In the circular economy there is a growing need for durability in product packaging. Not only could a model of packaging reuse help the environment, but, when done right, could also be financially effective for manufacturers. The term “circular economy” is gaining traction as of late, as people around the world realize the linear economy of take, make, dispose—which for decades has been a mainstream mindset for many people—has created a massive amount of waste that is destroying the environment. The circular economy is a closed-loop system that regenerates resources through reuse, refurbishing, and recycling. Of course, recycling is a popular approach, but, unfortunately, is not making much of a difference. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), of the  267.8 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) that was generated in the U.S. in 2017, about 94 million tons of that was recycled and composted, equivalent to a 35.2% recycling and composting rate. That doesn’t make a dent at the dump. “In the 1970s we recognized the problem of pollution…but we haven’t been successful in decades,” said Tim Debus, president and CEO of the Reusable Packaging Association (RPA), who was presenting on the Innovation Stage at PACK EXPO East in Philadelphia. “It’s been a 50 year effort of recycling and we are not at the point where it is an effective way to manage waste.” Debus points out, too, that packaging makes up 30% of the total solid waste—and only 3% of that packaging is reusable. As a result, there needs to be a drastic shift in the way we package and reuse products in the circular economy. For that, he points to a need for the durability of materials to ultimately drive efficiency in a zero-waste system. Durability vs. Disposability The “throwaway lifestyle,” in which consumers buy single-use products that they ultimately dispose of, means that manufacturers are making products with low cost goods. While it may seem like a good economic model for manufacturers, in reality, a circular system that uses durable materials will provide a more positive long term payback. “The circular economy is not [only] a sustainability model, it is an economic model and a way of doing business and managing resources,” Debus said. The three components of the new circular economy include: ·     Designing waste out of the system by creating continuous use of materials. ·      Maintaining the value of products at the highest level possible. ·      Restoring the natural ecosystem thereby allowing  biological  systems to flourish and provide more raw/natural materials.   “Durability should be one of the leading design components of products and of the system in which products are used. Collaborating with supply chain partners needs to be a part of the design as well,” Debus said. An example of this is the TerraCycle Loop model. Loop provides beautiful, counter-worthy containers that can be refilled over and over and conveniently delivered to the consumer’s door. The company has partnered with some of the biggest consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, and developed a subscription-based home delivery service where the packaging from food and household goods don’t get thrown out or recycled, but reused. Clorox wipes, for example, are delivered in a stainless steel container vs. a plastic container. Not only does it look nice—and can be displayed on the countertop—but it is designed for reuse.  When empty, the durable canister is placed in a Loop tote to be picked up and sent back to a cleaning facility and then refilled.  So, it is functional, a little fancy, and actually financially effective for manufacturers. According to Debus, reuse pays back repeatedly over time.  For example, if a company with one million shipments per year designs a durable container for reuse, they can get perhaps six uses out of that container per year. The idea being that every other month it is returned back to be refilled and shipped forward. So they don’t need a million containers. In this scenario they need about 166,000 containers that can provide one million uses—which results in a significant amount of cost savings—especially if the container is designed to last 10-to-20 years. There are other factors in play here, as well, such as new government regulations like the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy. EPR shifts responsibility back to manufacturers to clean up the wastes produced from their products and packaging after the consumer is through with them. “What we’ve been doing as an industry is packaging boxes and away it goes—the cost is off of my books. But someone else is picking up the cost, like municipalities. There is no market for that anymore,” Debus explained. As a result, the U.S. is picking up on the same EPR rules that are popular in Europe, and which we are seeing a little bit already in the U.S. for carpet, chemicals, and car batteries. But these takeback programs will soon focus on packaging. Manufacturers are no longer absent from responsibility, Debus said, which makes the circular economy based on durable containers even that much more appealing.  

The coronavirus covid-19 is forcing companies and local governments worldwide to re-examine environmental strategies that emphasized reusable products such as cups and shopping bags. This week the World Health Organization labeled the novel coronavirus a pandemic, and urged businesses and governments globally to “break the chains” of transmission. Cases in New York increased around the same time as a planned plastic bag ban went into effect on March 1. “The ban on single-use plastic grocery bags is unsanitary — and it comes at the worst imaginable time,” columnist and contributing editor John Tierney wrote in City Journal on Thursday. Citing several research studies, he pointed to the risk of spreading viruses through reusable plastic shopping bags. Starbucks recently announced that the company temporary stopped allowing customers to use personal cups and tumblers at its stores globally, CNN reported. The chain vowed to continue honoring the discount for bringing reusable cups and mugs; employees just couldn’t fill them. Dunkin’ Brands followed suit, saying that they were also temporarily halting their reusable mug program. Neither chain has indicated how long the suspensions will be in place. Canadian chain Tim Hortons also delayed plans to hand out 1.8 million reusable cups as part of a new initiative. Although the pandemic presents serious challenges to the zero waste movement, TerraCycle founder and CEO Tom Szaky told Grist’s L.V. Anderson that disposable packaging isn’t necessarily sterile. “Disposability brought about unparalleled affordability and convenience,” he said, referring to its rise in the 1950s. “What ended up happening is people got this misperception that wrapping something in plastic also made it more sanitary.” Anderson noted that TerraCycle’s circular shopping model Loop aims to counter that perception. “Szaky emphasized that the process of rewashing Loop’s reusable packaging is ‘at the most sophisticated level washing can be,’” she wrote. On Friday, Maryland took a step toward banning single-use plastic bags with a House vote of 95 to 38, the Washington Post reported. However, the bill has exceptions that include bags for produce, meat, candy, newspapers, and frozen food.

