANICSamazon.com

$24.00

SHOP NOW

 

VALUE-SIZE

Authentic African Black Soap

ALAFFIAamazon.com

$14.99

SHOP NOW

100% RECYCLED PLASTIC BOTTLES

Dish Soap (6 Pack)

LOVE HOME AND PLANETamazon.com

SHOP NOW

 

Goodbye, cardboard boxes and daily deliveries. Retailers are turning to reusable packaging and consolidated drop-offs to combat climate change.

An Amazon employee scans a package at a fulfillment center in Kegworth, U.K., last October. Corrugated box shipments rose 9 percent at the onset of the pandemic as Americans stocked up on household paper, cleaning supplies and food, and have remained elevated ever since. (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg) By Abha Bhattarai   The pandemic set off a surge in online shopping — and with it an avalanche of cardboard boxes and home deliveries. Now a crop of start-ups is focused on making e-commerce more sustainable by reimagining the disposable box, delivery conventions and mailing schedules. One such service, Olive, being rolled out Wednesday by Jet.com co-founder Nathan Faust, is partnering with more than 100 major retailers, including Anthropologie, Paige, Ray-Ban and UGG, to consolidate home deliveries in reusable tote bags that are dropped off once a week. Other newcomers, meanwhile, offer reusable plastic mailing boxes, compostable packaging and algae-ink shipping labels. The efforts are part of a larger shift within the retail industry to eliminate single-use cardboard and plastic as consumers increasingly weigh the environmental impacts of fast and easy shipping. Brands such as Clorox, Haagen Dazs and Seventh Generation are moving toward glass, aluminum and stainless steel packaging that can be returned, cleaned and refilled for subsequent uses, with the help of Loop, a program introduced two years ago at the World Economic Forum. Sustainability experts say much of the pollution associated with online shopping occurs during “last mile” delivery, that final stretch from warehouse to doorstep. But they say packaging is perhaps an easier — and more tangible — problem to solve. Consumers’ increased reliance on online shopping during the pandemic also put a spotlight on discarded cardboard piling up in recycling bins across the country. Corrugated box shipments rose 9 percent early in the pandemic as Americans stocked up on household paper, cleaning supplies and food, and they have remained elevated in the months since, according to industry data. “There are trade-offs to shopping online and in stores,” said Scott Matthews, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has been studying the environmental effects of retail practices since the early 2000s. “But packaging will always be a problem that needs to be addressed.” Faust got the idea for Olive while he was taking out the trash one night. “After 30 minutes of breaking down boxes and multiple trips down the driveway, it dawned on me that this is crazy,” said Faust, 41, who co-founded Jet.com and five years ago sold it to Walmart for $3.3 billion. “Twenty-five years into online shopping, and this is what status quo delivery looks like.” He came up with a blueprint for a company that would not only reduce the amount of waste being shipped to customers’ homes but also streamline deliveries so that orders from multiple retailers are dropped off in a batch, instead of piecemeal. More than 100 apparel retailers — including Anthropologie, Finish Line, Ralph Lauren and Saks Fifth Avenue — have signed on for the service, which is backed by venture capital. “The real power comes in the last mile to the consumer’s doorstep, where so much of the emissions in the post-purchase supply chain come from, largely because it’s an average of one box per stop on the delivery route,” Faust said. “That’s where we have the biggest impact.”   Shoppers buy items as they normally would, using the company’s app or a Google Chrome plugin. When it’s time to check out, Olive has the order routed to one of its two warehouses, in Southern California or northern New Jersey. From there, workers unpack individual orders, recycle packing materials and place items in a reusable bag that is delivered once a week. The service’s benefits, Faust says, are twofold: It ensures more packaging materials are recycled properly at Olive’s facilities while eliminating multiple delivery trips throughout the week. To return an item, the shopper places it back in the shipping tote for the U.S. Postal Service to pick up. Consumers can also collapse the bag and mail it back to Olive. The service is free for consumers; Olive makes money by taking a roughly 10 percent share of each retail order. Faust says consumers are willing to wait a few extra days for their orders if it means dealing with less waste, though analysts say that could be a difficult proposition given that services such as Amazon Prime have conditioned shoppers to expect just about anything to arrive within a day or two.   To that end, Faust says he is focused on apparel orders, which tend to be fragmented because consumers buy from a range of sites, all with their own delivery timetables and conventions. The segment also has the highest return rates in e-commerce, making it a particularly good fit for reusable packaging. “With apparel, there aren’t preconceived notions of when should some things how up like there is when you shop on Amazon,” he said, adding that the company plans to eventually expand into other categories, such as cosmetics, and add more advanced tracking and delivery information. “Even when you’re buying from the same retailer, one shirt might come right away. Another might take a week. Waiting an extra two or three days for us to bring everything to you — we think the majority of customers will prefer to take that delay for waste-free delivery and doorstep returns.” The more efficient online shopping becomes, the better environmental option it becomes to in-store shopping, said Matthews of Carnegie Mellon.   Delivery trucks can make more concentrated deliveries instead of boomeranging around town, he said, resulting in lower greenhouse gas emissions. Plus, a delivery truck that makes dozens of stops an hour is more efficient than individual shoppers driving to several stores for a handful of items at a time, he said. Retailers have also become more careful about packaging and box size, which has helped curtail waste. Amazon, which accounts for nearly 40 percent of the country’s online sales, said it has reduced packaging by 33 percent since 2015, eliminating more than 900,000 tons of packaging material, equivalent to 1.6 billion shipping boxes. (Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.) “Twenty years ago, if you ordered a book, it’d arrive in a big box with [Styrofoam] peanuts or bubble wrap,” Matthews said. “Nowadays it comes in very streamlined packaging, maybe even in a padded envelope, which means you don’t fill up trucks as fast.” When the pandemic hit last year, high-end shoe company Charix moved all of its business online. Sales boomed sixfold — but so did returns and exchanges. “We quickly realized e-commerce is very different from traditional retail,” said Suley Ozbey, who founded the D.C.-based company in 2015. “We’d get shoes back in boxes that we couldn’t use again, and it was piling up,” he said. “Our neighbors were complaining that we were taking up all of the dumpsters and we felt like, oh no, we’re throwing many good boxes.” He began looking for alternatives and found Boox, which offers brightly colored reusable plastic mailing boxes with a velcro-like fastener and don’t require packing tape. Ozbey pays about $2 per Boox, versus about 75 cents for a cardboard box, but said the investment has been worthwhile. Each plastic container can be used up to a dozen times before it’s recycled.   “There’s no clutter, there’s no trash,” he said. Boox, started six months ago by restauranteur-turned-entrepreneur Matthew Semmelhack, sells its reusable plastic mailing boxes to more than 30 specialty retailers, including Ren Skincare, Boyish Jeans and Curio Spice Co. It is nearing 50,000 shipments a month, with half of those boxes being returned by consumers. “The folding cardboard box was invented 120 years ago and hasn’t changed much since then,” said Semmelhack, 38, who lives in Petaluma, Calif. “But the way we receive packages and products has changed wildly over the last 10 or 20 years. And now with the pandemic, the number of products coming to our door has skyrocketed.” Each box can be reused about a dozen times, he said. Once returned, they’re quarantined for a week then cleaned using organic soap and water before being redeployed for more deliveries. Once the box is done for good, Semmelhack said the company works with a manufacturer that can break down the corrugated polypropylene into plastic flakes and be turned into more boxes more efficiently than cardboard recycling. Customers can return or exchange their products in the same box, or they can flatten it into an envelope and return it by mail to Boox for reuse. “The grand vision is to never throw a box away and never make a new one,” Semmelhack said. “But first we need to show that behavioral change is possible.”

