The practice of recycling has everything to commend it:  On a finite planet, it conserves resources; it is meretricious allowing us, as it does, to pin a mental merit badge on our chests as we ready the assigned recycling bin once a week; and it is an activity that is all good.  We are saving the planet, albeit in a small way, from some of the excesses of the developed world.  And when everyone does their share, the impact has to be unavoidably significant.  Right.  Or, does it?   If we examine what we recycle, that is paper, glass, metal cans and plastic, the junk mail and other paper discarded is the most copious but plastic is close.  Almost all of it used to go to the developed world’s great recycling bin in the east … China.  It absorbed some 95 percent of EU recyclable waste and 70 percent from the US.  But China began to grow its own domestic garbage with the growth of its economy.  The consequences have not been unexpected.  China announced a new policy in 2018, named inexplicably National Sword, banning the import of most recyclables, particularly plastics and contaminated materials.   Since then China’s import of such recyclables has fallen 99 percent.  Needless to say, metals and glass are not as seriously affected.  For the American recycling industry, it has been a major earthquake.  First, about 25 percent of recyclables are contaminated and not recyclable.  Then there are plastic bags.  Not only are these, too, not recyclable but they tend to jam up sorting machinery. The sorting of waste sent to China had been taken over by families in port side communities.  It became their livelihood, retrieving whatever fetched a price and dumping the rest.  Piling up in ad hoc landfills, it washed down waterways into the ocean.  They were not the only culprits.  Thus we have had the phenomenon of whales being washed up dead, starved because stomachs were full of plastic — 88 pounds densely packed in the stomach of one found in the Philippines and 50 pounds inside another in Sardinia.  China’s ban on waste imports has been followed by Malaysia and Vietnam.  In March of this year, India joined them.   As the outlets for their waste disappear and as most of the plastics are not recycled, self-reliance has been forced upon developed countries.  All to the good for the environment, because it will also curtail the use of plastics out of necessity.  The truth is only a fraction of plastic waste is recyclable, generally the white transparent bottles of which some are preferred.  Most ends up in landfills.  A 2017 study in  Science Advances determined that 90% of plastics ever produced are still in the environment.  Yet in the past six decades an estimated 8 billion tons have been produced.  Moreover, the usage trend is upwards and in 2014 some 311 million tons were produced worldwide.   There is though a small movement to restore reusable bottles, and a company called Loop Industries may be on the right track. Their founders announced at the World Economic Forum in 2019 that they aim to return to the milkman model, reusing bottles for everything from edibles to shampoo and detergent. Loop has partnered with Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, PepsiCo, and other large companies.  Perhaps, if we all return to the milk bottle model of the 1950s  — refilling containers to be used again — there may be greater hope for the planet.  The good news is, some towns and states have already banned single-use plastic bottles.   Another intriguing possibility is to use the millions of tons of crustacean shells discarded.  Scientists are now able to extract chitin and chitosan from shrimp and lobster shells.  Still, in the research stage, the process has to be made industrially feasible, and there are also problems with hazardous waste as it uses potent chemicals like sodium hydroxide.  Biodegradable chitin and chitosan can be used as plastic substitutes to make surfboards and anti-microbial food packaging.  Scotland-based CuanTec has developed a bacterial method that has eliminated 95 percent of the sodium hydroxide and also cut energy use by a third as the bacteria do all the work.  They use shells from the langoustines common in northern Europe, and have already signed a contract with the large UK supermarket chain Waitrose to supply flexible film for packaging fish.  The film’s antibacterial properties extend fish shelf life by three days.   An unexpected and more insidious source of plastic pollution is synthetic clothing.  Researchers have determined that acrylic clothing may release more than 700,000 plastic fibers in a single wash.  Polyester releases about 500,000 fibers, and a poly-cotton blend releases about 137,000.  These fibers end up in the water we drink and the fish we eat.  Making matters worse is the presence of microplastic at depths up to the 1000 meters, investigated by Choy et al in the deep waters of Monterey Bay using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).  The ROV collected the samples at ten different depths.  Maximum pollution was found, surprisingly, not at the surface but from 200 to 600 meters below.  They also collected red crabs and found plastics in the gastrointestinal tract.  