How one company is working to eliminate the very idea of waste   Since 2001, where most of us have seen trash, Tom Szaky has seen potential. From cigarette butts to coffee capsules, Tom set out to recycle the hard-to-recycle products we use. His company, TerraCycle, offers everything from free recycling programs to industrial waste solutions. “But we can’t recycle our way out of the waste crisis,” Eric Rosen, publicist for TerraCycle said. “And [Tom] is the first to say if TerraCycle didn’t exist — or couldn’t exist — he’d be thrilled.” In other words, he would love to see a world where we produced zero waste to begin with. That’s where TerraCycle’s latest venture, Loop, comes in. “The next thing to do was to attack waste at the root cause,” Eric said. “If the economics are good, we can recycle virtually anything. But that’s not going to solve the problem.”   “The next step was to create a circular economy where there’s virtually no waste.” Loop was announced at the World Economic Forum in January 2019, proposing a new model of consumption whereby people can get their favorite home goods, cosmetics, and food products through a sustainable, circular system of pick-up and drop-off using reusable containers. It took off from there. “We immediately had thousands upon thousands of people who went to the website and were waitlisted,” Eric said. “So we knew right away that there was a clamoring for this. And we’ve continued to see that as we grow.” The company launched its pilot program that summer, beginning in Paris on May 14 and New York the following week. “We launched in a handful of states as a pilot,” Eric said. “We could not keep up with the number of requests coming in, like ‘When are you coming to our state?’ Certainly, the waste crisis, sustainability, and climate change are in the news, so people are well aware. There’s a sense now that they want to do something about it.” Loop already has a cleaning facility in Pennsylvania and a warehouse in New Jersey, which made New York a logical place to start. As the company scales, it selects cities within a 24-hour delivery range of both a cleaning facility and a warehouse, particularly for the frozen goods it provides. “We’ll add warehouses and cleaning facilities as we go, but that’s how the places were chosen,” Eric added. Loop will launch in the UK at the end of March, Toronto in June, and Japan towards the end of the year. Next will be Australia in 2021.       Customers receive their orders in a reusable tote and request a pick-up once items are empty. They’re then cleaned and refilled. Photos: Loop   The price of a Loop good is comparable to a regular one, plus a deposit for the packaging. Since it’s reusable, it becomes valuable. Take shampoo, for example. Before, you bought shampoo for its contents; once the bottle was empty, you would toss it. “In this instance, now the company owns the package and the package is an asset,” Eric said. “Customers put a deposit down on each pack. When that pack comes back, the deposit is returned to the consumer.” This deposit essentially sits in an account. You can opt to let it remain there as you continue to buy products through Loop; or, once you’re done, you can request the deposit back.   The brand owns the package, so they want that package back. This inherently makes the process a circular one, removing waste from the equation. While Loop is currently e-commerce only, “we will be in-store at some point in 2020 in the United States,” Eric explained. With retail partners like Kroger and Walgreens stateside, Carrefour in Paris and Loblaws in Canada, you might find a Loop aisle at a grocer near you. “The process will work virtually the same,” Eric said. “You’ll be able to bring your shipping tote into the store, where there will be an aisle with all the Loop products and packaging.” You shop, pay for the product, and bring it home, as you would any other pet food or ice cream pint. Then, as soon as you finish the pack, you bring it back. That store would then send it back to Loop to be cleaned, sanitized, refilled, and shipped back out to another consumer. In many ways, Loop seems like the future. But it draws on our current thinking and behavior — and a model that dates back to the 1950s. “When you finish your normal plastic shampoo, consumers are pretty accustomed at this point to dropping it in the blue bin. Now, as opposed to dropping that in that bin, you just drop it back into shipping tote.”   “We don’t want to change behavior. That becomes a much harder proposition.” Loop isn’t the first to discover the effectiveness of the pick-up/drop-off model. Remember the milkman? “We were seeing that model up until the 1950s when all of a sudden we turned to all of this disposable packaging for convenience. Obviously we’ve created so much waste that it’s no longer effective.   “The idea behind Loop is exactly that: it’s the milkman model where the brand owns the pack and we come collect it, sanitize it, and fill it again.” But instead of homogenous glass bottles, companies are investing in containers you want to show off. “One of the things we’re finding is that people appreciate and want these packs because they’re so pretty. Like the Pantene bottles: people want to leave them on a counter.” Loop has very specific specs companies need to adhere to when creating packaging. Aesthetics is “not a requirement, but it certainly is playing a role in how these are being designed.” Most importantly, they need to be durable, cleanable, and circular (by having an end-of-life solution). “It’s not necessarily material,” Eric said. “Plastic is not necessarily the demon, it’s the single-use that’s the problem. So these packs have to be durable.” “Häagen-Dazs, which has made an absolutely beautiful pack, had a whole R&D team develop it. We have designers at Loop who can help develop the packaging, but, depending on the size of the company, some are big enough to do it on their own.” Just how durable these containers are varies from company to company. “Obviously these containers are going to get banged up,” Eric said. “And it’s up to the company to determine when they want to take them out of circulation. When that time comes, the containers themselves are recyclable. They’ll be turned back into themselves by TerraCycle.” Eric said the company is working on a public-facing Life-Cycle Assessment, which will highlight the environmental benefits of these containers—transportation costs included—as opposed to single-use packaging that most often ends up in landfills. Ultimately, the dream would be to have a whole store filled with reusable product containers. “We would create an entirely circular economy,” he said. “There would be absolutely no waste. That is the ultimate goal.” TerraCycle’s next project with this goal in mind? ReDyper, a partnership in which parents send in soiled Dyper diapers to TerraCycle’s facility for composting. It was announced this week.  

