The new decade is already being billed as The Climate Decade. But what if we could have our glam products and not have a negative impact on Mother Earth? Now we can.

In The Loop Take the classic milkman concept and replace it with modern delivery methods and partners like The Body Shop, Ren, Pantene, Love Beauty & Planet — and, voila! —you’ve got TerraCycle. The company ships the beauty goodies in eco-friendly packaging, like glass. When you’re done with them, turn them back in. They’re washed, refilled and sent out again. Bye-bye single-use plastics; TerraCycle.com.

It’s been quite the year for circularity, one defined by ambitious goals, promising pilots, dynamic tensions and a growing sense of community. The momentum is palpable, and I can’t wait for the year ahead. Before we dive into a new decade, let’s revisit five of the most-read circular economy stories on GreenBiz from 2019, and the implications for circularity in 2020: 1. Loop’s launch brings reusable packaging to the world’s biggest brands: The 2019 poster child of the circular economy brought together the largest brands to pilot new delivery models at scale. With Terracycle CEO Tom Szaky at its helm, Loop’s launch has been a go-to talking point for many on circularity’s potential. How is it going? It’s a story we’ll be tracking in 2020, with a particular focus on retail partnerships and consumer behavior change. 2. The five things you need to know about chemical recycling: Spurred by the growing number of commitments by brands, retailers and other stakeholders to close the loop on plastics, the demand for recycled plastics is quickly increasing (PDF). Enter a class of technologies that purify, decompose or convert waste plastics into like-new molecules that could help meet the growing demand for plastics and petrochemicals, and unlock potential revenue opportunities of $120 billion just in the United States and Canada, according to a report by Closed Loop Partners. However, the technologies, terminology and applications can be confusing and are not widely understood by all. How, and how quickly, will that change? We’ll be looking into that, and paying close attention to the growing number of investments and offtake agreements in this arena. Enter a class of technologies that purify, decompose or convert waste plastics into like-new molecules that could help meet the growing demand for plastics and petrochemicals. 3. The rise of plant-based plastic packaging: In the race to produce plastic packaging alternatives, bioplastics represent one approach that has gotten a lot of attention. They’re a type of plastic made from renewable biological sources, as opposed to traditional plastics, made from fossil fuels. The "bio" in bioplastics can run the gamut from vegetable oils and corn starches to food waste and agricultural leftovers, and these materials raise questions about scalability, end-of-life management and carbon footprint. Will they make a dent in the new plastics economy? We’ll follow their progress, and weighing the benefits against other systemic implications. 4. The circular economy giant you've never heard of is planning a major expansion: Providing crates, pallets and boxes to companies around the world to ship their stuff, CHEP, the supply-chain management arm of Australian logistics giant Brambles, specializes in reusable-packaging equipment. An example of circularity at a massive scale, the company rents pallets and other tertiary packaging to customers and then collects almost every unit back after use to inspect, repair and send back out into the supply chain again. Will CHEP own the market or will others follow? We’ll be watching. 5. It's time to trash recycling: Does recycling cycle materials back into supply chains, or enable companies to evade responsibility for unsustainable consumption patterns? Does it truly reduce waste streams? Even though this article ran just this week, it's already become one of our topic circularity stories of the year. Whether and how to reinvent recycling and will be key circular economy stories in 2020, along with approaches to creating end-markets for under-valued commodities. Whether and how to reinvent recycling and will be key circular economy stories in 2020, along with approaches to creating end-markets for under-valued commodities. It will surprise few that most of the top-read circular stories of 2019 by and large focused on tackling the plastics and packaging problem. As a self-appointed steward of the circular economy narrative, I worry about over-emphasizing one piece of a new economic model, however vexing it may be. Circularity is about innovative business models and modes of consumption, new design strategies, product life extension, food waste and so much more. But for many, plastics and packaging is a gateway into the circularity conversation. It’s an accessible entry point into an aspirational model. But my hope is that once readers pass through this intellectual threshold, they will find dozens of other stories helping to define the circular economy. And we look forward to bringing them to you. Thanks for reading in 2019. Circular Weekly is taking a break for the holidays, but it will return to your inbox Jan. 10 to kick off a new year of stories, news, analysis and opinions about the circular economy. As yet another year circles back to a new beginning, I look forward to continuing to guide you through the ever-evolving and rapidly expanding circular economy landscape, and to helping its many stories unfold.