Most things we buy today are wrapped in plastic, shipped in cardboard, and protected by styrofoam, but as more people become concerned about packaging, businesses are stepping in to provide alternatives. Still, some experts don’t think buying greener products will solve the world’s trash problems.  

The Struggle of Eco-Conscious Consumers 

Madelyn Miller has been bringing reusable bags to the grocery store for decades, way before it was cool. Over time, she’s seen an increasing amount of plastic on store shelves. At her home in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, she searches around the refrigerator, “Here we go, my ricotta — I love ricotta cheese,” Miller said, pulling out the plastic tub. But she doesn’t always feel good when she buys ricotta, cottage cheese, or yogurt. “Almost the entire dairy aisle is full of plastic containers,” she said. Miller worries that these plastics are creating a waste stream, much of which can’t be recycled. Plus, they’re made from fossil fuels, so their production contributes to climate change. She does what she can to discourage its use. As she was getting ready for a recent trip to California to visit her grandchildren, she wanted to bring them something, so she bought a membership to the zoo, because she said, it won’t wind up as plastic pollution in the ocean. “I think it’s terrifying,” Miller said. “What we’re giving to our children is a legacy of sea animals. They’re ingesting these plastics, it’s killing them.” But to prepare for her trip, she stacked twenty small plastic containers of cat food on the kitchen counter. She knows it’s more packaging than necessary, but it’s convenient. “For my neighbor who’s coming in to help feed the cats, it makes it easier for her. Plastics make life easier,” she admits.

Movement Toward Greener Packaging

New markets are opening up for environmentally-friendly packaging, as market analysts predict a five year growth of $70 billion for packaging that uses less energy and more recycled materials. For consumers, just Googling “alternative packaging,” brings targeted ads for things like toothpaste tablets sold in a glass jars, liquid soap in a cardboard box, and toilet paper rolls wrapped only in paper. Tom Szaky, CEO of a company called Loop, has been working with big brands like Tide detergent and Häagen-Dazs ice cream to redesign their packaging. “So for example your ice cream container now moves from being coated paper to double-layered stainless steel that is beautiful, reusable and more functional,” he said. People can buy these products at certain stores, in certain markets, or they can order on Loop’s website, and have them delivered in a special tote. Once the products are used up, people put the empty containers back in the tote, to be picked up and returned to Loop. “We clean it and provide it back to these manufacturers who refill them and around they go again,” he explained. Szaky said Loop is providing the convenience people are used to, without the disposability that can harm the environment. “This approach,” he said, “…we think is the silver bullet to get a large number of people to move away from a throw-away single-use lifestyle.” Loop is adding new products to its line every couple of days, according to Szaky. Loop is currently available in Paris, and some northeastern states including Pennsylvania. “I absolutely agree that that is a fabulous idea,” said Sarah Taylor, when she first heard about Loop. She’s a professor of environmental policy at Northwestern University, and author of a recently published book, “Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue.” Its main theme is that we can’t buy our way out of problems like trash and climate change.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Taylor says people get obsessed with small decisions. She knows, because she’s always asked about pressing personal choices, like, “So what do I do with my cat litter?” she laughed. “Should I use the plastic bags from the grocery store because I’m using them for my cat litter?” Taylor doesn’t want to be misinterpreted, she supports trying to buy ecologically-sound products. But instead of beating ourselves up about using a few plastic cat food containers, we should focus on the bigger picture. “The climate clock is ticking, it is ticking. So where is our action going to be more effective?” she asked. Taylor’s pushing for a focus on policy changes, like the plastic bag bans in Europe, some Asian countries and US cities. These changes are what she thinks will shift markets toward greener options. “I would say banning single use plastic would then support companies like Loop, or companies that provide these kinds of reusable packaging, so that they don’t have to fight the consumer culture upstream,” Taylor said. “They don’t just have to market to the eco-virtuous.” Because what’s really virtuous, according to Taylor, is pushing companies to make it easier for all consumers to do less damage to the environment.