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.

A significant number of consumers are influenced by sustainability concerns when deciding what to buy. And they’re embracing the concept of a circular economy—as long as it’s convenient. Those are some of the findings of a recent report called Learning from Consumers: How shifting demands are shaping companies’ circular economy transition from the financial services firm ING. The research, conducted by Longitude, a division of the Financial Times Group, surveyed 15,000 consumers in 11 countries across Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America during the second half of 2019. The focus was on fashion, food and electronics sectors. “A lot more people feel empowered to stop buying something because of its environmental impact,” says Anne van Riel, ING’s head of sustainable finance Americas. At the same time, however, “Many consumers might not know what a circular economy is and the broader relevance in their lives,” she says. The research defined circular economy practices as encompassing reducing the amount of resources used, recycling and reusing them in different ways. The research was done in two steps. One was determining whether sustainability questions are changing consumers’ buying habits. The next was an assessment of whether consumers are taking real circular economy-related actions, like recycling or renting clothing. For the first part, the research found that 83% of consumers believe their behaviors and purchasing choice can have a positive impact on addressing global environmental challenges. Some 59% are influenced by a product’s environmental impact when they decide what to buy. Also more consumers say environmental impact is a highly important factor in their purchasing behavior than is the brand name. And 38% have boycotted food brands because of perceived bad environmental practices. Among 18-24 year olds, it’s 47%.   Barriers But that doesn’t mean consumers are all in on circular models. In fact, the research shows that most of them are perfectly willing to take the necessary steps, as long as they’re convenient. For example, 41% think renting clothes would require a lot more effort and 36% say time is a barrier to repairing devices. Those aren’t the only barriers. There’s the problem of a lack of awareness about how to participate in circular behaviors. For example, only 21% think companies provide detailed information on the overall environmental impact of products. And, of course, also important is the matter of cost. About 54% of consumers choose low-cost fast-fashion clothing over pricier, more durable apparel. As you might expect, decision-making pertaining to environmental and circular economy concerns come up more often for consumers buying apparel and food vs. electronics. But, in any case, the bottom line, according to van Riel, is convenience and cost. “If you make it easy for people, they’ll do it,” she says. “The bigger the inconvenience, the harder it will become to act on it.” Thus, if consumers have to walk 20 blocks to return clothes, they’ll be less likely to repeat that behavior than if the apparel is picked up from their home. She points to recycling pioneer TerraCycle’s Loop initiative as a good example. Its circular shopping system packages products in refillable containers; customers put the empty receptacles in a Loop tote on their doorstep that is picked up by a delivery service, cleaned and returned. Three Types of Consumers The research also grouped consumers into three circular economy-related categories. “Circular champions” prioritize sustainability, but they need better information. They’re the folks who, say, compost at home; “Circular sympathizers” are concerned about the issue, but they’re only likely to adopt new behaviors that don’t significantly disrupt their existing lifestyles. In other words, they’ll buy second-hand clothes because they’re cheaper; and “Circular non-engagers”, which also is the largest group, are less engaged and need non-environmental incentives to change their M.O. Circular practices range from to what extent consumers are influenced by sustainability factors when buying things to whether consumers are adopting reusable food and drinks containers or buying and selling items in second-hand clothing and electronics markets. The research is the third in a series of circular economy-related reports from ING. Previous studies examined how companies are using sustainable financial strategies. That was followed by research into corporate awareness of circular economy issues. “For the third, we decided to go the other way and look at consumer awareness and if they’re making different buying decisions,” says van Riel.

In the roughly eight months since the Loop reusable packaging service has been up and running with pilot e-commerce consumers in select markets, there have been package design hiccups, retailer additions and product-line extensions. As an early adopter in Loop parent company TerraCycle’s home state of New Jersey, I’ve witnessed all of that firsthand. Now, I’m eager for the company to pull off its next planned U.S. milestone: integrating supermarket and drug store locations affiliated with The Kroger Co. and Walgreens into the business model, so customers can drop off empty containers more frequently, without having to ship back or find a UPS location to drop off the rather hefty tote used for deliveries. (Each easily can transport up to 20 or so items, depending on the assortment purchased.) If things go TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky’s way, West Coast stores from Kroger — its various brands including Dillons, Fred Meyer and Ralphs are in 35 states nationwide — will start accepting Loop container returns by mid-2020. East Coast customers will need to wait until the fall, when Walgreens plans to do the same. The idea is Loop accountholders will be able to return empty containers when and where it’s convenient to in-store bins. From there, TerraCycle will orchestrate transportation to facilities where they can be inspected, washed and sanitized prior to being refilled, Szaky said. "You can drop off the product, no matter where you bought it," Szaky told me, when we chatted about Loop’s progress late last year. Through a Loop spokesperson, Kroger and Walgreens declined to comment on their specific plans for the Loop service. Both went public with their Loop partnerships in May. TerraCycle Loop hopes to integrate in-store collection in the U.S. by the middle of 2020. Introduced in January 2019 to much fanfare at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Loop celebrated its first birthday last month, although the service only started delivering to consumers in its launch markets near Paris and New York in May. Its premise was simple: to carry only products that come in reusable, refillable bottles, jugs or cans. Those items are purchased online and delivered to the customer's doorstep via UPS. Loop is available to a "community of thousands" (TerraCycle doesn’t disclose exact numbers) in 10 U.S. states, and new consumer product brands are being added on an almost daily basis — ranging from pantry staples such as the dried chickpeas in my own cabinet to specialty nut butters to personal care items. Close to 150 unique products are available in both France and the United States, where the best-sellers include Häagen-Dazs ice cream (my favorite is the non-dairy coconut caramel blend it's testing), Tide detergent and Clorox wipes. Right now, Loop caters to customers who aren't afraid to spend a little extra on groceries or that have a craving for niche items that might not find their way onto mainstream store shelves. The prices themselves are higher than you would pay in-store for similar items, plus the deposits can add up quickly: I've only got six items at home right now, but my "active" deposit account has a balance of $41. Loop is acting as the bank for that money. Szaky told me that while the current Loop customer may skew high-end or eco-conscious, TerraCycle is seeking to create a mass-market appeal by adding products you'd find in your neighbor's pantry. The Kroger and Walgreen's relationships will be instrumental in making that happen, especially if they become active locally in every place possible. Kroger is the second-largest U.S. retailer and largest grocery supermarket company with more than 2,800 stores; Walgreens, which operates in all 50 states, had close to 9,300 locations as of August. That's an impressive physical footprint. Expansions into the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Japan and Australia are in the works starting in March and over the next two years in close collaboration with prominent retailers in those geographies including Tesco (UK) and Loblaw (Canada). As the service matures, more of these new markets intend to launch an integrated in-store/online version of Loop, with Japan and Australia likely to lead that charge, Szaky said.