The reusable shopping platform, which launched with big hype and is now eyeing retail, has already raised one key question in its early days: What are the true costs of convenience? Tom Szaky, CEO of recycling company Terracycle, firmly believes that ditching disposable packaging doesn’t have to mean disposing of its benefits. Affordability, mainstream selection, "having the cool, new thing," and, most of all, convenience, are all elements of modern retail Szaky feels can be preserved in a package-free economy. Brands, he believes, just need the right model. In May, Terracycle launched a venture in circular economy shopping called Loop, bringing mainstream food and personal care products to consumers’ doorsteps in reusable, refillable packaging. The products come from some of the world’s biggest plastic polluters as defined by a 2018 Greenpeace audit across six continents. The idea has been to even out a skewed playing field between disposable and reusable packaging options, turning the complicated process of refilling and returning empty containers into a simple, one-click act. Since the launch, Loop has been hailed as a new take on "the milkman," a nostalgic reference to the dairy industry’s unique, circular model of distribution that once had so much consumer buy-in across the United States. Yet far from the simple routes of the neighborhood milkman, Loop is reverse engineering circularity onto products and supply chains designed for recycling or disposability. Its direct-to-consumer trial has been a virtuosic case study in marketing and reverse logistics. But the pilot – the object of much hype in the last six months, with a reported waitlist of 85,000 – was never designed to exceed 5,000 households in North America and another 5,000 in France. The company is planning to launch a more integrated approach and expand into multiple new countries next year. And while TerraCycle says it is too early to know how these pilots will perform, many in the recycling sector are curious to see just how disruptive this concept might be. The experiment, as it has unfolded until now, begs a pressing question: What are the true environmental and logistical costs of convenience? Rethinking convenience Szaky has good reason to want to bring convenience to a niche, package-free market. Currently, it’s in short supply. Catherine Conway, a package-free consultant based in the U.K., said she has found one of the main challenges for this form of shopping to be the behavior change it asks of consumers. Her business Unpackaged targets waste by reinventing stores’ bulk aisles to encourage reuse and refill with bring-your-own containers. "For the last 30 or 40 years, consumers have been told that all they should care about is convenience and price. So currently all they care about is convenience and price," explained Conway in an interview with Waste Dive. "You’ve now got to get across the message of why it’s going to be a bit inconvenient for them." This, she says, is why package-free shopping has remained on the fringes of retail. Many are put off by the limited offerings available in bulk, or simply aren’t willing to perform the extra work it entails. "I think there’s a lot of misconceptions out there about the number of hoops a consumer will jump through in the name of more sustainable packaging," Adam Gendell, associate director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), told Waste Dive. After all, any system is only as good as the number of people who will actually use it, and most people will only use it if it’s easy for them to do so. Gendell lauded the "milkman style" distribution model that Loop has adopted, where little is asked of consumers and the company is "not asking people to take 20 steps to get the package back" but instead "saying 'Here’s your reusable package, please get the stuff out of it, put it back outside, and forget about it.'" For shoppers, Loop’s direct-to-consumer model appears to do just that. The only behavior change required is to place used containers back in the Loop tote and schedule a pick-up online. Customers are incentivized to perform this last step because they have put down fully refundable container deposits on each item (a requisite for participation in the service), though these can be quite high. In her review of the service, Supply Chain Dive’s Emma Cosgrove commented that in addition to some products being more expensive – Loop’s dry black beans, for example, were 60% more than a bulk price in a grocery store – the deposits were cause for some sticker shock. "On my first order," she wrote, "I paid $30.50 in deposits including the $15.00 deposit for the shipping box – 23% of my total order." For brands, who also put hefty down payments and investment in new packaging to participate, Loop acts as an accommodating plug-in to a relatively hands-off reusable model. "Everything we do is always as a third party," said Benjamin Weir, Loop’s North America program manager, in an interview. The company's first task is working with brands to develop and test reusable packaging for each product. This can be simpler when brands request a "stock" container (a glass jar or an aluminum tin). It can get more complicated when they require customization, like in the case of the Häagen-Dazs stainless steel container or the Crest glass mouthwash bottle designed in conjunction with Kohler, featuring a silicone sleeve and a stainless steel cap. Once packaging is selected, a sanitation system is determined and then audited by brands. Loop outsources this portion of its work to specialized vendors at a cleaning facility located in Pennsylvania. It’s a learning curve, Weir told Waste Dive, as vendors providing sanitation services typically clean medical-grade equipment or aerospace parts – products far too valuable to dispose of after a single-use. For Loop’s purposes, they must be trained to clean consumer product-sized goods. In addition to cleaning services, Loop also provides brands with fulfillment – not to be confused with product refilling – at a warehouse in New Jersey, where orders of Loop totes are packed and prepared for delivery. These warehousing services are also outsourced. Finally, once the orders are prepared, totes are delivered to shoppers’ homes by UPS, the carrier Loop has partnered with for logistics. Balancing sustainability with availability Preserving ease-of-use for brands and consumers doesn’t come easy. The dairy industry to which Loop is so often compared enjoyed the luxury of managing just one product, produced and distributed regionally, with a standard package that had been designed with reusability and sanitation in mind from the very start. Production, cleaning, fulfillment and distribution all happened in the same place and dairy farms had relative control over their local supply chains. And milk, a product consumed regularly, was delivered on a "subscription" basis making the demand for refills constant and stable. Loop enjoys almost none of those advantages. The pilot offers 123 products on its website featuring over a dozen different types of packaging, each with its own distinct sanitization process. And being a third party means that, while Loop is responsible for sanitation of containers in regional warehouses, refilling remains in the hands of manufacturers located throughout the country. Nestlé, who is trialing Häagen-Dazs ice cream with Loop, told CNN they’re trucking refills of product from California to the East Coast. The winding reverse logistics for products that are – unlike the milkman – not locally sourced have caused some to question whether the additional impacts aren't nullifying any sustainability goals. "Loop is trying to minimize waste, but does that process still take into account the emissions to take that product back and reuse it and wash it and reprocess it and send it back out?" queried Alexis Bateman, director of the Sustainable Supply Chains program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an interview with Waste Dive. "I think that overvaluing one impact over another is usually the pitfall that these kinds of solutions come into." Weir said Loop is aware of some of the environmental impacts posed by adding mileage to the supply chain and using higher grade materials. "We’ve always said that this system is not always designed to service a large quantity of households. You’ll never see more than 5,000 households in our system right now, as is," he said. Working with the consulting firm Long Trail Sustainability, Loop has performed life cycle analyses (LCA) on all of its packaging to determine the cradle-to-grave environmental impacts. Rick Zultner, Loop's vice president of research and development, told Waste Dive these assessments showed that at 10 reuse cycles, the Loop e-commerce trial had a 35% reduction in global warming potential as compared to a "similar model." "The Loop system is very proficient at solving the waste problem, but we have to think beyond that," said Weir. "We have to think about the sustainability of the entire ecosystem and whether we are creating new problems with new solutions. That’s of course never the goal." Limits of LCAs Reusable systems like Loop open the door to a larger debate within the field of environmental accounting. In recent years, officials at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) have surveyed literature and pioneered studies assessing the sustainability of reusable systems in a range of contexts, from water bottles to beer kegs. "There’s no simple answer to the question of disposable versus reusable packaging," said Peter Canepa, an LCA practitioner at the DEQ, in an interview with Waste Dive. At the request of local brewers in Oregon, the DEQ performed an LCA to determine the impact of the industry’s traditional reusable stainless steel kegs when compared with the rise of new single-use plastic beer kegs. "Even with the washing and sterilization, all those steps were accounted for and reusable stainless steel kegs were more beneficial," said Canepa, referring to the LCA results. "But there started to be a point of inflection." Reuse made sense for breweries in Oregon who distribute their product locally, but numbers began to tilt in favor of disposable as distance was added to the supply chain. According to Canepa, breweries distributing East of the Mississippi found there were sufficient environmental implications, to the point that "making a new plastic keg, using it once, and disposing of it was actually less impactful." It is at this point that the LCA school of thought diverges from the one Loop more closely adheres to. Advocates of circular economy theory (like SPC’s Gendell) still promote the use of LCA as a tool, but put far more weight on systems being regenerative. The idea is that waste from one system forms a resource for another. "That can’t always be measured with any type of precision with a tool like LCA, which is an important, but imperfect science," Gendell explained. LCA, for example, does not yet have a way to quantify the effects of litter on marine or land environments, a category in which disposable materials score very poorly. Unpackaged’s Conway agrees that literature on reuse can often be difficult to decipher. "The thing that’s annoying is that it’s very hard to get independent environmental data … These industry-sponsored studies are not 100% reliable." She argues that just because reusable systems like Loop require more upfront resources than disposables shouldn’t be a reason to discount them, even if the LCA initially says otherwise. Especially in the beginning, it may be the case that they just require a bit of scale to make it worth it. "I don’t think that’s a bad system until they get to that point, I think they just have to be aware that it’s probably going to be inefficient to start off with," she said. The experiment continues Loop’s pilot model (the length of which is said to be undetermined) preserves extreme convenience, but that likely will not be way this service grows in the future. "What we’re doing now, to make it as convenient for consumers as possible, is really allowing them to order and return packaging at any time," explained Weir. "The purchasing of the products and the returning are truly two separate interactions." In an ideal world, pick-ups would coincide with drop-offs and vice-versa. And retailers, who have their own fleets of trucks, would leave warehouses full in the morning and come back full with returns (as opposed to returning empty, as they do now). In the future integrated version, consumers will purchase and return Loop products at retail locations directly. Confirmed partners include Walgreens and Kroger in the United States, Carrefour in France and Tesco in the U.K. The advantage to this model is that products would be sold in locations many shoppers already frequent, side-by-side with disposable counterparts of the same items. "That kind of brick-and-mortar shopping is going to open up additional avenues for the consumer," said Patrick Browne, director of sustainability at UPS, in an interview with Waste Dive. The company continues to work with Loop on the e-commerce model, but Browne said that retail deliveries would pose less of a logistical challenge. They take place in more dense settings, where drivers are delivering multiple packages per stop, making them more efficient. Whereas "in e-commerce, which is residential, typically your stops are a little bit farther in between houses." Loop’s decisions about reuse and disposal are not purely determined by environmental impact, sparking further complications. This comprises perhaps Loop's biggest challenge: balancing the complex, fragile world of environmental accounting with the extremely qualitative world of corporate branding, which has an altogether different set of values. For the companies Loop works with, packaging isn’t just about getting a product from here to there, or even strictly about safety. It’s also about maintaining brand uniformity and image. Disposable packaging, where each purchase yields a fresh container, does this quite well. Conversely, "packaging that is reusable will naturally scratch. It will naturally bend," said Weir, "There are very few ways around that. Especially when we’re looking at high, high numbers of reuse cycles." Loop’s challenge has been encouraging companies to reconsider their traditional stance on wear and tear, which is typically viewed as a performance failure. In the end, participating brands determine what is the standard for reuse, and where to draw the line between refilling and disposing. It is Loop’s job to adhere to that standard, meaning disposal may occur on the hundredth cycle, or the tenth. “The positive side is that I think these solutions are important to start to change the dialogue on end-of-life packaging and waste that’s become so normalized in American culture,” said MIT’s Bateman. "Even if the future of Loop looks very different from what it is now, the trials of today are essential to shifting the discourse on disposables." At the end of the day, Loop reveals an inconvenient truth about reusable systems: In the current market, it takes more work to make less waste. According to DEQ's Canepa, that extra work is necessary because, in a reusable world, more durable materials with a higher lifecycle impact raise the stakes. “This sounds really banal, but if the thing made to be reusable is not reused, or more specifically is not reused a specific number of times,” he explained, “then you actually may be doing worse [sic] for the environment.” Reusable programs thus require vigilant stewarding to ensure proper use, an inescapable part of Loop's grand experiment. "They can’t be left to operate to themselves,” emphasized Weir. “There needs to be certain rules, there need to be certain frameworks. Because one-to-one, a stainless steel container versus a paper pint, I mean, there’s no comparison.”