It’s official: Your reusable mug has been tainted — with suspicion. Starbucks announced last Wednesday that it is “pausing the use of personal cups and ‘for here’ ware in our stores” due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, and Dunkin’ and Tim Hortons quickly followed suit. That secondhand side-eye doesn’t just apply to coffee containers. Given the rapid, worldwide spread of COVID-19 — the severe respiratory disease caused by this new coronavirus — all manner of reuse habits that just a few months ago might have been considered environmentally virtuous now invoke the same kind of germaphobic fear response as a public coughing fit. Renting clothes so you don’t have to buy new ones that you’ll only wear once or twice? Rent the Runway updated its frequently asked questions last week to reassure concerned customers that “there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 can be transmitted from soft surfaces like fabric or carpet to humans.” Shopping with a reusable bag to avoid single-use plastics? A local news station in Buffalo ran a segment warning viewers to wash or disinfect their bags between each use, citing research showing that a completely different type of virus can be transmitted from reusable bags to other parts of a grocery store via shoppers’ hands. Reusing goods and packaging as many times as possible, instead of disposing of them and then buying new ones, is one of the greenest practices there is. It prevents energy and resources from being spent on manufacturing and shipping new stuff. It diverts old stuff from landfills and oceans. These facts are at the heart of the so-called zero-waste movement, which has spawned books, blogs, and package-free stores in recent years. And there have been promising recent signs of a burgeoning “circular economy” — that is, a no- or low-waste system that encourages reuse rather than disposal. ThredUp, an online secondhand clothing store, grew from receiving 4 million clothing items for resale in 2014 to 21 million in 2018. In 2019, fast-casual chain Just Salad says it diverted 75,000 pounds of plastic from landfills with its $1 reusable bowls, which customers wash at home and then bring back to be filled with salad again. Last May, Terracycle launched Loop, an online store that sells groceries and household items in reusable packaging that shoppers return to Loop once they’re empty in exchange for a deposit. But can the circular economy continue to grow during what some epidemiologists are already calling a pandemic? Reusable or secondhand items are unlikely to spread the novel coronavirus, as long as they’re washed or disinfected in between uses. But new items come with an aura of cleanliness, while reusable and secondhand goods often fight the perception of being unsanitary. The key to encouraging reuse at a time when coronavirus infection numbers are rising might be recognizing that neither stereotype is true. “No disposable package is today sterile, just to be explicitly clear,” said Tom Szaky, the founder and CEO of TerraCycle in an interview with Grist. Different kinds of disposable packaging have different microbial limits set by independent standard-setting organizations — and unless a product is explicitly marked sterile, none of those limits are zero. That means a certain level of bacterial contamination is considered acceptable and inevitable. Take a disposable plastic bottle, Szaky said. “That bottle is going to be moving through a bottle plant. It’s going to be put onto a pallet. That whole process is being touched and dust is being collected on it,” he said. “In no way should you take the message from me that a disposable package is dangerous … It’s just not surgically sterile and not even close.” For Béa Johnson, the author of Zero-Waste Home, one of the founding texts of the zero-waste movement, the hygienic uncertainty in the supply chain is one reason she prefers a reusable water canteen to disposable water bottles. “With disposables, you have no idea who has touched it. With your own reusables, you do!” she wrote in an email to Grist. “Being afraid of reusables is as ridiculous as being afraid of Corona beer,” Johnson added. So why do we tend to think of plastic packaging as being sanitary when it’s not? Szaky traces that idea to the 1950s, when the oil industry first introduced disposable plastic packaging and goods. “Disposability brought about unparalleled affordability and convenience. Moving from a plate you had to wash — probably by hand, because there weren’t even dishwashers then — to a disposable plate you could throw away was massively liberating and also very cheap,” Szaky told Grist. “And I think what ended up happening is people got this misperception that wrapping something in plastic also made it more sanitary.” Loop’s circular model is aimed at doing away with the stereotype that packaging has to be disposable to be sanitary. Szaky emphasized that the process of rewashing Loop’s reusable packaging is “at the most sophisticated level washing can be.” The cleaning facility “looks like a silicon wafer factory,” he told Grist. But Vineet Menachery, an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, says that level of sophistication isn’t necessary to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Depending on temperature and humidity, coronaviruses can survive on hard surfaces like steel or plastic for two to nine days — but only if you don’t do anything to stop them. “Relatively minor cleaning will actually dissolve or destroy the virus, and so if you use anything with between 60 and 70 percent ethanol, the virus will be destroyed in less than 60 seconds,” Menachery told Grist. When it comes to reusable cups, mugs, and plates, plain old soap and water does the trick. “If you’re regularly cleaning stuff, you should be fine,” Menachery said. “My house, we have three kids, so we’re running the dishwasher all the time. I wouldn’t expect any virus to survive a dishwasher.” As for secondhand or shared clothing —or cloth napkins — Menachery said people are unlikely to get COVID-19 from fabric because “if the surfaces absorb, it’s harder to transmit the virus.” But again, washing fabric with detergent and water will destroy the coronavirus. I asked Menachery about the likelihood of contracting COVID-19 from a shared or secondhand object like a library book or a secondhand appliance from Craigslist. “A Clorox wipe or something like that would definitely dissolve the virus,” he said, though he added that those products might be hard to find right now. As for reusable shopping bags, Menachery said he’d used one himself at the grocery store recently. “I’d be less worried about my shopping and more worried about maybe the touch screen when you’re punching in your codes for the ATM or whatever,” he said. In other words: Buying new rather than secondhand won’t protect you from COVID-19. You’re more likely to get coronavirus buying something new that got coughed on by the last person to walk down the aislethan from a secondhand item that’s been washed with soap and water or wiped down with sanitizing wipes. The bottom line, Menachery said, is that the best way to avoid getting COVID-19 from an inanimate object — whether it’s new or used —is not to touch your eyes, nose, or mouth after you touch it. “The inanimate object could be coated,” he said. “And as long as you don’t bring it to the mucosal surface, it’s hard to get infected that way.” Regardless of how long the coronavirus epidemic lasts, the problems of environmental degradation, climate change, and plastic pollution will still be with us when it ends. So Szaky says, don’t take coronavirus as a sign you need to give up your vintage clothing habit or avoid shopping at a package-free store. “That’s really important for the environment to do, and we shouldn’t suddenly forsake that because of all the fear around this particular issue,” said Szaky.

