TERRACYCLE NEWS
ELIMINATING THE IDEA OF WASTE®
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Bimbo Bakeries USA commits to 100 percent sustainable packaging by 2025
- Reducing company-wide plastic use by more than a million pounds since 2018
- Producing 100 percent renewable electrical energy for all U.S. operations as of July 2019, with energy created through a Wind Farm backed by a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement with Invenergy
- Named EPA ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year in 2018 and 2019 for superior leadership, innovation and commitment to environmental protection through energy efficiency
- 14 ENERGY STAR Certified facilities
- Manufacturing operations divert greater than 95 percent of waste from landfill
- 360 company-owned vehicles utilize alternative fuel – propane, compressed natural gas, and electric
Packaging: A $1.2 Trillion Sector Going Through a Rethink
We’re Asking a Lot More of Packaging Than We Used To — and Suppliers Are Responding
As e-commerce continues its penetration into every corner of our commercial lives, the packages that land on our doorstep have a lot more work to do than ever. The massive amounts of packaging that have accompanied the digital revolution and a surge in single-use products such as Starbucks coffee cups are starting to draw critics’ attention.Out With Analog, In With Digital, and Not Just for Replacing Printing
Although digital technologies for producing labels and other printed messages on packaging containers have been around for some time, the last few years have seen an inflection point in producers’ preferences. Sales of conventional analog “flexo” printers have been declining, while sales of digital printers are enjoying double-digit growth. As it does in many other industries, digital is enabling entirely new kinds of connections with end users by making small print runs affordable. One outcome is a rise in the amount of personalization that organizations can offer and that consumers increasingly expect.Even more important, brands are beginning to leverage digital technologies that enhance and extend the reach of their packages well beyond the actual package. A great example of this is Coca-Cola’s successful Share a Coke campaign, launched initially in 2014. The campaign involved replacing the Coca–Cola logo on bottles of the beverage with popular American first names. Consumers were encouraged to find bottles with their own names or those of friends or family members, then post on social media about their experiences, using the hashtag #ShareACoke. The promotion took off to the point at which Coca–Cola not only expanded the numbers of names on bottle packaging, but today allows customers to order customized bottles with names on them from the Coca–Cola store. Customers reportedly shared over 500,000 personal stories with the hashtag in the first year alone. Beginning in 2018, stickers with the names were used on the packaging, expanding the reach of the name to, well, anything you could stick it to!
Coke is adding a new digital element to its packaging with a program called Sip and Scan™. Users either go to Coke.com or use the brand’s mobile app to capture a photo of an icon that allows them to access treats and enter competitions for prizes. Among these are concert, movie, amusement park, and baseball tickets and exclusive experiences like meeting members of the US Women’s National Team (USWNT) after the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Of course, the company gets some goodies for itself as well — namely a direct connection to users’ phones, location, and purchase history — a data goldmine.
Not to be outdone, Coke’s arch-rival Pepsi has a few twists on packaging of its own. One was the launch of “Snackable Notes” — packaging for Frito Lay’s variety packs (Cheetos, Doritos, Lays, and a host of other brands). The packages left a blank space for parents or others to write notes right on the bags. Targeted for the anxious back-to-school months, the blank spaces on the bags are not only meant to encourage people to connect, but to post on social media as well, under the hashtag #snackablenotes of course. The company also launched a donation campaign as well — for every note posted, it contributed to Feed the Children.
Shapes Nature Never Designed — Flexible Packaging on the Rise
With advances in materials, it’s now become possible to use flexible packages — pouches, wraps, bags, envelopes, and many more form factors — instead of rigid boxes or cans. Flexible packages allow brands to indulge consumers’ desires for re-sealable, easy to carry and store, lightweight packaging to complement on-the-go consumption. Manufacturers are figuring out how to use flexible packaging to help with the reduction of food waste, carbon footprint, and shipping damages in a variety of formats that go beyond bottles and cans.And of course with headlines screaming that millennials don’t even own can-openers, some kind of alternative to the reliable can of tuna fish is going to be necessary.
Meanwhile, not all innovations in packaging are welcomed by those who want to get at the goods inside. I was startled to learn that the term “wrap rage” is actually a thing, if Wikipedia is to be believed. This stems from a fundamental disconnect — what works for the manufacturers of packaging can make it well-nigh impossible for ordinary people to get at the contents. Over the counter drugs have to show tamper-resistance. Some packages are deliberately designed to prevent access to limit shoplifting. And others are more about showing the potential customer what is in the contents than actually helping them to access the contents (hard plastic blister-packs, we’re looking at you!). The clamshell package is among the most dangerous, as it is designed to be unable to open with bare hands, resulting in some 6,000 emergency room visits in the US alone each year and thousands of more minor injuries.
An innovator in this space is Amazon, which launched its Amazon Frustration Free Packaging initiative in 2007. The idea is to create packages with less waste, that don’t require additional boxing, and which are easier for consumers to open. Vendors apply to be certified and are offered incentives to join the program, which Amazon claims to have used to save 244,000 tons of packing material in the 10 years since it launched.