Our most popular profiles of projects focused on improving the world, from climate to plastic waste to homelessness to housing. The world could seem like a hard and hopeless place on many, if not most, days in 2019. In spite of that feeling, there are people who are devoting their time to trying to do good work, and we try to bring you those stories when we can. Of the thousands of people and projects we profiled this year in Fast Company‘s Impact section, a few stories really struck a chord with readers, and so we’re collecting them here for you.  Perhaps they’ll make you feel compelled to do something similar yourself. Perhaps they’ll just make you a little more hopeful about the future. They range from a village of 3D-printed houses to a young man reaching the next step in his years-long quest to clean up the ocean and from cities finding ways to end homelessness to cities finding ways to end driving. See what inspires you. A COALITION OF GIANT BRANDS IS ABOUT TO CHANGE HOW WE SHOP FOREVER, WITH A NEW ZERO-WASTE PLATFORM As the world’s attention turned to single-use plastic this year, many companies began offering plans to cut back on their waste streams. But one of the boldest plans involved many companies—including giants like Unilever and Proctor & Gamble—joining forces to both eliminate packaging and change how we shop. The new project, called Loop, was organized by recycling company TerraCycle. Each item available for delivery on Loop comes in a reusable package, like ice cream in a stainless steel pint container. When you’re done, you return it to Loop to be cleaned, refilled, and sent back to another customer. Read more. 3 CITIES IN THE U.S. HAVE ENDED CHRONIC HOMELESSNESS: HERE’S HOW THEY DID IT A program called Built for Zero uses a combination of intense data and cross-department meetings to track homelessness. “By ending homelessness, we mean getting to a place where it’s rare, brief, and it gets solved correctly and quickly when it does happen,” Rosanne Haggerty, president of Community Solutions, the nonprofit that leads the Built for Zero program, told us. “That’s a completely achievable end state, we now see.” The nonprofit calls this goal “functional zero,” and it’s already proved effective in places like Bergen County, New Jersey, and Abilene, Texas. So far, nine communities have reached the goal of “functional zero” for veteran homelessness, and three communities have reached the goal for chronic homelessness. Read more. THE WORLD’S FIRST 3D-PRINTED NEIGHBORHOOD NOW HAS ITS FIRST HOUSES New Story is a nonprofit that used to build houses in the developing world the old-fashioned way. But wanting to speed up and smooth out that process, it worked with construction company Icon to develop a giant 3D printer capable of generating the walls of an entire 500-square-foot house in 24 hours. After that, workers add doors, windows, and roofs. The first community of homes is currently being built in Mexico, and the organization is now exploring the idea of bringing the technology to the U.S., as well. Read more. THIS STARTUP WANTS TO PUT A FREE TINY HOUSE IN YOUR BACKYARD Backyard houses won’t fix California’s housing crisis, but they could be an important way to get more people on limited land in cities. Because a new California law has made it easier to get the permits to build such structures, there’s a lot of hope for their growth. But it’s still a lot of work with big upfront costs to get a contractor to build you one. Rent the Backyard wants to make it easier: it will handle the building of what’s called an “accessory dwelling unit,” or ADU, in exchange for splitting the rent with the homeowner. Read more. The Norwegian capital removed 700 parking spaces and replaced them with bike lanes, plants, tiny parks, and benches. As we wrote at the time: “A few spots are left, converted into parking for disabled drivers or EV charging, and some streets are open for delivery trucks for a couple of hours in the morning. Emergency vehicles still have access. But other drivers have to park in garages, and traffic restrictions help nudge drivers who don’t need to go through the city center to take a ring road around it instead. In a new zoning plan, the city is taking its intentions further, giving pedestrians, cyclists, and public transportation greater priority than private cars, and planning a network of pedestrian zones that are fully car-free.” The city coupled this with a heavy investment in public transit, and the results are good: the air is cleaner and businesses—which were worried about the change—are seeing increased foot traffic. Read more. Instead of using standard asphalt, Los Angeles is testing a new road material that’s made partly from recycled plastic bottles. The roads are meant to last longer, which means less time and money doing street repairs. But more importantly, it enables a machine to chew up the old road, remix it with plastic, and lay it right back down when it’s time to repave—instead of hauling away the old asphalt and trucking new material in. Read more. After Medicare for All, the Green New Deal has been one of the most animating policy ideas of the Democratic primary. Shortly after the initial bill was introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Edward Markey, we took a deep look at what it could mean for transforming business in sectors from agriculture to tech to philanthropy. “The Green New Deal is a framework for exerting external pressure on industries,” Markey told us. “But it can also be a framework for internal corporate operations for every industry, and guide the discussion going forward inside every company and sector.” Read more. ‘PRESCRIBING’ FRUITS AND VEGGIES WOULD SAVE $100 BILLION IN MEDICAL COSTS Fruits and vegetables: they’re quite good for you. But they can be expensive. A study looked at what would happen if Medicare and Medicaid subsidized the cost of fresh produce and found that it would prevent 1.93 million cardiovascular events (such as heart attacks) and 350,000 deaths, as well as cut healthcare costs by $40 billion. Read more. LOS ANGELES IS TESTING ‘PLASTIC ASPHALT’ THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO RECYCLE ROADS Instead of using standard asphalt, Los Angeles is testing a new road material that’s made partly from recycled plastic bottles. The roads are meant to last longer, which means less time and money doing street repairs. But more importantly, it enables a machine to chew up the old road, remix it with plastic, and lay it right back down when it’s time to repave—instead of hauling away the old asphalt and trucking new material in. Read more. HOW TO DESIGN A GREEN NEW DEAL THAT REALLY WORKS, FOR EVERY INDUSTRY IN THE U.S. After Medicare for All, the Green New Deal has been one of the most animating policy ideas of the Democratic primary. Shortly after the initial bill was introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Edward Markey, we took a deep look at what it could mean for transforming business in sectors from agriculture to tech to philanthropy. “The Green New Deal is a framework for exerting external pressure on industries,” Markey told us. “But it can also be a framework for internal corporate operations for every industry, and guide the discussion going forward inside every company and sector.” Read more. THESE TREE-PLANTING DRONES ARE FIRING SEED MISSILES TO RESTORE THE WORLD’S FORESTS Planting trees is one of the simplest ways to sequester carbon and thus mitigate the effects of climate change. One study found that one trillion trees is the number needed to make a real dent in the problem. One trillion, though, is a lot of trees to plant. But what if we outsourced the tree planting to drones? In Myanmar, a company called Biocarbon Engineering is building drones, training locals how to use them, and then using the drones to fire seeds into the ground, helping regrow the country’s mangrove forests. Read more. THE OCEAN CLEANUP DEVICE HAS RETURNED FROM THE PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH WITH ITS FIRST LOAD OF PLASTIC Boyan Slat first proposed the idea for the Ocean Cleanup machine—a giant device to collect the ocean plastic that has collected in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—at a TEDx talk in 2012. Since then, he’s managed to raise the funds to build it, test several iterations, and finally get a functional prototype out into the Pacific Ocean. Now it’s returned, and we can see the results: 60 one-cubic-meter bags full of trash. Now that the proof of concept is done, the next step is building even bigger devices, and launching a whole fleet of them, with the goal of cleaning up half the garbage patch in five years. Read more.