For several generations of young Americans, the idea of a ‘milkman’ is a completely foreign concept. But if you lived in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and you were in the middle-class, you likely had a delivery truck dropping off fresh bottles of milk on your front porch—and you would leave the empties outside to be picked up. It was super convenient—and, better yet, there was no waste generated in the process. With tons of plastic containers overrunning landfills, and an innovative partnership of consumer brands emerging, the milkman idea of circulating containers is making a comeback. Loop launched in Paris and New York one year ago as a company that ships customers their favorite products packaged in reusable stainless steel or glass containers to be collected later for cleaning and refilling—just like your grandfather’s milk. They quickly expanding their operation to cover much of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region, and this month Loop will be bringing their pioneering business model to the UK, a move they hope will make them the biggest eliminator of single-use plastics in the global grocery market. They also announced plans to expand soon into Canada, Germany, and Japan. Loop teamed up with some of the biggest consumer industry giants to create eco-versions of hundreds of popular products like Tropicana, Haagen-Dazs, or Hellmann’s mayonnaise; cleaning products like Tide and Clorox wipes; and skin and hair care essentials like deodorants, from companies like Dove, Pantene, L’Oreal, and Crest. Procter & Gamble, Loop’s biggest partner, which also owns a 2 percent stake in the enterprise, tapped into 10 of its most iconic brands as part of the Loop 2019 launch, including Ariel, Cascade, Crest, Febreze, Gillette, Pantene, Pampers, and Tide, according to GreenBiz. Image by Loop Stateside, the refillable products are available at Kroger and Walgreens, in addition to the online Loop store, and they cost nearly the same as their plastic counterparts, except for the cost of a deposit. Founded by the brilliant recycling company TerraCycle, Loop plans to expand across the U.S. this year where more consumers in specific zip codes can place empties inside their Loop insulated zipper tote on the doorstep—to be picked up, washed, and reused. In France, where Loop has already partnered with Carrefour—one of the largest grocery chains in Europe, consumers pay a small deposit on the items purchased, in case the packages aren’t returned later. This includes small bottles, where a deposit might only be a few cents, or large tubs that might contain laundry soap or paper towels. 1953 photo by Ben van Meerendonk / AHF, collectie IISG, Amsterdam When asked about the hefty carbon footprint of shipping the products all over the country and then shipping them back for washing and refilling, Loop’s founder, the mastermind of Terracycle, Tom Szaky, explained that if you add up all the energy and shipping it takes to create and distribute plastic, the carbon footprint is cut in half—plus you are digging up the actual root of the plastic problem, so it can be eliminated. Furthermore, as drone delivery technology becomes more and more feasible in major cities, delivery will become much cheaper and more energy efficient. Companies like DHL, UPS, Amazon, Google, Dominoes, Rakuten, and 7-11 all have drone-delivery technology. According to the Business Insider 2018-2020 report on online grocery shopping, 10% of consumers utilize online grocery store options, while the market value of these services doubled from $12 billion in 2016 to $26 billion in 2018 and shows no sign of slowing down. It’s possible that in the next ten years thanks to companies like Loop, all the benefits of the friendly neighborhood milkman will be resurrected to create a healthier planet for all.  

#FashionCrisis is a series that kicks off the Style section's commitment to educating our readers about sustainability and fashion. We chat with experts, influencers, designers, beauty and fashion brands about what it really means to be sustainable in 2020. In this story, we learn more about what exactly it means to be sustainable in the beauty industry.   Years ago I would roll my eyes at brands that promised to be cruelty-free, phthalate-free, three-free — free of everything, it seemed, including my attention. They had clunky packaging, weak ingredient lists that my cystic acne would scoff at, vampiric shade ranges, and forgettable branding. I just wanted products that did what they promised, a high enough order to keep me busy; concerning myself with products that did what they promised without doing a bunch of other things felt like too much to ask.   But the industry needle has been moving without me, and so has, unfortunately, the crisis of climate change. The stuff that beauty fans love is, in fact, connected to the climate crisis, because the $532 billion dollar industry that we support is implicitly linked to other industries that pollute the earth. The beauty industry contributes 120 billion units of packaging a year, according to some estimates, and the shipping industry, an integral part of the process, contributes more than 1 billion tons of CO2 a year — and this is just the world's merchant fleet, not accounting for freight or air shipping.   But more beauty brands are finding ways to minimize the impact they leave on the world when they make products. The “clean beauty” movement was worth $11 billion in 2016 and will likely be worth more than twice that by 2025. Clean beauty promises have gotten more complicated: Not only do they vow to hydrate or solve acne issues, for example, many of them are cruelty-free, vegan, water-free, and sustainable. But what does that even mean in 2020?  

What does “sustainable” beauty mean?

  There are many different standards for what sustainable beauty looks like, and hundreds of eco-labels around the world, with 66 relevant to cosmetics and personal care. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that “under U.S. law, cosmetic products and ingredients do not need FDA approval before they go on the market,” and cites color additives as the only exception to this rule, though the agency will take action if it has “reliable information” regarding the safety of a particular product. Otherwise, individual companies are tasked with the legal responsibility of making sure their products are safe to use, and eco-labels are a very helpful way for you to know they’ve been tested by somebody.   Thoroughly sustainable brands often aim for a quartet of eco-labels: recyclable, cruelty-free certification from Leaping Bunny, certification for good business practices (like Fair Trade or B-Corp), and organic ingredients. To use the official USDA organic label specifically, brands have to comply with strict guidelines, available here.   According to a former beauty industry marketer we spoke with, brands can put “cruelty-free” on their packaging, but not Leaping Bunny certification if they have parent companies that test in China. If selling in physical stores in China, products have to undergo animal testing, even if the company doesn’t do animal testing anywhere else: “Brands are careful about how they phrase things for customers. My old brand wouldn’t put sustainable, but would call themselves...eco-forward, to let consumers know they were trying, but weren’t there yet.”   Many official eco-labels cover only specific products and not the entire company roster. They are largely voluntary accreditations, not industry requirements. B-corp brands must achieve a minimum score on a test that assesses impact on workers, customers, community, and the environment using the UN’s sustainable development goals as a benchmark. It’s one of the most rigorous accreditations a company can apply for. The Body Shop, a pioneer in sustainable beauty, is one of only a few brands that are B-corp certified, along with Davines and Dr. Bronners.  