The trouble with totes

While TerraCycle may be the primary corporate face of the Loop brand, the important role of retailers in scaling any reusable packaging model should not be downplayed. Partners like Kroger and Walgreens bring inventory and category management expertise, merchandising savvy, pricing know-how, logistics and e-commerce expertise and, of course, existing connections with everyday shoppers. The future role retailers will play in collection will be crucial, as Loop seeks to shrink the amount of time containers spend in the hands of consumers before they are returned and refilled. Right now, that period varies dramatically depending on the product category — on a monthly basis for ice cream, for example, or up to three months for shampoo. Mostly, it depends not just on how quickly a consumer uses up a given product but on whether they decide to wait until a tote is full before a return shipment. Our experience reinforces our belief that this is not just a trend that is going to come and go. One of Loop’s value propositions is that it can help brands better understand consumption habits as it reduces their dependence on single-use packaging. "In our model, we can report on repeat, refill, how long it takes, whether they take advantage of autorefill," said Heather Crawford, vice president of marketing and e-commerce at TerraCycle. Right now, however, it’s difficult to estimate how long containers sit empty in customers’ homes as they transfer items into other receptacles or as they wait to fill up a return tote — the only tote size right now is 19 inches by 16.5 inches by 16 inches. The cushiony inserts that hold the containers can be reconfigured to handle the different sizes and to accommodate the heavy cold pack that's used to transport frozen items before they melt. If there's ice cream in your order, you can only consolidate a half-dozen more items or so into the same shipment. And be careful when you're picking the tote up: An empty tote containing a cold pack weighs more than 15 pounds. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve managed to return just two batches of spent containers in the service’s iconic tote since May. That's in part because I live in a two-person household and I had a tough time finding items that I actually wanted to order — right after I signed up for Loop, my doctor prescribed a food elimination diet that bounced many of the plant-based products in the Loop inventory off my plate. But mostly, I felt guilty about the carbon emissions impact of dispatching a UPS delivery truck to pick up an almost-empty package. Ultimately, I opted for what I considered to be a more eco-friendly option: bringing my return tote to a UPS shipping location while I was out on another errand. But my experience isn’t unique and for some markets, notably Tokyo where people live in much smaller homes with far less storage space, TerraCycle is considering a smaller tote. Adding collection bins at retailers is also likely to reduce the reuse cycle, as consumers will be able to return containers far more frequently. Loop Haagen-Dazs is one of the best selling items on Loop. The shape of the pint jars are designed to withstand 100 cleaning cycles.

Nestle, Reinberger Nut Butter share early learnings

While the Loop products in the United States and France are different, the categories where shoppers are gravitating toward in Loop’s reusable containers are similar, including quick-turn grocery and pantry staples that generate the "highest volume of visible garbage," Crawford said. Loop also has helped generate interest in niche and specialty items, such as the various protein spreads sold by Reinberger Nut Butter, a small food company in the Philadelphia area that was less-than-impressed by its experience selling products through Amazon. Reinberger, which already distributed its mixed nut butter in reusable containers, changed its design to make it lighter and introduced single-nut lines unique to Loop, said Luke Rein, who manages production for the company. Its container isn’t entirely reusable — the aluminum lid needs to be handled differently because of the seal — but as sales grow, it’s addressing that issue. "Ideologically, this matches up well and is a good source of revenue," Rein said. According to Crawford, the average Loop order size is eight to 10 items (far less than what its big tote currently can handle). It’s adding brands on an almost daily basis, after they meet the company’s container design criteria. There have been some snafus with some products. For example, the initial containers for Tide's plant-based Purclean laundry detergent needed to be tweaked when the lids were found to leak, an issue that was annoying for me at home, as the detergent kept oozing down the side of the bottle onto my laundry room shelf. While the U.S. and French markets launched with about 80 products each, new regions likely will have at least 200 products at launch. In our model, we can report on repeat, refill, how long it takes, whether they take advantage of autorefill. At this time, no containers used in the U.S. or France have reached their maximum reuse potential, Crawford said, at which point they will be recycled or upcycled. That includes Nestle’s popular metal Häagen-Dazs ice cream containers, which posed a unique design challenge to the company, according to Steven Yeh, commercialization project manager for the Nestle ice cream team. The shape of the pint-ish-sized jars, designed to withstand 100 cleaning cycles, was rounded to make the ice cream easier to scoop and double-walled both for durability and to keep cold during the delivery process, Yeh said. (As already mentioned, Loop also includes a cold pack in its totes for frozen items.) It took six months to come up with the current container. Nestle’s experience with Loop so far is being used to inform its strategies and perceptions about consumer subscription models. It will test another edition of the reusable metal containers at more than 200 Häagen-Dazs ice cream boutiques across the U.S., where it hopes to allow customers to bring them back for refills, starting in New York. "Our experience reinforces our belief that this is not just a trend that is going to come and go," Yeh said. "It reinforces our commitment to a reusable container. We need to focus even more efforts on this."