The packaging field advances as fast as it does partly because people openly share ideas, pain points and best practices. Throughout 2019, we interviewed several subject matter experts on key concerns, including sustainability challenges and solutions (specifically around plastics), benefits of working with Gen Z, ecommerce packaging improvements, using robots to improve packaging machinery operation and the impact of social media on packaging design.   Here are select thought-provoking quotes from packaging executives—from major brand owners such as Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola—in articles exclusive to Packaging Digest. Click the “View Gallery” button to the bottom right of the photo above to scroll quickly through the quotes.   To give these remarks context, here are links to the articles these quotes have come from:   1. Tom Szaky, founder/CEO, TerraCycle and Loop Loop and big brands boldly reinvent waste-free packaging 2. Captain James (Jim) Lovell, astronaut Packaging in space! 3. Survey respondent, 2019 Packaging Digest Consumer Survey on Plastic Packaging Sustainability Consumers want non-plastic packaging options 4. Ivan Keener, student, Michigan State University, School of Packaging Gen Z on technology, packaging jobs and the environment 5. John R. Henry, owner, Changeover.com The right way to use robots in packaging machines 6. Nestlé USA packaging sustainability manager Walt Peterson Nestlé clarifies its sustainable packaging vision 7. Jason Foster, Replenish founder and chief reuser Amazon chooses refillable packaging for Clean Revolution 8. Anitra Marsh, global sustainability task leader for P&G’s Global Skin and Personal Care brands Olay is latest household brand to embrace refillable packaging 9. Bruno Van Gompel, technical and supply chain director, Coca-Cola Western Europe Coca-Cola trials recycled marine plastic for beverage packaging 10. Katie Ceclan, senior director of marketing, Frito-Lay North America Social media-friendly food packaging ‘reignites’ Lay’s brand 11. Trina Matta, senior manager, Sustainable Packaging Coalition Non-plastic packaging isn’t the only sustainable solution 12. Kim Marotta, global senior director of corporate responsibility, Molson Coors Molson Coors shrinks plastic packaging’s Beer Print 13. Maximiliano Sassone, research and innovation director at Danone Argentina Danone’s new yogurt jar conveys ‘natural’ and premium 14. Martijn Huijbreghs, IT application manager with BBio Biopharmaceutical company uses label system to enhance ops    