Giant “sinkers,” the particle filtering mucous houses used for feeding by larvaceans and discarded after use, were collected at depths ranging from 251 to 2967 meters to overlap and extend the range of the research.  All contained microplastics.   Clearly, ridding the oceans of plastic pollution is an almost insurmountable problem.   Japanese manufacturers have come up with a washing machine filter to catch microfibers, which may provide some aid if more widely distributed.  Yet we still do not know the efficacy of such devices.  Curbing the problem at the source is still the most sensible if we wish to sustain the planet.  It is up to us.   Returning to the cheap, convenient and therefore ubiquitous plastic bags, there is hope, for now, there are several different types:  the most common are conventional plastic bags, then there are compostable bags designed to be recycled in industrial composters, biodegradable bags, and two types of oxo-biodegradable bags.  The latter degrade in open landscapes or on water surfaces like oceans.  None degrade too well in landfills.  There is, however,  another problem with compostable biodegradables:  to repel water and oil these have in them perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances in which a hydrogen atom has been replaced by fluorine.  Known as PFAS, these persistent chemicals leach out of the plastic and remain in the compost to be absorbed by plants and later by humans to accumulate in their bodies.   However, it’s back to landfills for the non-recyclables.  In 2015, the US alone produced 34.5 million tons (or 13 percent of total municipal solid waste) of plastic waste from which a small fraction (9 percent or 3.1 million tons) was recycled, 5.4 million tons was incinerated with energy recovery and about 26 million tons ended up in landfills.  Burning reduces volume by 87 percent.  However, open burning produces pollutants including dangerous dioxins, so safe combustion requires a contained environment.   Unless there is a change, the plastic problem appears likely to keep growing.  In 1950, the world produced only about 2 million tons compared to over 300 million tons in present times.  The UN has taken a first step by adding plastic waste to the Basel agreement on hazardous waste — 187 countries have signed up, the US under the Trump administration remains an exception.   Engineering institutions have become aware of the problem and are educating their young members.  As reported in their July 2019 issue of IET Member News, the British electrical engineering professional body has two competitions sponsored by Greenpeace and Greenseas.  For the Greenpeace prize, teams have to come up with methods, technologies and alternative delivery systems to reduce plastic packaging in supermarkets.  And the Greenseas challenge requires competitors to develop a robotic machine to clear beaches of plastic cigarette stubs.  The machine has to be large enough to collect a reasonable amount and painted brightly to attract attention and inform the public of the problem.  Then there is OceanX Group, headed by a young engineer, that is developing automated monitoring and cleanup technology to remove plastic from waterways and better to detect sources.  It employs artificial intelligence including drones.   The inescapable upshot of all of this is a need for education.  Sorting recyclables initially and disposing non-recyclable material into the curbside waste bin could save energy later, and many man-hours.  Changes in the kind of plastic material produced may also help.  For instance, just reducing the coloring used in plastic bottles eases recycling as these additives are expensive to remove.  Also tax incentives for manufacturers can only aid recycling efforts.  However, the now evident danger to the food chain begs including the cost of safe disposal (like controlled combustion for example) in the price of items.  Above all, the total amount of plastic generated can no longer keep increasing; it has to be reduced.  

How can marketers and their suppliers create more sustainable cosmetics and home cleaning products? Summits developed by Ecovia Intelligence provide some answer New York, New York was the site of Ecovia Intelligence’s Sustainable Cosmetics Summit and the Sustainable Cleaning Products Summit, which were held several weeks apart from one another. Combined, the events attracted attendees from raw material suppliers and finished product manufacturers who were there to get tips and tactics from peers as well as experts outside the industries about issues surrounding sustainability—a topic that won’t go away. “Over 200 senior executives combined attended these summits to discuss some of the major sustainability issues facing the cosmetic and home care industries,” explained Amarjit Sahota, chief executive officer, Ecovia. Some of the pressing issues that came out of these events, according to Sahota were:

• Closing packaging loops to combat plastic pollution;
• Addressing health and environmental impacts of products;
• Targeting wider consumer segments, especially Millennials and Gen Z, with green products; and
• Emergence of new green brands, such as Seed Phytonutrients and Love, Home and Planet.

