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Paula’s Choice & TerraCycle Are Partnering Up To Make Recycling Your Skincare Products SO Much Easier
The Truth About Food Pouches
The fruit-and-vegetable packets are O.K. in moderation, experts say, but don’t rely on them for every meal.
On a recent Saturday morning, I answered my antsy 3-year-old’s request for a snack by digging into my bag and finding – to my relief – a pouch of applesauce. I snapped off the cap and handed it over, and he was content for the last few minutes of his sister’s violin class. Perhaps apple slices would have been more ideal, but I was glad to have the pouch on hand.
Since the introduction of baby food pouches about 10 years ago, they’ve claimed more of the market each year. Technavio, a market research firm, estimated in 2018 that global revenue from baby food pouches grew tenfold between 2010 and 2017 — from $16 million to $160.8 million. In 2017, the market research firm Mintel surveyed 1,000 households in the United States with young children and found that about half of kids 3 and under eat purees from pouches, and of these, 58 percent have one or more pouches per day.
As a parent and college nutrition instructor, my guess is that pouches are popular because they’re convenient, shelf-stable and usually more nutritious than other packaged snacks. While they’re mostly fruit and vegetable purees, they can include more interesting ingredients like chia seeds, chickpeas, millet, avocado and yogurt.
“They were great when my daughter was about 2 and so hungry at 5:30 when I picked her up from day care. It prevented many dinner-prep meltdowns,” said Melissa Marks, a biology professor in Salem, Ore. “I didn’t love the eco-unfriendly nature of them,” said Marks, “but they got this scientist mom through the final pre-tenure year.” While the pouches are not recyclable through municipal services, they can be mailed to TerraCycle at a cost of at least $65 per shipment, except for a few brands that have set up free mail-in programs with the recycling company. Pouch caps are collected in some locations by Preserve, which manufactures goods like toothbrushes and razors from recycled plastic.
The pediatric feeding experts I spoke with said that there’s nothing wrong with giving your kids pouches from time to time, but they’re worried that some families might be becoming too reliant on them. The pouches’ entry into the baby food market is so recent that there isn’t yet published research on their impact, but they are enough of a departure from traditional baby foods that they raise several theoretical concerns, including delaying motor development, diluting nutritional quality, and increasing picky eating and cavities in young kids.
One potential problem is that pouches may oversimplify the eating process, leaving fewer opportunities for babies to practice the oral and fine motor skills they need to use utensils and to eat more textured foods. For example, babies can suck from a pouch using similar mouth and tongue movements as when they breastfeed or drink from a bottle, said Jenny McGlothlin, M.S., a speech-language pathologist at the University of Texas at Dallas and coauthor of “Helping Your Child With Extreme Picky Eating.” It’s better for babies to eat purees with a spoon, she said, so they can practice closing their lips over the utensil and moving food back in their mouths to swallow, and then advance to food with more texture as soon as they’re ready.
Pouched baby foods are marketed for babies as young as 4 months, and since they’re easy for babies to suck down, this might encourage parents to add too much pureed food to their babies’ diets too early. “As semi-liquids that could fill up the baby, they are not good nutritional substitutes for breastmilk or formula in early life,” said Dr. Steven Abrams, M.D., chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Nutrition. The A.A.P. advises parents to start offering solids to babies when they’re interested and developmentally ready to sit up and eat from a spoon, usually around 6 months.
Anecdotally, some professionals say they’re observing delays in motor development among kids overly dependent on the pouches. Ruth McGivern, M.A., a pediatric speech-language pathologist in Philadelphia, said that she and her colleagues had noticed that some of their toddler clients were learning to self-feed with a spoon later than usual, and that she was “pretty sure reliance on the pouches is part of the reason.” On its own, taking longer to learn to use a spoon wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, she said, but she worries that these toddlers are missing out on an important stage of food exploration.
“Without the opportunity to smear food all over their faces, and lick it off with their tongues, and wave the spoon around while they play with the food in their other hand, young toddlers tend to lose their curiosity about food and become more and more dependent on either the pouches or their parent spoon-feeding them,” said McGivern.
Research suggests that kids use all their senses to learn about food. Having the opportunity to see, smell and play with food can increase a toddler’s acceptance of new foods, according to studies published in the journal Appetite, and pouches don’t allow for that full sensory experience. Maryann Jacobsen, M.S, R.D., a coauthor of “Fearless Feeding,” recommended advancing from purees – like those in pouches – to more textured foods between 6 and 10 months so that babies can learn to chew and feed themselves finger foods.