What’s the ultimate destination of consumer goods? For many if not most products, it’s not actually the customer or end user – landfill is the last link in the chain. We have come a long way since King Camp Gillette created the first product designed to be thrown away. Today our whole culture seems designed to be disposable: from single-use plastics to chain store coffee cups; from needlessly shrink-wrapped fruit and veg to huge swaths of cardboard used to protect sheets of paper (yes, really). But revolution is in the air, with consumers increasingly concerned about the world of waste that we have created. There’s just one problem: as a species, we simply haven’t learned how to wean ourselves off our addiction to plastic and other waste generated in the supply chain. Much as we might want to reduce our waste, not many of us are quite ready for bamboo toothbrushes and home-made washing powder. If we’re serious about reducing the billions of tons of plastic and other waste that gets sent to landfill or pollutes our rivers and seas, we need the corporate world to come up with creative solutions that will enable us to enjoy our products – without further contributing to the environmental apocalypse. Garbage pile in trash dump or landfill   Circular supply chains As with so much in life, it is often as useful to look backwards as forwards for solutions to today’s waste crisis. People from the past would think it absurd to use a cup just once before chucking it in the bin, and we are belatedly coming back to this rather obvious conclusion, with many coffee shops offering discounts for customers who bring their own. PROMOTED Important as small steps like these may be, it will take much more to win the world’s wider waste problem. Yet the same principles of reduce, reuse and repurpose – usually overshadowed by the other “R”, recycle – will be absolutely critical in this battle. And that will require fundamental and far-reaching changes in our supply chains. Where once the supply chain was linear and ended with the customer – or, more realistically, in landfill or the oceans – tomorrow’s supply chain will be circular, designed to foster more reduction, reuse and repurpose through secondary, sustainable business models. In fact, we’re already seeing important steps in this direction, not least in the Loop shopping platform. A partnership between major consumer goods firms including P&G, Unilever and Nestle, together with recycling firm TerraCycle, Loop will enable shoppers to consume products in refillable, reusable packaging. This model, barely any different from old bottle deposit schemes that many can still remember, can be taken still further. In theory, there’s nothing to stop us buying products like shampoo in our own personal bottles which we fill up from a tap in the supermarket. But if we are to move from landfill to refill, the corporate world will have to rethink their entire approach to supply chains, moving from linear to circular models. Moreover, circularity is not only about returns. It’s also about the front end of the supply chain – procurement, provenance of product and ethical sourcing. Only then can a supply chain be truly sustainable, ethical, and circular. The technology challenge Let’s not pretend that circular supply chains are going to be easy or cheap to implement. They will, for example, require investment in new infrastructure to change the way that goods are stored and delivered. Let’s also not forget that one of the roles of packaging is to make stacking and storage easier, and also to keep perishable products properly preserved. Changing the way that we ship these goods around the world and to their final destination will be an enormous challenge. How we move IT towards circularity lies in technologies such as knowledge databases, or knowledge graphs, which allow for many-to-many relationships with data, thus moving away from linear, point-to-point, start and end processes. This is critical if enterprises are to make a switch to circularity sooner rather than later. For example, integrating AI and machine learning can give a supply chain its ‘eyes and ears’. Connecting physical technology like smart sensors and cameras to back-end systems will introduce ‘guaranteed’ transparency, making provenance and ethical operations visible in real-time. Machine learning increases demand accuracy, which makes supply more efficient, reducing unnecessary production and thus waste. ing new models of reuse, where creative use of new and existing technologies will be key. Playing into growing consumer interest in ethical supply chains, returnable packaging company CupClub tracks cups, lids and cases using RFID technology, enabling consumers to see where their packaging travels and ends up. Technology can also educate and incentivise people to engage in recycling, reusing and reducing their waste – like QR codes that inform customers that their packaging is recyclable. Future supply chain technology is also likely to have a strong emphasis on social media integration, which will be key for educating and informing consumers about new ways to reduce and reuse, while incentivising them to take part in sustainability initiatives. Beyond technology But the real challenge is not technological. If we are to create truly circular supply chains, it will require a thoroughly holistic approach; one that brings retailers, manufacturers and customers together in a fully integrated way, so that each one understands their own unique responsibilities in winning the war on waste. While supply chain technology today is focused on issues such as optimising journeys and enabling just-in-time delivery, the next generation of tools will be about bringing together these disparate groups in the shared endeavour of reducing waste. To ensure sustainable, circular supply chains actually make an impact and improve a business from the ground up – and to sell in sustainability to any naysaying board members – thinking outside the box is key. The name of the game is establishing new, sustainable business models which bring new revenue possibilities. This could be taking accountability for no-longer-wanted products – let’s take servers for example. Businesses could up the possibility for customers to return their old server and get a discount on a new one, and then involve suppliers in refashioning and repurposing the old server to create a new line of second hand business. This way, every player in the supply chain benefits, while also doing the right thing for the planet. Only then can organisations create a triple bottom line structure that delivers unmatched business value. Everyone has a role to play in building a cleaner, less wasteful world. We have a golden opportunity to deliver a better future with today’s technologies – all it takes is the will to make it happen. Businesses and consumers alike should do everything they can to not throw this golden opportunity away.