Supplier Ideas Many sustainable ideas originate from the supply side of the household and personal products industry. That was clearly evident during the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit, held in May, when a number of raw material producers took to the podium to provide insights into what makes their products and business models sustainable. Michael Birman of Mibelle Biochemistry explained how plant stem cells can protect and activate human epidermal stem cells. He noted that, in contrast to human cells, every plant cell can regenerate new organs, such as leaves, stems, flowers and seeds or even the whole plant throughout their whole life. In addition, plant cells can de-differentiate under certain conditions and become stem cells. With this in mind, Mibelle has developed PhytoCellTec, a technology to de-differentiate plant cells and produce stem cell cultures in large quantities. The technology makes it possible to cultivate cells of endangered and rare plant species, which helps preserve rare or limited plant stocks. Furthermore, PhytoCell Tec technology allows for the production of active raw materials without harming the environment, as it requires very little plant material, no agricultural land to produce biomass, significantly reduces water consumption compared to conventional biomass production and requires no fertilizer, pesticides or other chemicals. Mibelle’s three stem cell products, derived from apple, grape and alpine rose, provide two different modes of activity: general protection of skin stem cells and plant-specific activity; i.e., apple stem cells promote longevity, grape provides enhances UV protection and rose imparts resistance properties. Croda has been providing sustainable solutions to the personal care industry for decades; for example, it relies more and more on non-fossil energy and 60-70% of its materials come from biobased feedstocks. Chris Sayner explained his company’s idea of a sustainable ingredient supply chain and the growing importance of clean beauty trends such as transparency, safety and responsibility. He reviewed Croda’s Ingredient Integrity program and noted that more sustainability efforts will reshape the personal care industry in the future. “Brand integrity is under constant scrutiny by consumers and NGOs and third-party certification is increasingly important at all levels in the supply chain using publicly available standards and a transparent standard development process,” explained Sayner. “Life Cycle Analysis will become increasingly important in judging the sustainability of personal care consumer products.” Genomatica offers natural glycols for personal care and Damien Perriman explained the benefits of using Brontide natural butylene glycol in personal care formulations. Glycols offer a range of functionalities including humectancy, emolliency, solvency, viscosity reducer, preservative booster, freeze-thaw stability and improved sensory feel. Brontide provides all of those benefits, but contains no heavy metals and with a much lower global warming impact. “If 100 tons of petroleum-based butylene glycol was converted to Brontide, it would be the CO2 equivalent of 33 homes’ electricity use for one year,” observed Perriman. Sustainability Management The Sustainable Cleaning Products Summit was held last month. Presenters included executives from Unilever, Gojo and Earth Friendly Products, as well as presentations from trade associations and non-government organizations. Keynote speaker Steve Cohen of The Earth Institute at Columbia University detailed the importance of sustainability management; e.g., organizational management practices that result in sustainable development, and economic production and consumption that minimize environmental impact and maximize resource conservation and reuse. “We view sustainability management as the third and current phase of environmentalism,” Cohen explained. “The goal of sustainability management is to use technology and human ingenuity to increase the size of the economy while reducing environmental impact.” It may seem unattainable, but it can and already has been done. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, from 1980 to 2015, the US GDP grew by 153%, the US population increased 41%, vehicle miles traveled grew 106%, but air pollution declined 65%. According to Cohen, to reach the next level of sustainability requires an engaged citizen base, accurate science and measurement, technologies for renewable production, public policies and organizational practice that use knowledge of environmental impact and are flexible by design, and a change in culture, norms and values about consumption and lifestyle. “Technological change results in economic change that, in turn, causes social change; social change creates a context for political change,” explained Cohen. “Sustainability requires all levels of society—government, the private sector and citizen participation, in order to succeed and move forward.” Unilever executives have been warning about the environmental impact of FMCG products and consumer habits for decades. Clotilde Balassone detailed the emergence of Love, Home and Planet (LHP), Unilever’s new home and personal care company that is anchored in a love for the planet. As as result, all LHP products are packaged with recycled materials, sustainably sourced, water conscious and created with “benevolent innovation,” according to Balassone, who detailed the company’s work with the Givaudan Foundation to ethically source essential oils. She went on to promote LHP’s Dry Wash Spray, which is designed to refresh gently worn clothes without having to wash them. “It’s like dry shampoo for your clothes,” Balassone explained. Consumers just apply Dry Wash