Moving Toward the Circular Economy?
I’ve written before about Tom Szaky, the former Princeton student who founded Terracycle with the mission of eliminating waste. The company got going by using the university’s cafeteria waste to farm worms, then selling the…um…product as fertilizer. “Worm poop” was a memorable way to describe what the company did in its early days. Szaky has recently edited a book that takes the “no waste” manifesto directly to packaging. Called The Future of Packaging: From Linear to Circular, he seeks to replace the one-way take-make-waste process of packaging with a circular design, drawing the analogy to skins that protect fruit but which can be easily recycled.Manufacturers of edible packaging have taken a page out of Szaky’s book. In what I can only think of as a bid to introduce a mature brand to a whole ‘nother generation of consumers, Glenlivit has introduced whiskey pods to the market. Yup, think laundry detergent pods except with a whiskey cocktail inside. The capsules, Glenlivit has told a skeptical public, are made from edible seaweed — just pop them in your mouth — no glass, bottle, or stirrer required. The packaging is made by Notpla, a new entrant in the biodegradable packaging world. Unhappily for those of us who wanted to give the cocktail pods a spin, they were sold on a limited time-only basis.
Edible and biodegradable packaging, however, is making its way into more mainstream products. We have straws you can eat (Sorbos Ecostraws), spoons you can eat (Bakeys), decomposable cups to replace plastic ones (Loliware), and even Poppits toothpaste pouches, which are single-use “servings” of toothpaste designed to eliminate messy tubes. Still more important, major brands are beginning to get on the circular packaging um…bandwagon. Unilever, in a move that is sure to put pressure on its consumer packaged goods rivals, just recently made headlines with an announcement that it plans to halve its use of new plastic by 2025. The company plans to use so-called naked packaging (how exciting) for some of the reduction and replacing non-recyclable packaging with the recyclable kind for the rest.
Among the more interesting innovations emerging from the concern over packaging waste is the Loop ™ system being piloted by a consortium of brands, inspired by — you guessed it — Tom Szaky, who used the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos to talk leaders of major multinational brands into supporting the idea. Combining a digital platform with a completely different approach to packaging, the system echoes the return of the milkman, as an observer pointed out. The idea is that consumers place orders online for products from trusted brands, which are delivered to them in purposely-designed refillable containers. When the product is used up, the consumer returns it to the Loopstore, which it gets refilled and re-delivered. I have to say, the thought of getting brownie mix and Ranch dressing in re-usable containers has a certain appeal.
Who knew that the world of packaging had so much going on!
Rethinking the Profit Motive
What about the purpose motive?
Good news for a post growth economy
When discussing alternatives to economic growth, there’s one statement that can seem to be a showstopper: “People and organizations are motivated by profit. Expecting otherwise is naïve.” That charge has haunted environmentalists in particular since the 1970’s, when bombarding the public with images of oil-slicked cranes and tousled polar bears was a primary method of drumming up support. But given a choice between saving a polar bear and reporting another quarter of company growth, most of us would fire up the PowerPoint, say the critics. It’s no surprise that this thing called “The Profit Motive” — the supposedly singular goal of business — has been a stumbling block for anyone attempting to deal with economic activity’s negative effects on the wider world. (“If people just cared more…” is the oft-heard refrain.) What Pink puts his finger on, and the MIT study and life experience suggests, is that The Profit Motive doesn’t stand alone. There’s The Purpose Motive, too. “More and more organizations want to have some kind of transcendent purpose,” he says. “Partly because it makes coming to work better, partly because that’s the way to get better talent…The organizations that are flourishing are animated by this principle.” To loop all of this back to post growth economics: What if the best companies — the companies that wind up putting their competition out of business — are heavily purpose-driven? Could those companies manage to pay their employees enough to “take the issue of money off the table,” and make up the rest through meaning, purpose and positive impact? What if those kinds of companies made up the core of the economy? Could such an economy reach a steady state?Helping the Earth — one wrapper at a time
Loggerhead Marinelife Center Saves our Seas by Recycling 272,595 Halloween Candy Wrappers
Schwarzkopf partners with TerraCycle to up sustainability
O.D. Notebook: Daily Wear Contact Lens for Myopia Receives FDA Approval
- PECAA announced a new program, “90 Days to Dry Eye,”developed in conjunction with Dry Eye University. The program walks participants through the process of building a dry eye profit center in just 90 days. Participating practices can expect to receive clinical dry eye education, staff training, vendor selection coaching, equipment recommendations, facility layout consultations, marketing and referral outreach strategies and more. For information, visit https://www.pecaa.com/
dry-eye-education/ . - Vision Source hosted 39,000 visits to its online member event, the Virtual Exchange, which launched in 2016. The seven-day event enables Vision Source optometrist members to purchase ophthalmic equipment and products from vendors at “significantly discounted prices,” Vision Source says. In other news, Vision Source’s senior vice president of vendor relations has been appointed to the University of Houston System Board of Regents, an independent governing body overseeing the administration of education at the university.