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.

Um ano após o lançamento, o serviço de entrega que leva de volta suas embalagens para reutilização está em expansão e em breve você poderá encontrar seus designs de embalagens inovadores nas lojas de varejo.

Every one of our lifestyle choices has a lasting impact on the environment—for better or for worse. Collectively, our decisions are significant and can help steer our relationship with the planet in a more sustainable direction. Choosing refillable product packaging and recycling empties in stores or through programs like Terracycle's Loop are just some of the ways we can make our beauty routines more sustainable, but even the steps we take to care for and style our hair can have a positive influence. To explain more, we had Selena Gomez's hairstylist, Marissa Marino, give us tips to make our hair routine more environmentally-friendly (without sacrificing style). "More than 95% of water usage occurs while you wash your hair, and it all goes down the drain," says Marino. She adds, "There are a lot of clean beauty brands out there, but few who are making an impact in minimizing water waste." This is why she's partnered with WATERL<SS, a brand that focuses on helping to reduce water usage. Below, Marino walks us through seven ways to conserve water while styling your hair. Train your hair Obviously, one of the most effective ways to conserve water is to reduce how much much you wash it. "You can extend the time between wash days, which will reduce the time you spend in the shower and ultimately conserve more water," suggests Marino. The more often you give your hair a break between washes, the more it will adjust to producing less oil. "People with oily hair tend to wash their hair every day," Marino says. "However, washing your hair with shampoo and water daily actually sends a signal to your scalp to produce more oil—leaving you in a vicious cycle." Embrace second-day (or third-day) hair Extending time between washes isn't just better for the environment and your health, but it can actually improve the look of your hair. "For those with curly textures, day two, three, or even five can be the best hair days," explains Marino. "It's nice with your natural oils kick in because it can add great texture." Turn off the faucet while lathering your hair "If you can't reduce your wash days, a simple solution is to turn off the faucet when applying shampoo or conditioner," advises Marino. "You can also fill a small container of water to rinse your hair—this will give you more control on how much goes down the drain." Use dry shampoo right after washing According to Marino, it can be helpful to use dry shampoo right after washing. "Using a dry shampoo like WATERL<SS's No Residue or Foam right after washing your hair will create an instant barrier. It helps repels dirt and grease even before it starts to accumulate," she says. "Plus," she says, "It creates the best texture at the root for the perfect messy ponytail. Don't be shy with the right dry shampoo "There are a lot of myths about dry shampoo," notes Marino. She clarifies that all of it depends on the formula. WATERL<SS No Residue Dry Shampoo leaves no residue," she explains, "and it's buildable throughout the day. It keeps your hair feeling clean and refreshed without the white powder effect we often experience with other dry shampoos." Listen to your hair Many of us can end up washing our hair in the shower out of habit, but this probably isn't what your hair really needs. Marino reminds us that everyone's hair is unique and diverse, so a customized approach is most effective. "Your hair will ultimately tell you when it needs to be washed," she replies when I ask how long someone can go without washing their hair and how many days in a row it's safe to continue applying product onto unwashed hair. "If you're using product to extend your days between washes, I recommend keeping an eye on any scalp irritation—your body is really good at telling you when it needs a change. Use a timer when you shower Marino's final tip is to use a timer on your phone to limit your time in the shower. "An average shower in America is around eight minutes long and uses over 17.2 gallons of water—that's 2.1 gallons a minute!" reveals Marino. "Limiting yourself to two to three minutes can save over 13 gallons of water."