Natural beauty, organic, clean beauty, and waterless beauty are all different.

  There is no official FDA definition of “organic” cosmetics, and so-called “natural” products aren’t necessarily better for your skin; some popular nature-derived cosmetics ingredients can still cause a bad reaction for people with certain skin types. According to the FDA, cosmetics labeled “organic” have to adhere to both USDA and FDA regulations. For example, a product has to be composed of at least 95% organic ingredients to have the USDA organic label on it. That’s why brands that claim to be organic often don’t have a label; a lotion may be composed of 75% organic ingredients but is not permitted to use the official logo.   A newer trend is “waterless beauty,” a term from South Korea that refers to products supposedly containing no water, according to Formula Botanica, a company that offers courses and certificates in organic cosmetics science. Generally these products have concentrated formulas, implying a bigger impact on skin. Reducing the amount of water waste is an important part of how we can all contribute to a smaller ecological footprint — by 2050 5 billion people may face water shortages — but even if a product arrives with no “aqua” listed in the ingredients, it’s highly unlikely that it has no water footprint. Brands think waterless beauty translates to shoppers believing it’s a more sustainable product, but the harvesting of ingredients, packaging, and shipping beauty products require water in some form or another, as pointed out by Formula Botanica, not to mention that you may end up diluting it with tap water at home.   Charlotte Parker, the CEO of Dieux Skincare and cofounder of Nice Paper, has spent the past few years learning the ins and outs of clean beauty loopholes, while developing her own brand alongside a dermatologist. “If your product is waterless and ‘all natural,’ how do you think that crop was made? With GMO-free good wishes? It takes water to grow a plant,” says Parker. “If I use a synthetic ingredient, with 10 ml of water, I can tell you that barbari fig seed oil took a hell of a lot more water to grow, clean, and process.”   “More frustrating is the waterless beauty that actually has water in it,” Parker continues. “There are two workarounds that I’ve seen brands do. They’ll add ‘extract,’ or ‘proprietary blend,’ which means you can just add water to any active on the supplier side, and then your lab can legally put it first on the list, conveniently not mentioning there's water in that proprietary juice. They also switch out water for hydrosols. Hydrosols are perfumed water. Hydrosols are made during the essential oil process; it takes a lot of water to create both essential oils and hydrosols.”   A vegan brand does not mean the labor practices are ethical or that the supply chain is transparent and sustainable, and all brands have an ecological footprint, so the concern is how they counteract their impact on the environment. All these terms are moving targets.  

Packaging problems.

  We’ve got a big learning curve to deal with if we want to be more responsible consumers, and it starts with learning more about what to do with things we already own. Recycling is complicated enough that a few brands, like Versed, have released recycling guides to help make it easier. If you’ve been throwing half-full beauty products into the bin, you get zero cookies for the effort, because residual product in containers renders a lot of recycling contaminated. Here is a comprehensive list of things to just put in the wastebasket instead:   Mirrors are not recyclable because of the reflective coating. “If your mirror is in good condition, consider wrapping it up safely and donating it. If it’s broken, consider a craft project,” advises Elizabeth Schussler of the Recycling Partnership.   Most available pumps are not recyclable. While researching this story, we discovered only one recyclable pump on the market, which isn’t to say a major brand has incorporated it yet. Pumps are composed of several different parts, so you need to fully disassemble them.   Applicators are not recyclable either. Mascara wands, however, can be donated, after being washed, for use in wildlife rescue efforts. Cloud Nine also has a mail-in recycling program for heat tools for hair.   Makeup brushes are generally not recyclable, even if they are composed of primarily eco-friendly materials. Vegan brushes still have to use virgin plastic. You can go for synthetic brushes made sustainably, like EcoTools, and send your old ones to recycling programs that specialize in beauty brushes.   Depressingly, the color of plastic or glass containers can matter too, even if it’s a technically recyclable material. “There are some packages that are more recyclable. It depends on size, shape, material, and color,” explains Schussler. “The machines [that] sort the plastic are ‘reading’ the plastic and divide it, but there are colors and materials that catch it off guard.” Black plastic is hard to recycle because the sorters don’t recognize the color. For example, don’t just toss LUSH containers into your recycling bin; instead, bring them back to the store, if possible. The brand reuses them as part of its programming.   A film or coating can also render something unrecyclable. Anything that is flexible or squeezable is difficult to recycle because it has multiple layers. (Summer Fridays does, however, have a specialized recycling program.) And those free samples you get? They are unsurprisingly terrible for the environment. “Packages that are smaller than a small soda can, for instance, have a hard time making it through the line even if they are recyclable,” says Schussler.   Single use products are bad for the environment too. “Beauty products made to use once and throw out, like makeup wipes and sheet masks, create a lot of unnecessary refuse,” Susan Stevens, the founder and CEO of Made With Respect, told Vogue last year. “In the case of sheet masks, there’s a pouch, the mask, and sometimes the mask is wrapped in a plastic sheet. The pouches that hold sheet masks are often a combination of aluminum and plastic, which cannot be recycled.”  

All retailers have different standards for what sustainable beauty means.