Babies are most open to new tastes during a “golden window of opportunity” between 6 and 18 months, said McGlothlin. It’s a perfect time to get used to the bitterness of green vegetables, which can require repeated exposures. “If we don’t offer a variety of foods and experiences, then we’re setting ourselves up for pickiness later,” she said.
If vegetables are introduced to kids only in pouch form, their taste is probably masked. “When you’re mixing it with other flavors, there’s no guarantee that they’re able to taste it in the way that they need to in order to learn to like that flavor over time,” said Kameron Moding, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in pediatric nutrition at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, whose research has shown that most packaged baby and toddler vegetable products, including pouches, are blended with fruits or sweet vegetables.
Those sweet ingredients also mean the pouches are high in sugar. A study published this July in the journal Nutrients analyzed 703 pureed baby and toddler food products and found that pouched purees were often higher in sugar than baby food in other packages, like jars or plastic tubs. For example, among fruit and vegetable blend products, pouches had a median of 11 grams of sugar per serving, compared with 5 grams of sugar per serving in products with other packaging because the pouches both came in larger serving sizes and were more concentrated in sugar. Among the pouched blends, 58 percent had added sugar beyond that naturally present in fruits and vegetables, compared with 33 percent of the purees in other packaging.
“The higher the sugar content, the higher the risk of tooth decay,” said Dr. Joe Castellanos, D.D.S., immediate past president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. He recommends using pouches only in moderation, along with a good tooth brushing routine.
Despite these concerns, there’s nothing wrong with the occasional pouch, Jacobsen said. “It’s fine to use these,” she said. “It’s just when we overuse them and we rely on them too much, I think that’s when it becomes problematic.”
The experts I spoke with said that it’s impossible to give hard and fast rules on how many pouches is too many. Some kids who eat several pouches per day are still comfortable eating many other foods. However, if your kid is fussy when they can’t have a pouch; or if they refuse to eat more textured foods, or if they don’t want to use utensils or touch food with their hands, it’s a problem, McGlothlin said. A pediatric feeding specialist can do an evaluation to identify sensory or oral motor issues that may be contributing and help make a plan to broaden the child’s diet.
Although she’s concerned about overuse of pouches, McGlothlin, who’s also a mother of three, said that it’s not helpful to judge parents about how they feed their kids. “We’re all kind of just trying to do the best we can on a daily basis,” she said.
Pouches may be especially helpful for parents with disabilities, or for those who have little time for food prep and who might find that pouches are the most realistic way of getting fruits and veggies into their kids’ lunchboxes.
The same can be true for children with special needs. Katie Herzog, a mother in Novi, Mich., has a 4-year-old daughter who has significant feeding problems that require therapy. “Even as we add solid foods to her diet, the pouches are important to give her jaw a break,” Herzog said. Her daughter also has celiac disease, an autoimmune condition in which the body mounts an attack response against the small intestine after eating gluten, she said, so pouches can be given to her on the go without having to worry about wheat contamination.
For my part, I see parenting as both a short game and a long game. My long game that Saturday morning was to make a fragrant lentil and veggie curry that would simmer in the slow cooker all afternoon. I wasn’t sure if my son would eat much of it, but at least he would smell it, taste a bit of it, and watch his sister and parents enjoy it. But my short game? It might involve a pouch every now and then.
Gillette, TerraCycle Team to Make Razors Nationally Recyclable
Gillette, in partnership with international recycling leader TerraCycle, announced for the first time in Canada, all brands of disposable razors, replaceable-blade cartridge units and razor plastic packaging are recyclable on a national scale. Earlier this year, TerraCycle and Gillette made this same recycling option possible in the U.S.
Through the innovative partnership, consumers are invited to recycle their razors in two ways:
- Gillette Razor Recycling Program: Participants wishing to recycle their razors from home are invited to sign up on the program page. When ready to ship their waste, they can simply download a free TerraCycle shipping label, package the razors in a secure, puncture-proof package and send it to TerraCycle for recycling.
- Gillette Razor Local Recycling Solutions: Businesses, gyms, colleges, cities and community organizations are invited to become public drop-off points for the Gillette Razor Recycling Program. Participants interested in becoming a drop-off point are invited to sign up on the program page. After acceptance to the program, they will be sent an exclusive razor recycling bin developed by TerraCycle and Gillette. Once full, they can simply seal and return the bin to TerraCycle via UPS and a new one will be sent back to them. The address listed in the account will be posted on the publicly available map of local recycling solutions on the Gillette Razor Recycling Program page.
Everything to Know About the Paula’s Choice Skincare Recycling Program
How it works
- Participants can sign up on the TerraCycle program page and mail the packaging using a prepaid shipping label.
- Once collected, the packaging is cleaned and melted into hard plastic that can be remolded into new recycled products.