A year ago, a coalition of some of the world’s biggest brands embarked on an experiment: If they started selling everyday products like shampoo in reusable, returnable packaging instead of single-use plastic, would customers buy it? Could a modern version of the milkman model—where customers shop online, and then return empty containers via UPS to be cleaned and refilled for a new customer—make business sense? For brands, the new platform, called Loop, was a radical step to test fundamental changes to how they package and deliver products, driven by consumer pressure to deal with the problem of plastic pollution. The first pilots started in May 2019. The tests have been successful enough that the system is now rapidly expanding and will soon launch in retail stores. [Photo: courtesy Loop] “Companies are looking for new ways to address packaging and reduce waste, and consumers are demanding it,” says Steve Yeh, a project manager at Häagen-Dazs, the Nestlé-owned ice cream brand. The brand committed major resources to developing new packaging for the pilot: a novel stainless steel ice cream canister that’s designed to keep ice cream cold longer. It then can be sent back, sterilized in a state-of-the-art cleaning system, and reused. (It also looks a lot nicer on your counter.) The system is designed to be simple for consumers—in theory, nearly as easy as buying something in a disposable package and throwing that package in the trash. Online orders are delivered in a reusable tote, and when a customer has an empty container, it goes back in the tote, the customer schedules a pickup, the packages are returned for reuse, and the customer gets back a deposit that they paid for the package (or, if they’ve reordered the product, the deposit stays in an account and they don’t pay it again). Despite using heavier packages, more transportation, and cleaning, it has a lower carbon footprint than single-use packaging. And it keeps packages out of landfills and the ocean. “We all know that recycling alone will not be enough,” says Sara Wingstrand, who leads the innovation team at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, an organization focused on the circular economy. “This is a whole new way to actually think about how you can bring products to people.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] In Nestlé’s case, an internal team went through 15 iterations to reach the final design of the ice cream container, which has benefits beyond reducing waste. The package has a double metal lining, so it’s comfortable to hold, but keeps the ice cream inside from melting; it’s also designed to melt a little more quickly at the top, so it’s easier to scoop than it otherwise would be. Rounded edges mean that ice cream doesn’t get stuck in the bottom corners. And it looks better than a disposable package. The aesthetics, surprisingly, have been a bigger driver in the pilot’s success than the environmental benefits. “People actually are attracted to Loop first for design, second for reuse,” says Tom Szaky, CEO of Terracycle, the recycling company that first helped create the coalition of brands to test the platform, who is now also CEO of Loop. “The design is so important to consumers—more than I ever thought it would be.” It’s proof, he says, of what’s possible when the economics of packaging change. “If you go back 100 years and look at what your cookies came in or what your beer came in, it was a significantly greater investment in the package. As we make packaging lighter and cheaper, it becomes less recyclable, essentially growing the garbage crisis. And as we spend less money, [packages] clearly become less exciting and less desirable. The response to Loop is a simple one: Let’s shift ownership of the package in the end back to the manufacturer. And as such, they treat it as an asset and they can start investing in the pack again.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] The investment in the packages means that for the system to work, consumers have to put down a deposit for each container. In the pilot, Loop says that customers haven’t been sensitive to the price. “It’s not money out of your pocket,” says Donna Liu, a customer in New Jersey who has been using the system for several months. After the initial deposit, customers don’t have to pay again as they continue reordering the same products, and they can ultimately get the money back. But the deposits are steep, and would likely deter lower-income customers. In one review, a Huffington Post writer noted that she paid $32 in deposits for only six items (in addition to $20 in shipping, and the cost of the products themselves). Loop says it plans to have the costs come down as the system scales up. “Today, in small scale, it makes no economic sense because everything is inefficient in small scale,” says Szaky. “But a lot of our retail partners and our brand partners have modeled this in large scale. And it’s come out very exciting—it’s going to be able to be executed at scale and not cost the consumer more.” Wingstrand, who is not involved with Loop, notes that some other reusable models are already economically viable at scale, such as reusable water jugs delivered to offices. The e-commerce pilot has faced some challenges. Some customers complained about the small