By moving away from disposable packaging, companies can address the global problem of plastic waste. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, only about 9 percent of the 9.9 billion tons of plastic generated globally since the 1950s has been recycled. And almost half^PDF of the plastic waste poisoning marine life, contaminating food, and clogging waterways and sewers comes from consumer packaging. As citizens and governments wake up to this plastic pollution problem, they’re turning to business to solve it. In response, companies are trying to craft new approaches to plastic, whether reducing overpackaging or rolling out biodegradable materials made of seaweed and cornstarch. But one solution — the reuse and refill business model — stands out for its potential to shift consumer behaviors while unlocking new revenue streams and cost savings for companies. It’s easy to see why cheap, sturdy, and lightweight plastic quickly became a convenient, even innovative, packaging option for consumers. The popularity of plastic skyrocketed in developed countries in the 1970s after the invention of the polyethylene shopping bag. Within two decades, plastic packaging had flooded the world; consider how, in developing countries, companies have marketed items as varied as shampoo and hot sauce in tiny single-use sachets. Products in cheap, throwaway packaging solved immediate consumer problems — for example, by offering unbeatable value pricing to millions of low-income consumers — but created a long-term health and environmental disaster. Now, businesses such as Chilean startup Algramo, literally meaning “by the gram,” are tackling the crisis by offering the same value to consumers, but in reusable containers. Algramo makes products including rice, detergent, and other everyday staples available in small, affordable quantities via smart vending machines and reusable containers. Its bottles are equipped with RFID tags that allow consumers to earn discount credits with each use, incentivizing them to refill rather than throw away the containers. Flush with funding from Closed Loop Partners, Algramo is set to introduce this innovation in the U.S., too. It has good reason to do so: On a per capita basis, North America, Japan, and Europe generate the most plastic waste. Algramo is in good company. As part of the New Plastics Economy initiative, launched two years ago by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the U.N. Environment Programme, more than 400 organizations have set concrete targets toward reducing plastic use by 2025. Many of those companies, both startups and established brands, are testing reuse and refill solutions. Their motivations aren’t strictly altruistic: The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates a US$10 billion business opportunity in converting even 20 percent of global plastic packaging to a reusable model.  