Spray, smooth out and air dry the garment and hang up. LHP relies on post-consumer resin for all of its packaging materials. But TerraCycle and its partners, including Unilever, want to do even better. Their Loop initiative is designed to eliminate the idea of packaging waste by creating high-quality packaging formats that can be reused again and again. TerraCycle’s Brett Stevens told Summit attendees that traditional PCR is no longer a differentiator with consumers. “Because traditional sources of PCR are generic, brands that use recycled material lack a unique story that they can deliver to consumers on-shelf,” he explained. One of those unique stories was P&G’s Head & Shoulders beach plastic shampoo bottles that were created using beach-reclaimed HDPE. Retailers liked the story so much that P&G was able to secure incremental retail display space. The Loop redesigns traditional packaging so that it can be reused without waste. Taking a page from milk delivery, the more durable the package the lower the cost per fill, explained Stevens. For example, a standard antiperspirant package results in a cost per use of 10 cents a package, but after dozens of uses, the Loop program reduces the cost per use to three cents. Loop is now available in Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. This expansion comes approximately six weeks after the launch of the pilot in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington, DC. Along with the expansion, the platform has greatly increased its product line to include Häagen-Dazs’ non-dairy frozen dessert flavors, International Harvest, Cascade and Tide, according to the company. Loop is just the kind of program that may interest Millennials and Gen Z, two demographic groups that together account for more than 50% of the US population, according to Sourabh Sharma of Figorout, a digital marketing and public relations company. “Younger generations have killed casual dining, beer and many other industries, which industry is next?” he asked. Both Millennials and Gen Z expect sustainability to be a value of a company that sells products. As a result, the brands they choose to bring into their lives say something about the person, their values and how they fit in. And they’ll pay for it. While just 36% of the general population will pay full price for items made in a sustainable or environmentally-friendly way, 39% of Millennials and 40% of Gen Z agreed with that statement, according to a recent Cone Communications survey. But in order to engage with these age groups, marketers must capitalize of digital trends such as Switch Off and #Connect2Earth, two social media-driven initiatives designed to reduce energy use. According to Sharma, just 1% of these consumers believe in “traditional” advertising; in contrast, more than 90% believe in influencers. In fact, 36% turn exclusively to social media influencers in their decision making. Looking ahead, the 2020 North American dates for Sustainable Cosmetics Summit is May 6-8. No dates have been set for the Sustainable Cleaning Products Summit, according to Ecovia.  

In keeping with the society-wide movement toward environmental sustainability, consumers are demanding less packaging. A new study indicates, however, that this trend won’t translate into less spending on packaging in the coming year. Of 250 CPG brand owners polled, 75 percent reported that they plan on spending more on packaging over the next year, according to a study conducted by L.E.K. Consulting. These numbers demonstrate a notable increase from 65 percent in 2018 and 40 percent in 2017. While 85 percent of respondents said that they had been working toward changing packaging materials to make them more recyclable, there were other significant trends in the packaging landscape discussed in the study which all require investment in innovation. CPG companies have made moves into easier-to-open packaging (57 percent), single-serve packaging (51 percent) and packaging with different formats, printing and textures to match the new, premium products that they contain. The general public has become more aware of the problems of excessive packaging in recent years for a numerous reasons, one being the tremendous volume of boxes and packaging waste generated by shopping via e-commerce. Amazon.com, in an attempt to curtail some of this, has instituted rules for its sellers requiring streamlined packaging and is imposing punishment in the form of fines for those who fail to use it, reports Mashable. These restrictions are not solely for reasons of sustainability, though, as bulky packaging from vendors also leads to additional shipping weight for Amazon if it is holding the inventory, driving up costs for the e-tail giant. At least one startup has even attempted to close the gap by creating reusable versions of packaging for major CPG brands that can be left on the front porch and picked up for re-use. Loop, a “circular” e-commerce platform created by startup TerraCycle, entered into partnerships with Walmart and Kroger earlier this year for pilots in four cities. CPG companies are in some instances pioneering different versions of packaging for products sold direct-to-consumer. Proctor & Gamble, for example, released a lighter, sturdier box of Tide specifically to be purchased and delivered from Amazon.com.  

Szaky is founder and CEO of TerraCycle, in Trenton, N.J. He says the throwaway culture in the U.S. took shape in the mid-20th century. "There were advertisements in 1950 that talk about, 'You don't have to wash the dishes anymore, simply take the whole thing, — the cutlery, the dishes, the tablecloth itself — and throw it all out,' " he says. That disposability was made possible in large part by the invention of cheap plastic.