selection of products. Those who live in small apartments don’t like the bulky size of the reusable tote, which has enough padding inside to accommodate 16 wine bottles; one reviewer said that she was forced to use it as an ottoman until she was ready to send packages back. But moving to retail stores could help alleviate these issues. [Photo: courtesy Loop] Today, the online store has more than 150 products, including Tide detergent and Pantene shampoo in stainless steel containers, Nature’s Path granola in glass jars, and products from smaller brands like Reinberger Nut Butter. But that’s a tiny fraction of the hundreds of products online at, say, Walgreens, and one of the biggest questions from customers in the pilot has been when more products will be available. Szaky says that Loop is adding a new brand roughly every two days—but there’s a long development process for new packaging after a company joins. “This is not an overnight thing,” he says. “It takes maybe a year to get a product up and running.” In retail stores, though, customers can pick and choose which Loop products to use. “By the retailer listing in-store, the benefit to the consumer is they can go shop the Loop section, which will grow every day and get bigger and bigger, but whatever they don’t find in the Loop section they can still buy traditionally,” says Szaky. Customers can also avoid the hassle of shipping empty containers back and the size of the reusable tote; for retail returns, customers will toss containers in a reusable garbage bag and then bring them back to the store. It’s still designed to be simpler than traditional refill systems in stores—rather than cleaning and refilling your own container, you bring back dirty containers, drop them off, and buy already-packaged products on the shelf. As with online orders, you’ll pay a deposit on the container and then get it back when the container is returned. [Photo: courtesy Loop] The online pilot launched last May in and around Paris, New York City, and a few nearby areas; the startup has since added Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Rhode Island. It will soon expand to California as well as the U.K., Canada, Germany, and Japan, and will launch in Australia next year. Retail sales will begin later this year with Walgreens and Kroger in the U.S., Carrefour in France, Tesco in the U.K., and Loblaws in Canada. Loop won’t share specific numbers, but says that it’s seeing high numbers of repeat orders from its initial customers. The size of the pilot was limited, but more than 100,000 people applied. The startup envisions the model growing like organic food. “Every store started having a small section dedicated to organic products, but not all products had an organic alternative,” Szaky says. “That’s how it began, then it got bigger and bigger. And some stores like Costco have moved everything over to organic.” He notes that organic food still represents only about 5% of the market, and that has taken decades, but it’s a reasonable comparison. [Photo: courtesy Loop] The number of options will continue to grow. In a recent report, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that converting just 20% of plastic packaging to reusable models is now a $10 billion business opportunity. But Szazky sees it not as an opportunity, but an imperative. As he told Harvard Business Review in a recent interview: “I think that we’re going to see some organizations die because of this. Others will pivot. . . . Some organizations, like Nestlé, Unilever, and P&G, are taking these issues seriously and making the difficult decisions that may negatively impact the short term but lay the foundation to be relevant in the long term. Inversely, organizations—like many big food companies in the U.S.—are blind to what’s coming and will likely be overtaken by startups that are building their business models around the new reality that is emerging.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] For the brands that are pivoting, Loop is helping push them to experiment with reusable packaging. Häagen-Dazs is already using the container it designed for the system in stores in New York City, where customers bring it back an average of 62% of the time. (At the ice cream shops, customers don’t pay a deposit, but buy the container outright and then get discounts on ice cream each time they bring it back.) It now plans to roll out the container in 200 of its other stores. Unilever—which has products from brands like Love Beauty and Planet on the platform and is preparing to launch more products from Seventh Generation, Hellman’s, Dove deodorant, and others this year—is also experimenting with in-store refill systems and partnering with startups like Algramo, a Chile-based company that offers a mobile refill system on electric tricycles. “I think Loop provides a really good platform to start testing reusable packaging without setting everything up yourself,” says Wingstrand. “But I do think it’s very important to go very broad and make sure that not only are you putting and testing new packaging formats on the Loop platform, but you’re also trying to understand how the user might interact with a refill system, or how you might supply things in a compact format, or how you might even completely design out the packaging.”

