Established in 2001, recycling/upcycling and waste management company TerraCycle has grabbed headlines for its ability to recycle the “non-recyclable” and its partnerships with some of the biggest brands like Nestlé, Coca Cola, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Clorox, Mars and PepsiCo.

Our second day in Paris was chock-full of rich panel discussions with brands trading stories of the evolution of ideas and lessons learned — and still to be learned — on the long, windy road to creating a sustainable consumer economy.

Businesses can help people live a good life. But what does that really mean?

L-R: Joanna Yarrow, Alicia Combaz, Giulio Bergamaschi and Rob Cameron An underlying and ongoing theme of this and other Sustainable Brands events around the world — how to help people lead “the good life” — took centre stage once more here in Paris. As session moderator Rob Cameron, CEO at the advisory firm SustainAbility, said in opening the conversation, money is often a key to unlocking happiness and helping people to lead a good, healthy and sustainable life. For centuries, companies have worked tirelessly to develop products that can be manufactured and sold in a way that is economically sustainable for the business, and affordable for the consumer. But, as Giulio Bergamaschi — global president of Biotherm, part of the L'Oréal Group — asked: In a new context of resource scarcity, global warming and mass biodiversity loss, can the planet afford affordable products?

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It has been a key factor in the success of Biotherm, a business with moisturising products built on one key ingredient which is both natural and scarce: Plankton. Back in 1952, the business found a way of taking plankton from the sea, and applying a bio-fermentation process to it in the laboratory that multiplies and amplifies it. “We used science and innovation to take something natural and make it widely available without causing any harm,” Bergamaschi said. “You can’t be truly affordable if you’re not affordable for the planet. And you can’t just think about the cost to the company. You must also think about the cost to society and the planet.” Listening to customers’ concerns and demands in terms of social and environmental issues can be used to “bring you up” and help to create positive change, he added. “We have to use the influence of our customers to help us improve.” Fellow panelist Alicia Combaz agreed: Citizens have more power to participate in helping to get things done that will help them to lead a happier life. The organisation she co-founded, make.org, is built on the fundamental belief that politics is not enough anymore to drive real action. Instead, it asks individuals to submit ideas as part of mass consultations. This can throw up a range of things they want to change in the world – from access to healthy diets, to the end of violence against women – and asks its huge community to collectively build a plan to make things happen. “There is something wrong with our democracies right now. So, we need to take the energies from people to do something for our democracies, to make them sustainable,” she said. For Joanna Yarrow, head of sustainable & healthy living at IKEA, it is business that has the defining role in allowing people to live better lives. Established 75 years ago, the Swedish furniture store has long held a vision of creating better lives for normal people by selling them affordable products. The company’s Live Lagom project, which helps customers and staff make small changes to how they live their lives that will make them – and the planet – happier, embodies this vision well. Yet surprisingly, Yarrow revealed that IKEA products are only “affordable” to a quarter of people in the markets where it has stores. This has prompted the retailer to devise new ways of transacting with customers by rethinking ownership, sharing or leasing products, and providing services rather than simply selling people more stuff. But this journey demands a new narrative, she asserted. “In the 21st century, it is very clear that sustainable living cannot be a luxury. If it’s niche, or elite, or for ‘the few’, we are not going to be sustainable,” Yarrow said, adding that radical changes are needed within business over a very short period of time. “We need to widen the conversation, make it relevant, attractive and affordable – at a scale and speed we could not have envisioned even five years ago.” Bergamaschi agreed, highlighting the specific challenge of making sure that consumers in Asia– where much of the economic growth will come from in the future – see sustainable products as desirable.

CSR … Sustainability … Purpose: What’s the difference and why does it matter?