   

2020 is finally here, and it's that time of year where we get to play Nostradamus and tell you where the future of branding and package design is heading.  This is the final installment in our 9-part Trend Report for 2020; to view the other sections, click on the following hyperlinks to read about  Brand Merch', The Rise of Non-Alcoholic Booze, White Claw Summer, Monochromatic Packaging, Patterns, The Plant-Based World, Non-Binary Branding, and Flexible Logos.

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Cactus juice. Mushrooms. Orange peels. Seaweed. Bamboo. Lobster shells. Cork. Banana leaves and leather. Wood. Algae. Avocado pits. Fruit and vegetable peels from apples and potatoes. Wetland weed. That off-putting UFO-like disc used in kombucha called a SCOBY. No, it’s not some weird salad your crystal-wearing Aunt who lives in Joshua Tree brought to Thanksgiving this year, we’re talking about new packaging substrates that can replace plastic—we’re talking about material innovation.  

  For the last few years, there’s been no bigger story in the packaging industry than the single-use plastic crisis. We’re past alarm bells about plastic straws and the major-brand-punted waste goals of 2025, as well as the fatigue that comes with seeing a daily news story about how we’re either still polluting the oceans or when climate change will finally do us in.  

  Because at some point, you have to innovate yourself out of the situation, and that’s just what a lot of folks are trying to do. Now, the designer mantra is less pearl-clutching, more doing. You’ll find designers sick of an endless carousel of plastics that don’t break down, looking for not only newfound inspiration but real, viable solutions.  

  Most plastic will not get recycled. It’s the truth. Our current system is overburdened, and packaging with flexible plastic or mixed materials will likely never make it through a recycling facility and will go straight to landfill or get burned. So you’ll find scientists and researchers like Sandra Pascoe Ortiz developing new materials by juicing cactus leaves. The sugars and gum contained in cactus juice make it a natural polymer, one that’s not only edible but biodegradable and will break down within 2-3 months if buried in soil, and significantly less if you compost it.  

  There are some materials that we can readily access from the ocean too—seaweed is simple to harvest, and it grows up to 30 times faster than conventional crops, plus it eats carbon. Evoware, the Circular Design Challenge winner, is seaweed-based packaging that can get applied in food sachets, personal care products, and medical supplies.  