From mouthwash to kitchen cleaner, environmentally friendly dehydrated products are coming to your home.   Just-add-water cleaning products from Blueland. Blueland My first lesson in savvy consumerism came in elementary school from my best friend’s mother, who sat us down and handed us a bottle of fancy grown-up shampoo. “Let’s read the ingredients,” she said. We started: “Aqua …” She cut us off there. “What do you think aqua is?” “Water?” “Yes! It’s just a fancy name for water!” I now know that brands who call water “aqua” are simply abiding by the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients (and by “now know,” I mean I just looked it up), but at the time, the fancy vocabulary struck me as a mild consumer scam designed to hide how much of our fanciest consumer products are simply water. It also spawned in me a lifelong interest in reading ingredient labels. MORE THAN 90 PERCENT OF A TYPICAL BOTTLE OF CLEANING PRODUCT IS SIMPLY WATER So 25 years later, when brands started shipping normally waterlogged products to consumers with all or most of the water removed, I was intrigued. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, more than 90 percent of a typical bottle of cleaning product is simply water. Drying out these cleaning and personal care products does several environmentally friendly things: It reduces their volume, thus reducing the number of boats and trucks needed to transport them. It reduces their weight, thus further reducing fuel and carbon emissions associated with shipping them. And it reduces the plastic packaging by requiring a smaller container to hold the refillable concentrate, or by precluding the need for any disposable plastic at all. An estimated 20 percent or more of global disposable plastic packaging by weight could be replaced by reusable packaging if we only shipped active ingredients. The time is ripe for a low-plastic, just-add-water revolution. Only 5 percent of plastic produced globally is ever recycled, a number that has likely dropped since China stopped accepting our recyclables in 2017. You’ve probably heard this, but there’s a lot of plastic swirling around in our oceans, and in developing countries, single-serve product sachets are a scourge on the rivers and beaches. Almost all at once, waterless products have arrived to save the day. By Humankind (emphasis theirs) launched in February. The startup makes a “forever” refillable container for its mouthwash tablets, packages its shampoo bars in paper boxes, and provides refills for its deodorant. It’s all in the design scheme du jour: gender-neutral, with minimalist font swimming in pastel color schemes. Truman’s, which also launched in February, says shopping for cleaning products is too confusing and onerous, offering as an alternative four concentrated cleaning products for glass, floors, bathrooms, and all-purpose, shipped in small recyclable plastic refill cartridges that fit in the neck of its reusable plastic spray bottles. In 2018, Seventh Generation introduced an “ultra-concentrated” laundry detergent, which the company says uses 50 percent less water and 60 percent less plastic and is 75 percent lighter than the standard detergent bottle. The bottle automatically doses the right amount of detergent with one squeeze. It’s only sold online, or else I would absolutely get that to carry home instead of the standard 100-ounce detergent bottle. By Humankind’s mouthwash tablets. By Humankind In March, Amazon launched an in-house product line called Clean Revolution. You screw a bottle of concentrate with the equivalent of six refills to the bottom of the spray bottle or soap dispenser, and pour water into the top. The product has 3.9 stars online; the complaints that the refill pod can sometimes leak are far outweighed by praise for how eco-friendly it is. The system is by a packaging company called Replenish, which has its own line, CleanPath. It’s a subscription refill service for five cleaning products that lets you choose your scent, your bottle and baseplate color, and — for an additional $7.95 fee that strikes me as patently ridiculous — a customizable label. Buying a six-time-use refill is certainly less wasteful than the alternative, but the drawback is that, like a fancy Gillette razor, you’re now wedded to that particular refill and at the mercy of CleanPath’s redesign process. “We regret that previous versions of CleanPath reusable bottles and refill pods have been discontinued and are not compatible with the all new CleanPath,” it says in tiny font on the website. All of the above products promise to be nontoxic, of course. We’re talking about a target market of eco-minded consumers here. The European brand Cif doesn’t make that promise. (It might not have to, as Europe has banned a much longer list of potentially toxic ingredients, so Europeans tend to be a little more relaxed than we are.) That hasn’t stopped Unilever from launching the Cif ecorefill in July, a 10-times-concentrated liquid refill for the normal Cif spray bottle, which Unilever now markets as a lifetime piece. If the spray trigger breaks, it will even deliver a new one for free. And once you remove the plastic sleeves, the ecorefill tube can be thrown the recycling bin. According to Unilever, asking consumers to dilute the product at home means 97 percent less water being transported, 87 percent fewer trucks on the road, and less greenhouse gas emissions. ASKING CONSUMERS TO DILUTE THE PRODUCT AT HOME MEANS 97 PERCENT LESS