  L-R: Andrew Wilson, Alexandre Kouchner (moderator), Virginie Helias, Thomas Kolster | Image credit: Twitter CSR has long held different meanings for different organisations. For many, it started as a separate programme, to generate social or environmental benefits in the areas in which the company operated, but was separate from its core business activities. At a roundtable discussion during Wednesday morning’s Fair and Inclusive session, Virginie Helias, Chief Sustainability Officer at P&G, claimed the very title of CSR causes a problem. She explained: “‘Corporate’ sounds disconnected from the business and the brands; ‘Social’ suggests philanthropy, which is not sustainable; and ‘Responsibility’ means it is the right thing to do, but according to who?” Borne out of a sense of responsibility, it is no surprise that CSR has such a responsibility focus. Thomas Kolster, CEO and founder of Goodvertising, claims that this is the difference between CSR and sustainability: “CSR is stuck in the responsibility framework, whereas sustainability is about possibility.” Andrew Wilson, Executive Director of Purpose at Edelman, asserted that it is not a case of CSR being wrong, rather that it has not done enough: “CSR is necessary but not sufficient. We now have unprecedented levels of urgency, with a dramatic shift in power and politics, so that business has to change.” An imperative for this change is speed, Kolster said: “What young people want is for change to happen much faster. The new leadership is moving from being a missionary to an enabler. Most of the company commitments to achieve something by 2030 or 2040 are not moving fast enough.” As sustainability becomes embedded into core business operations, the focus for engaging with consumers has shifted to purpose. Wilson explained how he helps brands identifies purpose. “I ask companies, ‘What would the world miss if you weren’t here? What is your unique contribution?’ Purpose should be the intersection of your business strategy, your impact on people and planet, and your ability to bring change. If all three are aligned, you have a strong sense of purpose.” The next stage is to extend a company purpose to individual brands. Helias said: “We have just launched Ambition 2030, aiming to enable and inspire positive impact on the environment and society — for example, by asking consumers to reduce their carbon footprint. Each of the brands are defining their own ambition. Herbal Essences’ ambition is to enable people to experience natural products and protect biodiversity. The brand is endorsed by Kew Gardens, the world leader in botanical science, which is important to provide tangible proof of becoming an agent of change.” Tangible proof includes action — not only words — towards supporting people to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle. REI first took the decision to close all of its stores on Black Friday in 2015, launching the #OptOutside campaign. Wilson viewed this as a great example of living purpose: “They knew that consumers had bought their stuff and instead of encouraging them to buy more, they encouraged them to go outside and use it. They didn’t name the enemy. They just said, “Let’s go outside and enjoy ourselves’.” So, does purpose mean that all companies now have to become activists? Kolster disagreed: “I don’t agree with activist brands. Sustainability is about inclusion, not exclusion. Brand activism is a hero trap. Nike and Apple can break any rule in the marketing rule book because they are that brand. Don’t ever copy the legends.” Purpose, therefore, goes beyond what companies can do to make their products sustainable and is more about helping consumers make their lives more sustainable. Kolster said: “The question of who can help customers becomes so pivotal. The greatest achievement is to get people to change their behavior — making the consumer the hero, not the brand. Looking at people’s lives is the secret to building strong purposeful brands.” Supporting consumers with their sustainable purpose is a more personal extension of ensuring responsible business. However, as with CSR and sustainability, the interesting question remains: How do you measure the impact of purpose?

It’s Time to Start Loving Waste, Not Hating It

Tom Szaky and Virginie Helias dive into the Loop platform Tom Szaky, the shaggy-haired, enigmatic founder of TerraCycle, made a really good point as the afternoon’s first Virtuous Value Chain session kicked off here at Sustainable Brands Paris. Addressing the packed auditorium, he asked: “How many of you here dreamt about working in garbage when you left school?” The absence of hands being held aloft raised an interesting point about our relationship with rubbish, and the lack of creative and innovative minds that have been applied to solving the world’s waste problems. “We’re built to be repulsed by waste, so nobody ever wants to work in it,” he said. “But it’s the only industry that will own everything soon — everything you see, from the floor, to the lights, to the clothes you’re wearing; it will soon be the property of the garbage industry.” The fireside chat and roundtable discussion that followed was thankfully stuffed full of innovation. Virginie Helias, P&G’s chief sustainability officer, took to the stage for an impressive double act presentation with Szaky, in which they presented the newly launched Loop project. Co-developed by the consumer goods giant and TerraCycle, Loop is a shopping platform that enables people to buy everyday daily items in packaging that is durable and recycled. Operating on a subscription model, users simply send back their used packaging and replenish their shampoos, washing tablets, etc as and when they need them: “It builds on the idea of the milkman who would deliver reusable bottles and then pick them up to be refilled. Well, Loop is the milkman reimagined for consumables,” Helias said. Just like the milkman, Loop cleans the empty packaging you send back so it’s ready for reuse, instead of ending up as waste after a single use. Clearly excited to be able to work with a giant business such as P&G to really make such a system work, Szaky said Loop challenges the concept of ownership. “You buy shampoo, but you also get a bottle that you don’t want,” he said. “Yes, reuse is about durability when it comes to packaging. But it’s also about great design. “Plastic is not the evil. The evil is using something once.” Loop has been a real journey for Helias and her team. She needed external advocates to sell the concept internally and win support. “We took Tom on a tour of the company, going into each business to explain the idea,” she said. Then, making a public announcement as to its ambition – at the World Economic Forum in Davos – created a real sense of urgency. “We researched the idea behind Loop with consumers for two years,” Helias explained. “This is about reinventing consumption. We’ve made it responsible, but also irresistible. Now, we want more brands to join in.”   L-R: Alexis Olans Haass, Tom Szaky, David Amar, Clemence Sanlis (moderator) | Image credit:Twitter Next, it was adidas’ turn to present its own innovation in solving the waste challenge. Alexis Olans Haass, the company’s director of sustainability for global brands, held in her hand an early version of a new FUTURECRAFT trainer. Unlike other similar products that are made from 12 different types of material in 70 different parts, this new product is made of just one: a version of thermoplastic polyurethane, or TPU. And that’s because adidas wants to create a truly circular trainer, with each new pair made from the last. It’s not quite there yet, as Haass refreshingly admits, as the company tries to increase the percentage of recycled material going into the production. But to make the product work and to get it onto shelves, a new business model is required, as well as a different mindset from consumers. “The word ‘education’ sounds parochial, but creating a new business model will include education of consumers,” she said. “It’s more about creating incentives, so that people have continuous reminders and the right information to make it easier for them to send their trainers back to us, so that we can reuse the material. It needs to land as a concept with Average Joe.” In wrapping up, Szaky made the point that waste infrastructure must also play catch up: “We need recyclers to want the shoes — not just for recycling of these materials to be technically possible, but also practically possible.”