  Since there are few compulsory regulations for brands to adhere to, retailers may have their own guidelines for what clean beauty or sustainability is when stocking their stores. ULTA has a “natural beauty” category but doesn't appear to have an explainer on its website about what constitutes inclusion in that category. The company also doesn't appear to have clearly outlined sustainability benchmarks available. Teen Vogue has reached out to ULTA for comment. Sephora uses recyclable paper bags, and defines clean beauty as being free of specific ingredients, which they do outline on their website. When reached by Teen Vogue for comment, the company explained it has begun rolling out a recycling program at specific stores but has not made it a universal policy: “In 2019, Sephora piloted a regional empties bring-back program in select stores, to divert empty containers from landfills, through which clients could receive 15% off all Sephora Collection items when they brought in three full-size empties of Sephora-sold products. There are plans to roll out this initiative to more stores in the near future.”   Other retailers have started to pop up exclusively in the clean beauty space. There is the Detox Market, Ayla, as well as BLK+GRN, which specializes in black-owned beauty brands. Credo, a retailer established in 2015, exclusively sells what it considers clean products, and is thus far the only major beauty retailer to offer a recycling-and-rewards program as part of its brick-and-mortar operations. “On average, each store sends six to eight bins per month back to Terracycle to recycle, so about 65 bins per month. Our customers use this service and love it, and they get Credo loyalty points for participating too,” says Credo’s director of social responsibility, Mia Davis. “We spend a significant amount of staff time and money sending back these materials because it is very important that we do our part to reduce our industry's footprint.”   Individual brands such as Kiehls offer trade-in programs in exchange for a discount, or have paired with third-party recycling businesses like Terracycle; however, brand-specific recycling programs generally only accept their brand partners’ packaging. The one Terracycle program that accepts all mailed-in beauty packaging is cosponsored by Garnier, but when we tried to sign up, we were put on a wait-list, and in the course of reporting for this piece, we have yet to be moved up the list for the program. Credo and Deciem’s recycling programs are the ones that currently accept beauty packaging from multiple brands, but you have to physically go to their stores.   Very few brands have an entirely closed-loop chain, and just because they offer one does not mean there is a significant percentage of customers who participate in recycling/refilling their products. Loop, one such limited program trying to make it more common, partnered with some of the biggest brands on the market, including the Body Shop, Pantene, Degree, and Dove. But the program is only available in a limited geographic region and also has a wait-list. The closed-loop packaging here is not available outside of the program, and it requires a packaging deposit to use.   Sustainability is the goal, but thus far not any one brand can lay claim to being 100% sustainable. Thirty-four percent of Americans recycle, and facility capabilities differ from neighborhood to neighborhood. As a result, only 9% of plastics end up being recycled. It’s not our fault as individuals; even if a product is recyclable, it doesn’t mean a community has the ability to get the product recycled.  

Brands that stand out:

  There are more brands than ever trying to tick all the boxes for sustainable sourcing and packaging. Axiology, Acure, Earth Tu Face, Ethique, Fat and the Moon, Meow Meow Tweet, Kjaer Weis are all trying to encompass the goals of sustainability, though each company goes about it in different ways: Some use refillable packaging, others use recyclable packaging, and their products have different price points and uses. One brand I tried in the course of reporting for this piece was by Humankind, which offers beautifully designed bathroom essentials in solid, no-waste packaging and refillable containers. Using solid shampoo is a steep learning curve for me, but it has made travel a lot easier, and minimized the number of products I bring with me. (I admit, I feel smug looking at how beautifully minimal my shower is now.) And the products are no more expensive than my comparable, nonsustainable alternatives; in fact, they’re half as expensive as my former prestige-brand products.   Not to be left behind, luxury brands are dipping their toes into the refillable market. Dior, Hermes, by Kilian, Frederic Malle, Hourglass, Chanel, and Le Labo all have refillable options, and Mugler has offered refills at perfume fountains since 1992. But if you don’t use those brands, you can also purchase a refillable atomizer and buy decanted perfumes from resellers like the Perfumed Court, which does offer proof of authenticity.  

It might do all that and still not be accessible.

  The sunk cost for ethical ingredients and packaging, eco-label certification, and ethically sourced labor means these products tend to be more expensive, so much so that it makes being able to afford a “choice” of beauty products a class issue. As Allure reported last year, “Basic skin-care products from popular clean beauty brands typically cost more than $40, and treatment formulas can hit triple digits — that’s about 35% of a standard week’s paycheck (before taxes) for somebody making the federal minimum wage. The fallout: Those with lower incomes, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color, don’t have the option of avoiding certain chemicals in their beauty routines.”   Even beauty companies that try to provide sustainable options often fail to reach a variety of consumers, and people of color often feel left behind by the sustainable beauty movement.   Beauty consumer Lina White explains, “I’m still on the hunt for sustainable products that also cater to a diverse client base. And I can’t just slap on some aloe or rose water or homemade toothpaste and pray my cystic acne away, you know? Sometimes I need the hard stuff.” The reality is that some ingredients don’t have reliable alternatives yet, and the lack of regulation around certain claims made by specific products can make customers more suspicious of new ones when they arrive.   As another beauty consumer, Julia Sevin, puts it: “I don't think any consumer believes that all makeup corporations have their best interests in mind for cost, quality, or environmental impact. But what's the alternative? No makeup? Rough.”   Brands are motivated by the combination of profits and consumer behavior, so the more we demand change with our dollars, the faster the system will adapt to suit the changing world. But it’s not — and never has been — just up to us.