  If you brand it beautifully and talk up the material’s seemingly unlimited potential, as Julia Marsh did with her thesis-turned-design-studio-and-flexible-packaging start-up Sway, you can captivate others with its regenerative possibilities. “Inspired...by the benevolent nature of seaweed,” this isn’t the green and brown-hued environmental activism we’ve grown accustomed to over the years. It transforms what typically gets viewed as a nuisance that washes up on the beach into something majestic, something that's always been a part of the natural world that undulates and, yes, sways, essentially rebranding it.  

  In some cases, the product can even become the packaging, because why design graphics when you can make the packaging a beautiful centerpiece? Designer mi Zhu created Soapack, sustainable toiletry products made from a vegetable oil-based soap. As we wrote last July, “The variations in color come from natural dying pigments found in minerals, plants, and flowers. From there, each bottle is formed in a mold and then coated with a thin layer of beeswax to waterproof them.”  

  You can also make your packaging fun. Get rid of the plastic wrapper like Kit-Kat did for the Japanese market and use origami paper (OK, we’re biased because it’s a shout-out for the packaging nerds, but still). Creating something that lives outside of its primary use can create a pure moment of joy, transforming a mundane wrapper into something delightful.  

  And if we want to talk about revolutionary materials, then we need to consider PHA, otherwise known as polyhydroxyalkanoates. You can find this natural polyester made from bacterial fermentation in the as-of-yet-but-soonish bottled water brand Cove. Aside from fully breaking down in compost or landfill, it also considered marine-degradable, meaning that if you happened to be an awful person and wanted to throw the bottle away in the ocean, it would thoroughly degrade (seriously though, don’t do that).  

  And while we want everyone to get excited about mushrooms and banana leaves, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention some of the highly recyclable substrates brands know and love like aluminum and glass, and specifically with how Loop is using them to create refillable packaging.  

  Created by TerraCycle, Loop is a back-to-basics solution where you shop for some of your favorite brands like Häagen-Dazs ice cream or Hellmann’s Mayonaise, and it ships to you in a refillable vessel that you pay a deposit for. Once finished, you return the container to TerraCycle so it can be cleaned and reused.  

  Brands are genuinely excited about Loop, and while no one is exactly sure whether or not it’s going to work on a long-term basis, it does present consumers with an entirely new way to interact with the products they can consume, it’s one that gives them a nostalgic taste of yesteryear (bringing back the milkman they claim), that ties into having an immediate effect on wasteful packaging. Designers and brands are free to create reusable packaging that’s not only environmentally friendly but beautiful and near-permanent.  

  So while plastic isn’t going away in the immediate future, there are plenty of new options for brands and packaging designers to play with. And while scalability might seem damn near impossible, it’s a marathon, not a 50-yard dash to a plastic-free grocery store, though we might be getting pretty close to that too. Exciting times indeed.  

 

Tom is the founder of the world's leading recycling initiative, with the promise to remove waste from our supply chains, working with major brands such as Nestlé and Unilever - hailed as one of Forbes’ Impact 30.   We met Tom earlier this year during Sustainable Brands Paris and were struck by not only his promising business initiative, but his bold ideas and views. A challenging voice driving forward environmental change, we made sure to pin him down for an interview.     Tom shared with us his personal story: born into communism in Hungary, after the Chernobyl disaster, he and his family escaped as refugees, first to Belgium then to Germany, Rotterdam and Canada. Finally, he settled in the US. He reflects:   “I went from one extreme to another extreme and fell in love with business as a tool for change along the way.”   Tom worked his way to Princeton where, in Economics 101, he was taught that the purpose of business is to profit shareholders. However this immediately didn’t sit right with him. He said: “Is that really the reason people go to work? I don’t think so. Yes, profit is an indicator of health, but it’s not the reason for being.”   This got Tom seeking a business idea with more of a purpose than profit. “I landed on garbage. It’s fascinating - we’re built to be repulsed by it. It’s not sexy, so there’s not a lot of innovation within it. It’s ridiculously unexciting to be involved in, but the scale is universally big. Every object you see right now will 100% one day belong to the garbage industry.”   With waste as his focus, Tom started TerraCycle from his dorm room in 2001 - first turning worm poop into organic fertiliser. While the fertiliser itself was popular (it was soon sold in Home Depot and Walmart) its packaging was where TerraCycle’s potential and purpose would unfold.   Tom used old plastic drinking bottles - initially out of ease and affordability - with schools and local organizations collecting bottles in exchange for proceeds. 18 years on and this is the core of TerraCycle today, with manufacturers now sponsoring national collection and recycling programs for waste streams they create.     TerraCycle’s scope is wide. In the last few months alone, they’ve announced recycling schemes for baby food containers, beauty products, laboratory waste - and they just won an award for the development of the first national cannabis recycling program in Canada.   “Everything we do is to move from linear to circle,” says Tom. While this move does dramatically reduce the waste that ends up in landfills and being burnt, Tom sees recycling as only a temporary solution. Instead, he looks to nature to see if we can remove the concept of waste altogether. Tom says:   “If you asked a tree what is waste, I don’t think a tree could define it. Because in nature, there is no such thing. The root cause of consumer waste is not plastic - it’s single-use.”   With this in mind, Tom’s entrepreneurial efforts have shifted to refill and reuse. His new initiative, Loop, delivers products in reusable packaging straight to your door. Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé and PepsiCo are among the household names already on board, with one new brand a day joining the platform since it launched.       In short, Loop’s aim is to make reusing packaging easier than ever - and the norm - so we move away from the reliance on single-use, disposable packaging. However, Tom also acknowledges that innovation alone won’t solve the world’s problems. “The cause of every environmental problem is consumer culture. So the clear answer is to buy less, but also to consume differently.”   While as Tom put it himself, there’s nothing sexy about rubbish and waste, we are big fans of solutions that will green our planet.   With widespread awareness of the climate emergency now mounting, the scramble of big brands to find new, regenerative solutions has begun; and with Loop and TerraCycle leading the way, we think there’s nothing more exciting than that.   Enjoyed reading Tom’s story? Sign up to our newsletter to have bold and brave voices land in your inbox every month! Plus the latest from our clients and community - and a few humblebrags.