Look up natural on and you will find a simple definition: “Existing in or formed by nature (opposed to artificial).” So you might think that it should be pretty easy to pick out which cleaning products are natural and which aren’t. Well think again. Just like other things in life — nutrition labels, clothing sizes, dating profiles — the ingredient list on “natural” products can be mighty misleading. But there are brands out there trying to change that.   No, it’s not that brands are trying to make their toxic ingredients more visible to us as consumers, but instead, there are brands popping up that are trying to do away with the toxic ingredients all together. Clean and cruelty-free beauty (that includes men’s skin care you guys) continues to get a lot of news coverage, but clean homecare? Not quite as much.   That’s not to say there aren’t new options and better practices that are becoming more available both in accessibility as well as cost. Terracycle, which we use here at AskMen HQ, makes recycling those hard-to-recycle objects much easier — think chip bags and gum wrappers. Loop, a new initiative from Terracycle, employs a broader tactic by partnering with mega brands such as Unilever and Kroger and acts as a storefront for well known products in fully recyclable packaging you receive and send back over and over again which creates something of a ... loop.   You’re not looking for the same dishwasher liquid or glass cleaner you’ve always used just in a reusable package? You want something that’s not going to end up in the landfill or pollute our shared water supply? We hear you and we agree. That’s why we dug deep, and out of all the natural, non-toxic, eco-friendly brands we could find out there, we picked these 15 best natural cleaning products because they look great, work well and don’t cost a fortune.   Blueland might be one of the easiest eco-friendly brands around at the moment. If you have ever dropped the fizzy old school Alka-Seltzer for headache relief, then you have already figured out how to use Blueland. The brand’s founder Sarah Paiji has a simple mission — quit using so much damn plastic. After the realization that every single piece of plastic ever made — Every. Single. One. — remains on the Earth and most likely is living in the ocean somewhere, Paiji made a brand that uses what it calls the Forever Bottle. By combining a concentrated cleaning tablet comprised of natural derived, biodegradable ingredients with water, you have one of three super cleaners or a hand soap.       A force of nature this is indeed, if its shtick stands up, and as much as we could tell, it did, it kills 99.9 percent of germs with a combination of only salt, water, and vinegar. This futuristic brand uses ingredients as old as time to create an electric cleaner that covers everything from the diaper genie to baby’s binky. Yes, you heard that right. The same cleaner is not only safe enough for both, but provides both — and anything else — with a thorough, sanitized clean. The trick? Electricity. Using a minimal amount of solution, the Electrolyzer whisks up the ingredients with water to provide a gentle but powerful multi-purpose cleaner that can replace disinfectants, deodorizers, surface, bathroom and glass cleaners and lasts for two weeks.     Founder Mat Franklin (surprisingly not Aunt Fannie) is proud to prominently display the brand’s “No List” on the site laying out in great detail, the ingredients that you will not find in any of the brands products. The extensive offering includes probiotic cleaners and soaps, vinegar cleaners and even pest and mosquito solutions — all made from quality plant-based ingredients, probiotics and essential oils. Franklin prefers to leave “natural” out of the equation since the word itself can mean nothing and everything, all at once. You can read more about Aunt Fannie’s — and in turn, all cleaning products — here.     A theme you may be catching onto here is that products that are good for you and good for the earth are more often than not, good for your wallet too. Dropps makes laundry and dishwashing pods you can just drop(p) right in and go about your business. Made from eco-friendly ingredients, the detergent isn’t the only thing that is good for the earth. The water soluble pod membrane itself is made of polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) which dissolves in your washer and enters the water stream eventually breaking down to water and carbon dioxide.       With one of the more comprehensive ingredient lists available for review, Common Good also happens to have the least amount of frill to its packaging — which is a big plus in our book. Given that most packaging is glass, and all is designed to be reused over and over again, if our mood or decour changes, this brand will still clean well while blending in perfectly.     Don’t want to ever run out of your all-purpose, glass or floor cleaner? You might want to consider Better Life, since you can buy five gallons at a time in recyclable boxes. The Better Life claim-to-fame is that its American-made formulas biodegrade up to five times faster than leading natural and conventional cleaners — meaning they are basically not just good for the environment, but they might be amazing.     Started after Kate Jakubas was studying for her Masters degree in Environmental Engineering and learned that cleaning ingredients didn’t have to be listed on products. Which, if you ask us, doesn't make a lick of sense. It didn’t to Jakubas either, so she formulated her own vegetable soap (as you do when you’re about to be a Environmental Engineer) and discovered she could offer better products that were rooted in simple ingredients. Now, these MADE SAFE certified, made-in-Chicago products are proof she was headed in the right direction.   Another bulk-to-go brand that makes keeping all your cleaning supplies on hand is Attitude. Sure, while it offers laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid and all-purpose cleaner in half gallon cardboard containers, it also gives you the option to tack on EWG Verified shampoo, shower gel and hand soap in bulk as well.     Call a truce on the fight between green and clean and use Dr. Diann Pert’s EWG Verified simple, safe cleaning products — Truce. (See what we did there?) The Truce mission is to not to wait until being told what to do, but rather doing what needs to be done to produce the best possible product.     If we could join a cult to have all of our products look this good, we probably would. Luckily it’s not necessary to abandon the non-believers and drink the Kool-Aid. Instead, you just have to buy the products and use them. The cleaners are great, but what we really, really love about this brand is the upscale design of the bottles themselves. The no-slip grip vessels are dishwasher safe and shatter resistant and the brand’s coconut derived formula is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF).     Do you want to clean well? Then do we have a brand for you! (Sorry, we had to.) CleanWell products were born from a father's love for his son. After learning the use of household products loaded with unsafe chemicals made his son's life living with an immune system disorder even harder, he created his own products to use instead — CleanWell. Given its origin story, it would make sense that keeping concoctions kid-friendly would be a big goal, while also killing 99.9 percent of germs around the house and leaving a fresh lemongrass scent behind.     One bottle really can do it all, if that bottle is the Branch Basics Concentrate. By adding various amounts of water, depending on the cleaner’s purpose, the Concentrate can make up to three all-purpose bottles, three bathroom bottles, three glass cleaner bottles, three foaming hand wash bottles and 64 full loads of laundry. That’s a lot of clean out of one bottle of all-natural green goodness.     If there is a theme to the green clean movement, it’s parents wanting the best for their kids. Puracy is no exception. One of the best sellers in the category on Amazon, founders Sean Busch and Paul Tracy can sleep easy in their naturally clean houses knowing they are making the world a better place. But it’s not just Busch and Tracy that make Puracy a good brand to reach for, the team includes a Magna Cum Laude honored, American Board of Dermatology Double Board Certified dermatologist, a pediatric doctor of osteopathic medicine and a doctor of philosophy and chemistry from MIT. You know, just a few folks who might know a thing or two about how to make green, clean formulas safe enough for the whole family.   You can’t have a gathering of good-for-the-Earth cleaning products and not find Method somewhere amongst them. Sure, the scale of Method makes it hard to believe that it can keep up (or … down?) with the smaller guys, but it takes it’s accountability very seriously. With a mission to continue to provide affordable, green products to the masses, it’s working towards lowering carbon emissions, reducing water usage and hitting 99 percent diverted waste footprint by the end of 2020. Are they perfect? No. Are they better than most of the big brands you’re going to find while scrolling through Amazon — very likely.   These aren’t the only cleaning products out there with a mission to do a better job at keeping your home clean and the earth green, but they are all a great place to start. Whether you decision is based on budget or you’re a bit more bougie, the future holds only more great cleaning products for us all to enjoy.  