提高供应链的循环水平。包括使用回收材料，延长产品的生命周期，提高产品回收率等。美国新泽西州的TerraCycle公司就发起了一个“循环”计划，它与雀巢公司等知名品牌合作，专门提供可以回收和再利用的包装物——比如装冰淇淋的杯子等等。

Hunting for the next Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) doesn’t necessarily mean you’re searching for the next big consumer tech explosion. “The next Amazon” largely means finding the next high-growth stock of the future. And the earlier you invest in these companies, the bigger the gains. Few options can beat privately traded firms in this regard, but private investing has historically held a high barrier to entry.       Does your net worth exceed $1 million (not including your primary residence)? Do you make more than $200,000 per year ($300,000 if you file taxes jointly with your spouse)? If you do, congratulations! You’re an accredited investor and can invest in private businesses.   If not, don’t fret. You can still invest in privately traded companies through equity crowdfunding … but, boy, if there were ever an area of the market that felt as if it were pioneered by the likes of Saul Goodman, it’s regulation crowdfunding.   That’s because regulation crowdfunding stipulates that firms raise no more than $1.07 million … per year. This severely hampers the quality of offerings, as few startups worth investing in need such small amounts of cash. Regulation A+ offerings, though, can raise substantially more. So when looking through offerings, I stuck to swiping through companies in the latter category … and I stumbled on an anomaly in TerraCycle.   Now I’m sure many of you have heard of this company in passing before, but what caught my eye was the amount it’s raised ($12 million) and the revenue it already brings in ($20 million in 2018).   By the end of its funding round, TerraCycle hopes to raise $25 million. Just what is this company that I’ve never heard of and how is it that it’s already profitable. And why does it continue to attract so much cash from everyday people?  

What Is TerraCyle?

  TerraCycle’s main concept is “recycle everything.” With that, you can tell it’s not your ordinary recycling business. TerraCycle springboards off of the sustainability trend, making #RecycleEverything a creed to live by, and not simply a corporate motto.   The firm wants to eliminate the idea of waste, which it does by recycling things that were previously un-recyclable. It can recycle waste such as your red wine-stained corks, crooked cigarette butts, dirty diapers and even your acid-leaking batteries.   By this measure alone, TerraCyle’s claim is a godsend if it actually does what it says.   Per-capita solid waste generation has grown tremendously in the decades since 1960, until it trended sideways nearing the early aughts. In the 1960s, the average individual produced 2.68 pounds of waste per day. But by the 1990s, a person could expect to create 4.57 pounds of trash each day.     Household waste consists of (typically) paper and other paper-made materials, such as packaging (think of all those Amazon packages you discard each week). Sure, paper is recyclable, but tell that to the landfills that play host to 17.6 million tons of paper in a year. With that kind of waste, it’s no surprise the global waste management market is expected to increase 60% by 2025.   Its mission to erase waste and transform previously land-filled goods into new materials is a value proposition both consumers and corporations can get behind. But TerraCycle still has to do the legwork of winning over consumers with its promise of sustainability.  

What Does TerraCycle Do?

  TerraCycle works by offering free recycling programs across the globe and in partnership with many large companies. Some of its partner brands include Arm & Hammer, Barilla, Bausch + Lomb, Brita, Colgate and Hasbro (NASDAQ:HAS). Here’s how it works:   Customers simply search for a recycling program that match their lifestyle, and those of their community members, and sign up. Say you sign up for its Brita recycling program (free of charge). You can start collecting Brita filters, pitchers, bottles and more in your home, school or office. Some brands even provide reward points for participating.   Once you’ve collected at least 5 pounds (the amount necessary to keep down greenhouse gas emissions), you ship your package to TerraCycle. The company then separates the products by composition and makes new recycled products out of them.   TerraCycle’s unique methods yield some fantastic results. Through upcycling, the company has sewn juice pouches together to create book bags. It’s even able to make casual shoes out of used chip bags. When it comes to good ol’ fashioned recycling, the company claims to recycle more than 97% of the waste that comes through its doors. Through programs like its cigarette waste program, TerraCycle is able to collect tobacco from used cigarettes for future composting.   Further, the company’s Zero Waste Box platform skips the landfill and the incinerator to free communities of their single-use lifestyles. Through this program, participants can recycle pretty much anything with TerraCycle’s highly specific Waste Boxes. These are great for businesses, who can even house their Zero Waste platform inside a “permanent collection unit” right on their property.   It’s hard to believe this company started by selling a sustainable fertilizer made from worm poop.  

TerraCycle Loop

  Loop is the part of TerraCycle’s business that excites me the most. With Loop, consumers pay a small, refundable deposit for a Loop tote. This tote is chock-full of whatever brands’ items the consumer chooses, featuring things like Tide laundry detergent, Pantene shampoos, Gillette razors, Febreze and more, all made from sustainable materials.   Once you’ve finished using your items, simply leave the tote outside your door and schedule a free pickup. TerraCycle will clean, refill and return your desired products back to you in the same Loop tote. Talk about service.   The big challenge TerraCycle’s Loop faces is in getting people to buy into its vision for a sustainable future. Single-use materials are ingrained in society, and the worldwide history of plastic production and use shows the trend.   In the 1950s, plastic production worldwide was just 2 billion metric tons. By 2017, it soared 315% to 8.3 billion metric tons. And by 2050, it’s projected to hit 34 billion metric tons.   The amount of plastic waste, however, will fall out of step with production as wasted plastics are projected to rise from 6.3 billion metric tons in 2015 to 12 billion metric tons in 2050. The ratio of produced plastics to wasted plastics being far, far less in 2050 than presently.   But does this mean TerraCycle is a good investment?  