- Every shipment of the company's packaging waste sent to TerraCycle earns points that can be used for charity gifts or converted to cash and donated to the non-profit, school or charitable organization of their choice.
My first Loop: Early days in the circular shopping platform
TerraCycle
pepsico
Colgate-Palmolive
Mars
Nestle
Unilever
Include USA
UPS
Procter & Gamble
Walgreens
Tide
Loop
Häagen-Dazs
Kroger
It feels like good old e-commerce but ...
The process feels very much like a traditional e-commerce transaction with a few exceptions. Shoppers choose their items, each with a base price and an additional container deposit to be refunded when the item is returned empty. Then the items are shipped via UPS in a reusable zippered box the size of medium-sized cooler. I placed my order Friday, May 31 and received it Tuesday, June 4.
Once the products are used up, the idea is to put the empty packages back in the Loop box for UPS pickup and the containers will be cleaned, sanitized and recirculated — everything is reused. Even the shipping label was a thick piece of paper that slides into a slot in the top of the box that simply needs to be flipped over to send the box back.
One of the most striking elements about the experience was how the consumer is never without instructions as to what to do next. Every item has some form of return direction on it encouraging the user to complete the Loop. Even the tiny plastic zip tie that secures the delivery box (and the fresh one inside for the return shipment) is well-marked with instructions.
Every item, from reusable box filler to each product, is marked with instructions so the user is never unclear as to what to do next. |
Credit: Emma Cosgrove
The product selection in the store is so far fairly limited — spanning dry bulk food products like nuts, spices and pasta, a few personal care items like razors and hand wash, household cleaners and ice cream. Many more brands are advertised as partnering with Loop, so hopefully the assortment will grow soon. In my first order, I tried to choose items from every category and receive a variety of products — and more importantly, a variety of containers.
The packaging, after all, is a key part of the innovation. TerraCycle worked with the committed vendors like Unilever, Mars, Nestle, PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble and more to develop versions of selected products in largely non-plastic packaging with the aim of getting 100 cycles out of every container.
"Reusable packaging is more expensive from an environmental perspective to make the first time ... but every time it goes around, you don't have the cost of remaking it. All you do is have the cost of collecting it and cleaning it. And by using really efficient supply chains to do the collection, it’s very efficient to transport," Szaky said at the launch.
Most of the containers I received were stainless with some plastic components like pumps and spray nozzles. I also received peanut butter in a glass jar (with a $2 deposit, which admittedly caused a bit of sticker shock). All were perfectly functional (even in the shower) and certainly better to look at than logo-adorned plastic.
The Haagen-Dazs container is designed with an inner and outer stainless steel layer to enable faster melting only at the top and comfortable eating from the pint straight form the freezer. |
Credit: Emma Cosgrove
And those deposits add up. On my first order, I paid $30.50 in deposits including the $15.00 deposit for the shipping box — 23% of my total order.
Cleverly though, upon return, the deposits go into a deposit balance on the site instead of being refunded back through your payment method, so the blow will be much softer next time around. (The circular nature of the platform not only keeps your shopping nearly waste-free but also is a fairly effective marketing tool to encourage subsequent orders since not all products empty out on the same schedule.)
Every bit of package filler protecting the Loop products is reusable. |
Credit: Emma Cosgrove
All in all, Loop is still for true believers. As an avid online shopper, especially for household basics and groceries, keenly aware of how much waste that generates on a nearly daily basis — I am such a believer. I will order again to reduce my waste, to support the initiative and to satisfy my curiosity as this program grows and changes.
The platform doesn’t meet quite enough of my needs to cancel out any of the other vendors I currently shop with — though I’m watching eagerly for the day that it does. The brands available now don’t all work for me, and I imagine with mass market and niche brands accounted for in a relatively small assortment of products, this will be true for almost everyone.
It's not a platform for value or selection yet. But it is relatively guilt-free and offers a smooth, responsive and guided user experience that is enjoyable.
The supply chain innovation when it comes to Loop is mostly in the products themselves. The return, wash and recirculate model is borrowed from various industries like commercial linens (though the product variety is much larger and the per-order minimum much smaller for Loop) and the transport itself is simple logistics and reverse logistics. But scaling the products as the platform grows will be something to watch — and so will the shifts in consumer behavior as the platform expands its products and customer base.
Did it change my consumption life? No. But I see how it could one day.
How do the prices compare?