- The World Optometry Foundation announced the recipients of the World Optometry Foundation Student Travel Fellowships. They include: Alvin Munsamy, BOptom, MOptom, from South Africa; Isaura Ilorena Dos Santos, BOptom, from Mozambique; Memoonna Arshad, MPhil from Australia; Nabeela Hasrod, BOptom, MPhil, from South Africa; and Nnenne Onu, O.D., MSc, from Nigeria.
- Aerie Pharmaceuticals has agreed to acquire Avizorex Pharma (AVX), a Spanish ophthalmic pharmaceutical company that develops therapeutics for the treatment of dry eye disease. The terms outline an all-cash transaction; Aerie will make an up-front payment of $10 million and AVX Pharma shareholders will be eligible to receive additional payments, for example from clinical and regulatory performance milestones.
- Bausch + Lomb, in collaboration with TerraCycle, donated custom training modules to the Guide Dog Foundation, a national not-for-profit that trains guide dogs for people who are blind or visually impaired. The training modules — including benches, tables, waste stations and an agility ramp — were made from used contact lens materials collected through the Bausch + Lomb One by One Recycling Program as well as other recycled material. The donation was funded through the Bausch Foundation.
- EyePoint Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced the appointment of George O. Elston as CFO and head of Corporate Development. Mr. Elston has previously been a consultant to the company and will now transition into this permanent role effective immediately.
- Leo Lens Technology (LLT) announced that its drug delivery contact lens product was selected as a finalist in Connect w/ San Diego Venture Group’s (SDVG) Most Innovative New Product (MIP) Awards. Connect w/ SDVG is an innovation company accelerator in San Diego that creates and scales companies in the technology and life sciences sectors.According to LLT, it uses a patented platform technology to harness the power of high-tech digital printing to commercialize a drug-eluting, comfort-enhancing contact lens product. Its first product is a lens to treat glaucoma with contact lens-releasing FDA-approved bimatoprost.
- MacuLogix Inc. has appointed Christine Silverberg, M.B.A., B.S.N., R.N., as director of national accounts, a role in which she will lead business development and partnerships across the industry.
- Marcolin Group has signed an exclusive, worldwide licensing agreement for the design, production and distribution of sunglasses and eyeglass frames for BMW, BMW M and BMW M Motorsport labels. The agreement is effective for five years through December 2024.
- NovaBay Pharmaceuticals announced the launch of NovaSight, an ocular nutritional supplement, on Amazon.com. The product is a companion to Avenova Direct, the company’s prescription-strength lid and lash spray.
- Thema Optical hosted Eastern Optical Research Group, a management organization of U.S. optical retailers, recently in Miami.
- Valley Contax recently held the Custom Stable Cup Challenge at Academy 2019 in Orlando. Current optometry students and alumni were encouraged to participate by visiting the Valley Contax booth where they partnered and fit the Custom Stable lens. First place was awarded to Michigan College of Optometry (MCO) at Ferris State University, which received two $500 scholarships and the Custom Stable Cup trophy. The second-place winner was SUNY College of Optometry, which was awarded a $500 scholarship. Five $100 gift cards were also awarded to Kaitlyn Arnold, MCO; Amalia Burrell, Pennsylvania College of Optometry at Salus University; Makayla Porter, Southern College of Optometry; Elise Hoi, SUNY College of Optometry; and Inlanders Coulanges, École d'optométrie — Université de Montréal. Menicon, Contamac, Optovue, and TelScreen were also contributing sponsors, along with special support from the American Optometric Student Association.
- VSP Vision Care and the American Diabetes Association have launched a new collaboration regarding diabetic eye disease. The initiative will focus on the role annual comprehensive eye exams play in early detection, intervention and prevention of eye disease and vision loss caused by diabetes. It will launch in 2020 as part of the ADA’s Overcoming Therapeutic Inertia campaign.
- Warby Parker has launched its own brand of daily disposable contact lenses. Named Scout, the lenses are made of hioxifilcon A lens material, 57% water content and provide 25 Dk/t oxygen permeability.
- Daniel Brown, O.D., of Florida Eye Associates, details in a Q and A with Florida Todaythat his passion for optometry began in high school when an optometrist spoke to his class about the profession. “I knew then that it was the right field for me,” he says. Read more at https://www.floridatoday.
com/story/life/wellness/2019/ .11/19/health-pro-visit-real- world-class-led-career- optometry/4205995002/
- Brien Holden Vision Institute (BHVI) has signed a deal with Optometry Giving Sight USA (OGS) to continue as its preferred project implementation partner. CooperVision has also renewed its sponsorship of the global GOS organization.
- Dr. Ying-Zi Xiong has been selected as a post-doctoral research fellow to conduct studies at the Wichita-based Gigi & Carl Allen Envision Research Institute. Her research focuses on challenges confronting individuals experiencing hearing and vision loss.