WATER BEING TRANSPORTED That all sounds great, but in actuality, distribution of Unilever’s products, which range from Dove to Axe, Hellmann’s to Bertolli, Suave to Tresemmé, only accounts for 3 percent of Unilever’s greenhouse gas emissions. (The company says 25 percent is in raw materials and blames 65 percent on how consumers use the products. Our bad?) But this isn’t about carbon emissions. Unilever, cognizant of the growing resentment against single-use plastic, has vowed to reduce the weight of its packaging by one-third, halve the waste associated with the disposal of its products by 2020, and use only reusable, recyclable, or compostable packing by 2025. Its efforts in this direction have been tentative. In 2018, it launched a 3-liter bottle of a Brazilian laundry detergent brand with a formula six times the concentration of the original. Unilever says it’s reduced the volume of plastic used for the detergent by 75 percent. Unilever is one of the consumer product behemoths in Loop, an ambitious cross-brand pilot project that ships reusable containers of everything from Degree deodorant to Häagen-Dazs ice cream to your door and then picks up the empties when you’re done. For that, Unilever redesigned Signal toothpaste to come in tablet form in a recyclable and refillable jar. You just chew one, brush your teeth, then rinse. I can’t tell you how Signal tabs work — I signed up for Loop’s pilot in New York City the day it was announced in January and haven’t yet gotten off the waitlist. But I have tried out ChewTab by Weldental, which was relaunched this year in a glass bottle with a metal lid to appeal to the zero-waste market. The sickly sweet minty xylitol is an acquired taste ... but the bottle sure looks good on my medicine cabinet shelf. If I’m honest, aesthetics are also why I selected Blueland, launched on Earth Day in April 2019, to test out this whole just-add-water fad for myself. That, and out of all the cleaners described above, it had no one-use plastic in its refill system and the most certifications, including the reputable Cradle to Cradle certification, which covers not only how the product is made and disposed of but also its toxicity — or lack thereof. I asked Blueland to send me a kit, and a few days later, a simple cardboard box arrived at my apartment. Inside, I found three shatterproof acrylic spray bottles accented in pink, yellow, and Caribbean blue and labeled in tiny font: Bathroom, Multi-Surface, Glass + Mirror. I filled the bottles with aqua de tap, unwrapped three tablets in corresponding colors, put the postmodernist wrappers in the compost bin, and dropped the tablets in the bottles, where they fizzed just like antacids. An hour later, I used the resulting lightly scented cleaners to wipe down my countertop and mirror and, with the help of a scrubby brush, break apart the soap scum in my bathtub. Before I put them away, I Instagrammed my zero-waste, nontoxic cleaning supplies and received a barrage of questions from my friends eager to try for themselves what might be the most attractive cleaning system ever made. If I sound like I’m in the Blueland cult, I apologize. I really did try to find something wrong with the products, and I couldn’t. While a lot of these supposedly more sustainable consumer products are rightly criticized for feeding our ever-expanding appetite for more stuff, you can’t quibble with making cleaning products — a necessary component of doing life — more sustainable. Blueland could only steal market share, not create a whole new purchasing category. I’ve DIYed my cleaners before, and found myself with shards of glass in my foot after my cat shoved the pretty brown glass spray bottle off the counter. And you can call it the placebo effect or clever marketing, but I honestly don’t believe plain white vinegar works as well as formulated cleaning products. Also, jugs of vinegar are mostly water. I guess my only quibble with this wave of just-add-water products is this: Shipping dry ingredients in compostable packaging and adding water to them ourselves is not a new concept. In fact, we’ve been doing it for thousands of years. Hello, tea, coffee, and soap. It’s only in the past few decades that we’ve taken these formerly eco-friendly items, added in water pumped out of water-scarce areas; thrown in aspartame, flavoring, parfum, and various other synthetic ingredients; put them in plastic bottles with cool logos and ridiculous health promises; and shipped them around the world. The fact is, even if every glass and multi-surface cleaner on the market came in tabs and refill cartridges, it would be BB shot compared to the warships of “functional” beverages that exist for no other reason than getting us to buy more stuff. According to Blueland’s research, the average American home will go through 30 single-use plastic bottles of cleaner in a year. Reducing this to zero is a good thing, sure. But in 2017, America’s per capita consumption of bottled water rose yet again to 42 gallons. That’s equivalent to more than 300 bottles of water. In Europe, plastic drink bottles are the most prevalent form of plastic found in waterways, now that plastic bags have been tackled. Yes, I’m definitely signing up for a Blueland subscription because I’m a sucker for pretty stuff that makes me feel less personally guilty about being an American consumption monster. But I’m under no illusion that this will save the world. It will merely save me a few trips downstairs to the recycling bin.