In short ... it varies. At today’s prices, Loop's more premium items are more comparable to the market price than the mass-market brands. For example, 19.5 oz. of organic lemon-flavored almonds cost $16.65 plus the container deposit — a slightly cheaper per ounce rate than the product is priced on the brand’s website. While dry black beans are priced at $3.25 a pound plus the container deposit – at least 60% more than a bulk price in a grocery store. Tide detergent is fairly competitively priced, while a pint of Haagen-Dazs is at least $1 more than at the grocery store and carries a hefty $5.00 deposit for the much-hailed stainless container that allows the eater to hold the pint comfortably, and shovel directly into their mouth, even after pulling the metal directly from the freezer.Would I order again?
The experience of opening the Loop box and producing no immediate waste is exactly as I expected – a relief. The box itself, especially for a relatively small order of seven items like mine, came with a lot of foam packaging and a cooler with many ice packs for the ice cream I ordered. I had to remind myself that though it seemed excessive, none of this was waste. When I finished with about half of the items, I sent the box back and received an email within 24 hours acknowledging receipt of my empty products.Are Solo cups recyclable? The answer may surprise you
Question: Can I recycle red or blue solo cups?
Answer: Solo cups are made out of number six plastic called polystyrene, the same type of plastic that toys, and Styrofoam are made out of. In Western Massachusetts, our local recycling facility does not accept this type of plastic. However, you do have some options. There is a company called Terracycle that does recycle Solo cups and other types are plastics that are hard to recycle. They offer a program where you can buy a box and once you fill it, it’s picked up to be recycled. They offer recycling for many different types of hard to recycle items. The other option you have is to not buy Solo cups. Encourage teams to bring their own water bottles or use glasses at home parties. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
Hey parents, Target and Walmart are giving you a good reason to recycle your car seat right now
Recycle & Reuse: Special bins will recycle cigarette butts
Thanks to a grant from Keep America Beautiful, Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful (KDWB) will soon be placing special cigarette litter collection bins across Whitfield County. These "ballot bins" allow users to vote for one of two options in the bin. They are used to increase participation in the program and decrease litter.
But did you know that the cigarettes in these bins are going to be recycled? With 5.5 trillion cigarettes disposed ever year, finding a way to reuse the waste is valuable for smokers and non-smokers alike.
Once full, each bin will be collected and shipped to a company called Terracycle. Terracycle, based in New Jersey, focuses on finding unique solutions to waste issues and creative ways to upcycle and recycle. One of those unique problems is cigarettes. So, they started a program that finds a use for this waste instead of preserving the cigarettes for thousands of years in landfills across America.
Recycling can be costly, especially for unique items like cigarettes, so one company stepped up to help fund the program. Terracycle states, "With funding from Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, the waste collected through this program is recycled into a variety of industrial products, such as plastic pallets, and any remaining tobacco is recycled as compost."
All of the extinguished cigarettes, cigarette filters, loose tobacco pouches, outer plastic packaging, inner foil packaging, rolling paper and ash can be recycled in these bins. While you can't throw the box away in there, the paperboard box can be tossed into your regular paper recycling bin where the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Materials Recovery Facility will handle it.
The inside packaging materials and filters get melted, molded and turned into plastic packaging. The ash and paper part of the cigarettes gets composted. The paperboard box gets sorted and pulped to become a new paper product.
Cigarettes have filters that are made from cellulose acetate, a synthetic fiber. This filter doesn't biodegrade when tossed outside and ends up in all of our waterways eventually if never picked up. It can, however, be used to make new plastic products if processed correctly. Through this program the filters go through a process called extrusion which turns it into pellets. It is a similar method that is used to make carpet from plastic here in Whitfield County. After extrusion, the filter and other inside packaging materials from the box get mixed with other materials and turned into ashtrays, pallets or lumber.
Once the insides are removed and disposed of in the yellow ballot bins, you can put the paperboard box in your regular recycling bin. This box can easily get turned into all sorts of other objects, from book covers to Wendy's napkins.
Even with the amount of smoking declining, cigarettes are still the most littered item in America. Not only that, they are the biggest ocean contaminant. Just one butt in a liter of water can poison and kill a fish. Though it’s hard to estimate exactly how much damage this does to oceans worldwide, we can deduce that it is leading to major problems below the surface.
For every pound of cigarette waste collected and sent into Terracycle for recycling, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company donates $1 towards the Keep America Beautiful Cigarette Litter Prevention Program. Keep America Beautiful helps clean up cigarettes that have been littered by coordinating cleanups, donating supplies and supplying grants similar to the one that was given to KDWB.
Cigarette litter causes problems for our wildlife, waterways and environment. Yet, they still get littered here every day. With the incentive to not only keep our town clean, but also the knowledge that these cigarettes can be used as a resource more of those butts should end up in the right place.
Amy Hartline is the recycling and education program coordinator for the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority. Have a recycling question? Contact her at (706) 278-5001 or at ahartline@dwswa.org.