There’s never been a better time for beauty brands trying to save the planet. Retail interest is growing in sustainable packaging and eco-conscious ingredient sourcing, and brands that appear to be ignoring their environmental footprints are met with swift disapproval. But the movement to green goods hasn’t yet translated into many consumers going out of their ways to make purchases prioritizing the fight against climate change.

Loop, a retail platform with a closed-loop (get it?) distribution system, is a high-profile test of people’s willingness to factor sustainability into their shopping habits. It’s the brainchild of Tom Szaky, co-founder and CEO of recycling company TerraCycle, whose dream of zero-waste consumption caused him to look into the past to inform the future. Szaky compares Loop to mid-20th century milkmen regularly dropping off glass milk bottles and picking up finished ones. Its distribution system is based on refillable packaging and doorstep delivery. Can Loop alter practices in a consumer packaged goods space in which disposability has been paramount? Heather Crawford, VP of marketing and e-commerce for Loop Global, argues its convenience is transformative. “This platform is actually designed for consumers to be able to easily adhere to,” she says. “Loop takes into consideration the fact that changing behavior is difficult. So, in the Loop model, people simply put their empties in the tote and send it back. It is no different for a consumer than putting empties in a recyclable bin or garbage can.” About a third of waste generated in this country is recycled, and I’m judicious about doing my part to keep the virtuous cycle going. Loop’s promise to further cut down on the waste stream I generate is incredibly appealing. As a realist, however, I know there’s only so much I will sacrifice to protect the environment. With its shippable totes and simple e-commerce interface, Loop seemed like a sustainability endeavor I could get behind and, distinct from in-store refillable programs, perhaps stick with. So, I decided to trial the service to see just how practical it is for the average consumer. Loop’s pilot program launched last spring in Paris and New York City. At the time, it was limited to 5,000 households in each city. Since then, Crawford points out, it’s added six new states of coverage as well as struck retail partnerships with Walgreens and Kroger. Currently, Loop is offered through the retailers’ websites, but its goal is to establish a presence in their stores this year. I’m located in New York City, and opted to try Loop’s online store, and stick to beauty and personal care orders. Loop’s assortment contains 31 beauty and personal care products from nine brands: Pantene, Ren, Soapply, Love Beauty and Planet, The Body Shop, Gillette, Venus, Crest and Puretto, an in-house line. Some brands and categories such as bath and body have more robust selections than others. A lonely mouthwash constitutes the entire oral care category. The majority of products carried by Loop are in the grocery and household categories, but Crawford says beauty is a key growth category, and the number of brands within it are excepted to rise this year. She declined to name brands that are coming to Loop. Loop customers order products packaged in refillable containers on its website, and the products arrive at their doorsteps in eco-friendly totes. After consumers are finished with them, Loop picks up the empty products and cleans the packaging to be used again. While browsing the grocery category, I noticed several items were out of stock. Beauty didn’t have that problem. The items were ready for purchase, and I bought two. Specifically, I purchased a 300-ml. bottle of Ren’s Atlantic Kelp and Magnesium Anti-Fatigue Body Wash, and an 8-oz. bottle of Soapply’s Liquid Hand Wash. Loop’s customers pay deposit fees. The deposit fees I paid ranged from $1.25 for Soapply’s Liquid Hand Wash to $5 for Ren products. On top of the deposit fees, there’s a $15 fee for the tote that products are delivered in. The deposits are 100% refundable once products are returned to Loop. Still, for me, the fees tacked on $21 to a $48 order. The price for my order of hand soap and body wash totaled $88.56, with tax. Thankfully, Loop comped the amount for the purposes of this piece because sustainability sure doesn’t come cheap. Product pricing on Loop can vary from product pricing elsewhere. Soapply’s Liquid Hand Wash cost $22.50 on the brand’s website. On Loop, without the bottle deposit, it was $23.75. Surprisingly, Ren’s Atlantic Kelp and Magnesium Anti-Fatigue Body Wash was significantly less expensive on Loop. It rang in at $24.30 versus $28 on its own site. After I placed my order, it was delivered via UPS the following evening. My two small beauty products arrived in a large tote. Apparently, there are no small totes at the moment. The delivery is fully eco-friendly, from the materials the tote is made of to the packing materials keeping the products safe and secure. I live and work in a very small one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment with minimal closet space (read: none). Holding on to the bulky tote while I enjoyed my products wasn’t practical or appealing to me. To declutter, I promptly decanted the bottles into empties I already had, and returned them along with the tote to my local UPS store to be shipped back with the included free shipping label. Loop allowed me to retain the deposit amounts in my online account for future orders or have them refunded to my card. I chose the refund, and the money was credited back to me in seven days.

“Loop takes into consideration the fact that changing behavior is difficult.”

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Loop’s process wasn’t onerous, and lived up to the promise of not forcing me to change my conduct in a manner that would stop me from shopping at it. The company plans to reduce consumers’ efforts even more by teaming up with retail partners to set up Loop at stores to enable consumers to shop dedicated Loop aisles and return refillable products to the stores they’re frequenting. Loop didn’t specify when it will arrive inside stores or which physical stores will take part in its program. Despite people meticulously separating out waste materials into recycling bins, 91% of plastics wind up in landfills. That statistic emphasizes to me the importance of Loop’s system, and makes the endeavor a definite plus in my estimation. I’m heartened knowing the Soapply and Ren bottles I received aren’t destined for the ocean. The benefit for the planet is evident, but I wondered what the brands, specifically Soapply, the sole indie beauty brand currently on Loop’s site, gain by joining its selection. Asked about Soapply’s involvement, founder Mera McGrew responds, “Being selected to launch with Loop alongside all the major players in the consumer goods space was an exciting recognition of the leadership role Soapply is playing in the market. The immediate success we had on the platform, the continued growth we’ve seen, and the positive consumer response to Soapply have not only helped our bottom line, but continued to solidify our role as an emerging leader within the consumer goods space.” Prior to Loop, Soapply had a refill system with bottles made from recycled glass that replenish its 8-oz. bottles three times at a discounted price of $31.50 for 25.4 ounces. For the brand, the value of Loop is to amplify education and impact. “Startups and indie brands have resource limitations that require a constant reassessment of costs and a clear understanding of potential benefits connected with any decision or investment,” says McGrew. “Soapply is a public benefit corporation, so working collaboratively with Loop gives Soapply an opportunity to reiterate some of our core values and be a part of a larger system that is looking to empower individual consumers to help tackle the world’s waste problem.” Soapply is the only indie personal care brand available in Loop’s selection. Other brands are Pantene, Ren, Love Beauty and Planet, The Body Shop, Gillette, Venus, Crest and Puretto, an in-house line. Brands can’t partake in Loop unless they have sustainable packaging. Loop’s requirements are exacting. All containers have to withstand sanitization and survive over 100 uses. “Any business, regardless of how big or small, knows that any changes to packaging can represent a lot of dollar signs—sourcing, designing, changing production lines, etc.,” says McGrew. “If a product’s packaging isn’t already reusable and refillable, updating packaging for Loop would certainly represent a cost to any brand.” Crawford says, “We want to partner with companies large and small that want to redesign packaging to be durable and reusable. We have indie beauty brands which are in the process of on-boarding, and we’ve had very strong response to those we’ve launched thus far, with initial penetration rates [or percentages of the target market they’ve reached] of 35%-plus on new beauty product launches.” My experience with Loop demonstrates it makes eco-oriented beauty and personal care consumption pretty painless, but not universally affordable. A huge feat will be a program that’s attainable for low- to middle-income families. As Loop expands and scales, it will be fascinating to watch how it overcomes that large hurdle. In its current iteration, though, it’s undoubtedly a step in the right direction.