Executives from The Clorox Co., Nestlé and entrepreneur Soapply share insights into the sustainability and cleanliness of reusable packages for products sold through Loop’s shopping platform, especially in a post-pandemic world. Last year, recycling/upcycling firm TerraCycle launched Loop, a shopping platform for zero-waste-packaging products, with the support of some of the world’s biggest brands (see “Loop and big brands boldly reinvent waste-free packaging.”) Together, the eco-commerce provider and the brands have learned that there is indeed a market of consumers who will by Crest mouthwash, Tide laundry detergent, and myriad other products from Loop’s online store — then return their empty packages to be cleaned, refilled, and reused. Since its early 2019 introduction, Loop’s business has grown from a direct-to-your-doorstep model with regional service to testing of mass-market retail partnerships to imminent national coverage. Retail partners include Kroger and Walgreens in the US market, Canada’s Loblaws, and the U.K.-based Tesco chain. Germany and Japan are on the horizon, too.

Loop products in returnable packaging are scheduled for launch nationwide this month, while retail partners in the U.S., France, and Japan plan to offer Loop in their stores later this year. For those consumers going the e-commerce route, there is a $20 shipping fee for orders under $150. In addition, the tote used to deliver and return product comes with a $15 deposit fee. As of presstime, consumers across the U.S. who are interested in shopping online for a range of grocery, household, and personal care products in gorgeously designed, durable, and resusable packaging will have the chance in June, when Loop launches nationwide. Since May 2019, the ground-breaking Loop circular shopping platform has been available in 10 states in the Northeast and in Paris. According to Tom Szaky, founder of recycling company TerraCycle and of Loop, the 10-month pilot allowed participating Consumer Packaged Goods companies, retailers, and Loop itself to gain insights and tweak the program for wider availability. Just as exciting, if not more so, according to Szaky, is the news that Loop will be launching in retail stores, including Kroger in the U.S., Carrefour in France, and AEON in Japan, later this year. Currently 400 brands have joined Loop, 20% of which are now available for purchase on Loopstore.com and 80% of which are still in development. Says Szaky, it can take a CPG anywhere from six to 18 months from the time they join Loop until they have product ready to ship. Among some of the more well-known CPGs that have signed on are Seventh Generation, Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Unilever, and Mars Petcare. Loop also sells a “private-label” brand, Puretto, which Szaky says is being used by name-brand companies to test products on the platform while they develop their own, unique version. “As soon as that version is live, we disable the Puretto version,” he explains. Szaky notes that the rapid speed of the nationwide launch—Loop was only just unveiled in February 2019—is due to the fact that “it’s a platform and not a producer or retailer.” He continues, “By being a platform, it is really our fantastic brand partners that are doing all the production and ramping up, and the retailers that are doing the scale up and later the in-store deployments. What we really have to ramp up is the ability to accept that used packaging, sort it out, and clean it. And that’s an area that TerraCycle has almost two decades of experience doing in disposables. Now we just have to bring the same experience to reusables.” With the e-commerce model, all packaging—both filled and empty—is handled through Loop’s Northeast location, from which it sends orders to consumers and where it cleans the empty packaging. Loop will also soon be adding another location on the West Coast. “As the stores move into bigger and bigger volumes, we will deploy in total seven major facilities in the U.S.,” Szaky says. “I expect that to take about two to three years.” Outside the U.S., Loop has one facility in each country in which it operates and is planning to add more. When the in-store platform becomes available, CPGs will supply the stores with product directly. Then, when consumers are through with the product, they will drop off the empty packaging at the store, and Loop will pick it up for cleaning. For those consumers going the e-commerce route, there is a $20 shipping fee for orders under $150. In addition, the tote used to deliver and return product comes with a $15 deposit fee. Deposits are also required for every package and range anywhere from $1.25 for a glass liquid soap dispenser bottle from Soapply, for example, up to $10 for a rust-resistant metal container with one-touch dispensing lid for Clorox disinfecting wipes. One of the biggest learnings from the Loop pilot says Szaky is that the deposit costs have not deterred consumers from using Loop. “I thought they would be, but they haven’t in any capacity,” he says. “Even deposits as high as $10 have not been a deterrent. So we’re very, very happy about that.” Not only that, Szaky says, but they also found that within 90 days of purchase, there was a 97% return rate for the packaging by consumers. “I was surprised, but I think it has to do with the fact that people want the product inside, and they’re happy to have us professionally clean it and have it professionally refilled so they can access it again.” For the in-store business, the only deposits are for the containers, which consumers are refunded when they return the empty packaging to the store.