If you’re in the field of packaging, chances are you’re also well versed in sustainability. You almost have to be because the two concerns conjoin these days more often than not. As we reviewed our best-read articles of the year, we realized that most articles we posted on PackagingDigest.com in 2019 at least touched on sustainability if not focused on it entirely. One of the reasons we prepare lists of the Top Articles of the Year by different topics is so one hot topic—like sustainability!—doesn’t dominate the others. Because it would. Nine of the 10 sustainable packaging articles on this 2019 list appear in the top 50 of all articles ever posted on PackagingDigest.com. So, what are these relevant and compelling articles?! As succinctly as possible (and in reverse order for the ultimate reveal!), they are: 10. Non-plastic packaging isn’t the only sustainable solution Plastic waste is becoming a more pressing concern for today’s consumers than it has ever been in the past. But, as sustainable packaging leaders, we have an obligation to help the public understand that there is more to sustainability than shifting away from plastics entirely. Sustainable Packaging Coalition senior manager Trina Matta has some recommendations on how brand owners can handle the situation.   9. How Nestlé is innovating its way to 100% recyclable or reusable packaging Walt Peterson, Nestlé USA’s manager of packaging innovation and sustainability, talks about the world’s largest food and beverage company’s ambitious goal of moving to 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by 2025. In this 28-minute presentation, hear how Nestlé is harnessing partnerships and cutting-edge technology to get there.   8. Marine pollution consumes plastic packaging’s sustainability story When it comes to plastics and sustainability, packaging professionals are hyper aware there is an attitude or perception problem—69% of respondents in Packaging Digest’s 2018 Sustainable Packaging Study feel a high level of environmental concern around plastic packaging. And much of that concern is centered around the visible and visceral problem of pollution in our oceans and waterways. What else do packaging professionals think about plastic packaging and its sustainability position? Download your free copy of this 48-page report by clicking the headline above. As a companion to this industry study, Packaging Digest also conducted a survey on plastic packaging sustainability with consumers. The interesting results include an analysis of the different viewpoints between packaging professionals and their customers. Click here to download your free copy.   7. Paper or plastic? 6 sustainable foodservice packaging options for both Consumers’ appetite for foodservice convenience at restaurants of all types—casual, quick-serve and takeaway—and for catering services continues. And Novolex product lines are seamlessly aligned with the ongoing foodservice packaging shift toward sustainable solutions. Here are six notable examples.   6. Remedies for single-use plastic packaging Does cold and flu season inevitably generate packaging waste? Consumer brands can step up to treat people and planet, as TerraCycle and Loop CEO Tom Szaky enlightens us. A new example is the RB Health & Nutrition Recycling Program, a national network for health-and-wellness package recovery.   5. Top sustainable companies by state Rankings always gain attention—you’re reading this “Top 10” article, right?! This infographic identifies the top sustainable companies from each state and includes many that are familiar to you as either brands or packaging vendors.   4. Packaging peers react to Loop’s daring reusable-packaging model Spoiler Alert: You’ll hear more about Loop as you continue through this list. When it was announced in January 2019, Loop—a circular economy shopping platform with durable reusable and luxury packaging at its core—gained massive media attention from around the globe, including numerous packaging and sustainability publications, as well as Forbes, Bloomberg, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, BBC News, Reuters, Le HuffPost, Fortune and many more. So what do packaging professionals think about this ground-breaking Loop initiative? Reactions were mostly positive, but there are, uh, concerns as well.   3. Amazon chooses refillable packaging for clean revolution A sustainable-packaging collaboration between Amazon and Replenish has borne fruit in the form of Amazon’s Clean Revolution cleaning products. Amazon uses the new Replenish 3.0 packaging design for its Clean Revolution line, with Replenish acting as a private-label supplier.   2. Amazon incentivizes brands to create frustration-free packaging When we published this article in September 2018, we knew it was going to be the top article of last year. And it was. Interest in ecommerce packaging remains high, though. So this article experienced high readership well into 2019—enough, in fact, to be the second best-read sustainable packaging related article of this year. Here’s what the hub-bub is all about… To help reduce packaging waste and improve efficiency of ecommerce shipping for its vendors, Amazon requires that select products being sold and fulfilled by Amazon arrive in its fulfillment centers in certified packaging under its Frustration-Free Packaging (FFP) program. This means that the packaging does not require any shipping preparation or an overbox to be applied. On the positive side for marketers, the vendor retains its own branding on the shipment. But now you might have to create a separate/special package for products sold through Amazon.com or face a stiff penalty.   1. Loop and big brands boldly reinvent waste-free packaging At the time we reported on the new Loop circular-economy shopping platform—which is totally based on reusable packaging—I knew it was going to be the top packaging news of the year. Not only is this the best-read article posted in 2019, but it also appears as the top article in our list of packaging design-related articles because design and sustainability are integral to the success of this new venture. It really belongs on both lists! Major brand owners—like Nestle, Coca-Cola, Mars, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble—have created luxury packages for their regular products for sale in select areas of the world.