Is TerraCycle ‘The Next Amazon’?

  The world is changing its tune on climate risks, which portends good things for TerraCycle’s stock offering on StartEngine. A 2019 study found that 19% of respondents are “passionately” attempting to limit their use of one-time plastics and convince others. Another 32% are actively changing their daily plastic habits. Only 16% are unsure of, or don’t care about, single-use plastics.   While climate risk awareness isn’t growing at the pace most would like, it is growing. The 2020 election will be a huge determiner of whether that growth picks up in a meaningful way or stalls. President Donald Trump’s perspective on climate change is non-existent, but a President Bernie Sanders would do wonders for institutional policies on climate change.   Still, it’s not unusual to see other sustainability-first companies rocket into the headlines. Take Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) and its plant-based meat. BYND shares have popped some 50% in the past year, and that’s in spite of a steep drop from the late-July high.   Consumers are making it known that they want their companies to be more climate-minded, and now even investors aren’t afraid to vote with their wallets. In our InvestorPlace Q&A, Legal & General’s chief executive Nigel Wilson talked about L&G’s Climate Impact Pledge. This initiative aims to set more companies on a sustainable path by divesting from stocks whose leaders have not met L&G’s base guidelines for sustainability. Even companies like McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) and Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) have made climate-friendly bids to rid their restaurants of plastic straws and cups.   For TerraCycle to become the next great stock to invest in, it has to become the sustainable waste management company. Right now, it certainly has no peer.   John Kilhefner is the managing editor of InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing, Kilhefner did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned companies. If you have questions about the site or suggestions about our content, email us at editor@investorplace.com. Want to pitch us an article? Send your ideas and tips to investorplacestories@gmail.com, and if we like it, you’ll hear back from us!  

Take, make, use, dispose. For decades, this has been the standard approach to production and consumption. Companies take raw materials and transform them into products, which are purchased by consumers, who ultimately toss them out, creating waste. But as warnings about climate change and environmental degradation grow ever louder, people are starting to challenge the sustainability of this model. Many business leaders and governments — including China, Japan, and the U.K.—argue that we should ditch this linear system in favor of a so-called circular economy of take, make, use, reuse, and reuse again and again.

What’s wrong with the linear economy?

It often leads to a system that is inefficient, costly, and depletes natural resources. The mining of commodities from gold to coal can spoil ecosystems and disrupt nearby communities. Making steel from ore requires a large amount of energy, which produces Earth-warming carbon dioxide. A byproduct of the linear model is material waste, which takes up space and may include contaminants. Trash ends up in undesirable places. The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch is only the most well-known example of global-scale plastic pollution. Yet products like steel and plastic can be reused, refurbished and recycled to capture untapped value. A totally circular economy—with no waste and no new materials at all—is likely impossible to achieve, but squeezing the maximum waste out of the system could curtail use of new resources.

Sounds like recycling. How’s it different?

The two ideas are connected, but they’re not the same. The phrase “circular economy” pops up in the work of a few resource economists dating back at least to the 1980s. Its use in recent years has come to connote an approach that’s more systemic and ambitious than recycling. For example, to maintain quality, plastic bottle makers need to blend recycled plastic with virgin material. Instead, a truly circular economy would involve no new material inputs at all, reducing emissions, waste, and eventually costs. Some industries are already coming close to this—almost all of a car can be reclaimed, for example. But some have far to go—97% of the materials used to make clothing are brand new, and 73% of these products are incinerated or put into a landfill. This isn’t a totally new idea—the slogan “make do and mend” was popularized during World War II to encourage as little waste as possible.

Is anyone skeptical?

Yes. Making a production cycle fully self-sufficient is virtually impossible. Some new input will always be necessary, and some waste will always be created. Recycling paper over and over, for example, produces paper of increasingly low quality. Also, building a circular economy can entail high upfront costs, requiring investment to redesign products and switch to recycled materials. The U.K. estimates the cost of shifting to a circular economy to be about 3% of gross domestic product. The expense can feed concerns that companies will go for quick fixes rather longer-term sustainable practices.

What is feasible?

A more circular supply chain. This can mean changing to recycled materials, extending the life-cycle of a product and improving recovery at the end of its life. New Jersey-based TerraCycle has launched the “Loop” initiative, a collaboration with household names such as Nestle to provide common products—ice-cream for example—in packaging that can be returned and refilled. There is a multinational push by General Motors, BMW, and Toyota to create an aftermarket for used electric car batteries, which can be used for chilling beer at 7-Eleven convenience stores in Japan or banking solar energy in Cameroon. And New York startup Rent the Runway offers designer dress hire for events like weddings and galas, allowing clients to dodge one-wear purchases, while earning the company a $1 billion valuation.

What are governments doing?

They’re trying to push consumers and producers toward a more circular economy. The German government offers grants to design products that have a lower environmental impact or are cheap to repair. In Chile, the government said it will aim to make all plastic reusable. The Netherlands is investing $40 million in a special fund that will start financing deforestation-free agriculture, to be matched by a donation from Rabobank Group. The European Commission has a circular economy action plan, which includes transforming the way plastic products are produced and recycled. It’s also part of China’s five-year plan.  

No fim de janeiro participamos ao lado de nosso ex presidente Marcelo Silva da gravação do episódio do Cabeça de Lab sobre as novidades da NRF 2020 que aconteceu no início do ano em NY.