Earlier this year, Häagen-Dazs collaborated with TerraCycle, a global leader in recycling hard-to-recycle materials line ice cream cartons, to release reusable, refillable pints through a sustainability new program called Loop. A special feature of the packaging ensures that the vegan ice cream at the top melts faster than the bottom. Customers looking to further reduce their carbon footprint were able to order the brand’s vegan ice cream through Loop.

« Le réel problème de notre société, c’est ce concept de « disposabilité ». Il faut que de plus en plus de gens se coupent de cette idée », soutient Tom Szaky, p.-d.g. de TerraCycle, devenu le nouveau prophète de la consigne après avoir été un des chefs de file de l’industrie planétaire du recyclage

« Le réel problème de notre société, c’est ce concept de « disposabilité ». Il faut que de plus en plus de gens se coupent de cette idée », soutient Tom Szaky, p.-d.g. de TerraCycle, devenu le nouveau prophète de la consigne après avoir été un des chefs de file de l’industrie planétaire du recyclage.

TerraCyle has launched a circular, durable packaging model for CPGs and their consumers interested in reducing single-use packaging waste streams.  Packaging and product manufacturers are well aware of the environmental impact of their companies, the negative press about single-use plastics in our oceans, consumer demand for more sustainable solutions, recycling rates with room for improvement and jam-packed landfills. TerraCycle, the globally known leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste, such as laminated snack pouches, toothbrushes and polyurethane earplugs, is blazing yet another trail, this time wholly changing the way we think about products and consumption to support our value stream in reducing its reliance on single-use packaging. This year TerraCycle has launched Loop, a circular packaging reuse solution that changes the existing model for fast moving consumer goods. Loop has created an infrastructure where the primary product containers are durable, designed for multiple uses. The containers are collected, cleaned, refilled and reused via e-commerce and retail, making reuse convenient and affordable to customers through virtual and physical shopping channels. Today a package is considered a COGS (cost of goods sold), and its cost is fully allocated per fill. The cheaper the package the lower the cost per fill. In the Loop model, the package is property of the CPG company rather than the consumer. In this way, the manufacturer’s allocation per fill is the cost divided by the number of uses it can bear. The more durable the package, the lower the cost per fill. By changing the concept around ownership, the demand for durability increases. Rick Zultner, vice president of research and development at Loop, says: ‘When the packaging is an asset to the brand, and made as durable as possible, the manufacturer can depreciate the cost over time. In the current model, single-use packaging is effectively hurting the bottom line, and there is more incentive to reduce the cost per unit as much as possible.’ The incentive to reduce the cost per unit is part of what makes hard-to-recycle laminated pouches so appealing, coupled with convenience and ease-of-use. Therefore, the underlying benefit to the Loop model is the economic structure with the ultimate incentive of eliminating single-use waste entirely. We have a long way to go before we start seeing a major shift, but there’s no doubt that global consumers are eager for a viable, sustainable consumption option such as Loop. Zultner continues: ‘There is a healthy amount of market development being done, and we know that this model makes sense to better align the total life-cycle cost of a product with the finance objectives of the company manufacturing the products.’ The circular Loop  Loop offers its reuse packaging system using two models. For e-commerce convenience, brands can integrate their product onto the Loop website. Loop executes all receiving, outbound distribution, inbound distribution and cleaning. The second option is to purchase products at Loop retail partners’ brick and mortar locations. Once the consumer is finished with the product, they can return it to the retail store. The consumer will receive their deposit back, and the empties will be transported through the grocery store distribution network back to Loop for cleaning and refilling. For initial launch, only the e-commerce option is available. In the US, UPS is Loop’s logistics partner, handling delivery and reverse logistics. Together the partners custom-designed the foldable Loop tote to handle liquids, dry goods and personal care products with protective dividers inside, using materials that offer easy cleaning. The UPS Package Design and Test Lab identified ways to mitigate material breakdown, product leaks and exterior packaging materials that display dilapidation quickly. The tote eliminates the need for the ubiquitous corrugated boxes we have become so familiar with as e-commerce users. The tote comes with a shipping label to place on the top of the tote when the containers are empty and ready to be returned. Users trigger return pick up and shipment through their account on the website. Throwback ‘milkman’ designs  Loop assists product manufacturers with the selection of their primary container materials including aluminum, stainless steel, glass and engineered plastic. Zultner explains: ‘We want to make sure the containers can be cleaned and effectively reused.’ Material selection is based on the product type and where in the household the product is used. For example, Love Beauty and Planet’s shampoo bottles are aluminum because of the hazard associated with breaking. However, REN Clean Skincare’s bottles are glass. Designs from the 1950s have made a comeback with this paradigm shift, harking back to a time where there was no concept around single-use and disposal. For example, Mondelez’s Milka brand is going back to a design more like a cookie tin from the post-war era. Manufacturers are starting small and incubating their most prominent brands using the Loop circular opportunity. Most of the Loop participants have R&D lines to do the filling in-house, or the ability to contract with a specialty filler. The objective is to design a primary container that can withstand 100 uses at a minimum. Explains Zultner: ‘In a life-cycle analysis, depending on the type of package – if it can achieve five uses, it’s considered better than single-use packaging, and any uses beyond that deliver both environmental and cost savings.’ Branding durable containers  Much of the growth in the label industry through the 1970s and 1980s can be attributed to the increasing demand for foods, beverages and beauty products in convenient, single-use packaging. According to Forbes, humans buy a million plastic bottles every minute; and it’s estimated that over half a trillion plastic bottles will be sold in 2020. Loop has officially launched in the greater Paris area, and New York state, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania – all locations within a one-day shipping zone. Should these regional consumers shift their buying power even a small percentage to Loop’s reusable containers, the label industry will feel the contraction. The Loop teams are actively researching the best decoration technologies to suit the purpose of reuse on these durable containers. Zultner says: ‘We’ll need labels that remain appealing through multiple washing stages, but can be peeled off and removed without damaging the packaging and without leaving residue behind.’ Loop is looking to build a materials guide for its CPG partners, informing users on adhesive and material selection to meet their branding objectives. For instance, the adhesive and overall durability of a label on the front of the container might require more permanence than the back label, to accommodate more frequent ingredient changes during a reuse phase. Alternatively, the front of the container could incorporate direct print while only the ingredient label is pressure-sensitive and can be effectively removed frequently for updates. ‘It’s still important for brands to differentiate their products through the Loop platform,’ Zultner says. ‘And we’ll be using our resources to help uncover the best ways of branding and labeling the primary containers used in the Loop infrastructure.’ Brand participation  The Clorox Company’s Hidden Valley Ranch dressing, Unilever’s Hellman’s mayonnaise and Nestlé’s Haagen-Dazs ice cream are among the participating food brands. Terracycle has targeted the largest food conglomerates to get involved. Says Zultner: ‘It adds momentum to the initiative and can help change the entire market direction.’ With the right brand participation, Loop can more rapidly gain authority and relevance in the marketplace.   Moreover, Unilever’s power brands Dove, Axe, Love Beauty and Planet, REN Clean Skincare, and Seventh Generation are available through Loop. Procter & Gamble’s influential brands Pantene, Tide, Cascade and Crest can be purchased with reusable packaging via Loop. The opportunity TerraCycle’s Loop offers is exciting and telling in many ways about the pivotal way packaging sustainability will evolve over the next 10-15 years, or sooner. So many consumers are already heavily entrenched in today’s e-commerce infrastructure. It’s only a matter of time before leading brands participating in Loop gain user traction, achieve growth and find renewed cost models that make their businesses more profitable. In turn CPG shareholders will be more confident, and CPG customers happier about the economic and environmental decisions they’re able to make when purchasing their favorite products. Wise label converters will pay attention to the moves their customers are making in the packaging reuse space, so they can continue servicing their needs in a 21st century milkman’s world.  

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 Inc. has launched the “Loop” initiative, a collaboration with household names such as Nestle SA 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 Inc. 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.