How to value, and identify, the virtuous value chain

When it comes to virtuous value chains, it appears the virtue can be identified in a variety of ways. The ‘How to value the virtuous’ roundtable on Wednesday afternoon introduced three concepts of virtuous value chains, from the historical, to the technological, to virtue being the reason for existing at all. According to Ynzo van Zanten, Choco Evangelist at Tony’s Chocolonely, at his company the virtue existed before the value chain. He said “The company’s mission is to make an impact, and chocolate is just the way we choose to do it. We are not a chocolate maker. Callebaut makes the chocolate. We are an impact maker.” Launched 14 years ago in the US, Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate is made by Swiss chocolate maker Barry Callebaut, with cocoa beans from Tony’s Chocolonely partner co-operatives in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. It is marketed solely on its mission: Together, we make 100% slave free the norm in chocolate. van Zanten confirmed: “We only do marketing towards our mission or purpose. We want people to get triggered by what we are about.” Empowering people to believe they can make a difference, the company’s website calculates how many cocoa beans are in each chocolate bar, to help illustrate the impact a purchase has made. Providing an example of a more historical virtuous value chain, Carlo Galli, Head of Sustainability at Nestlé Waters, spoke about the history of preserving water resources. He said: “The brands are historical brands, like Perrier and San Pellegrino. For years, it’s been about sustainably managing the water resources. When you manage a water source for so many decades, you have to transfer the knowledge from person to person. This is the concept we have to sell to the consumer.” Galli stressed that while a single company can achieve water management, water stewardship is an inclusive stakeholder approach. He explained: “The story started when we understood that working on efficiency in our factories was not enough. We discovered that we should be more collaborative. We saw an opportunity with the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), created a common language for water stewardship, and committed last year to be AWS-certified through all our factories.” Poignantly, the roundtable was held on Fashion Revolution Day, the six-year anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, which killed 1,138 people and injured another 2,500. That led to the Fashion Revolution campaign, urging consumers to ask brands, ‘Who made my clothes?’ Neliana Fuenmayor, founder and CEO of A Transparent Company, recognises the activism amongst young people. She said: “We are seeing this urgency, where digital natives are using the power they have of the internet and the phone in their hand. They are saying, ‘We are not going to wait until we have jobs and titles to change the world — we are going to do it now’.” Fuenmayor brought her experience in technology to fashion supply chains. She said: “Having been involved in tracking fish on blockchain, I decided to bring this to fashion. In 2017, we tracked the first garment on blockchain to see how it could help transparency. It took at least a year for the fashion industry to take it in. Now, there are a few pilots happening in organic cotton. We believe blockchain can help data be verifiable.” For Fuenmayor, it’s about remembering the three T: “Traceability, transparency, to gain trust. Brands are always looking to gain trust. For traceability, you need the information to be verified. If you are tracking from a cotton seed to the final T-shirt, you need smart labels to prove this. At the retail stage we use QR codes, and in two years’ time we will see more of contactless.” Three approaches for three industries, all seeking to achieve a virtuous value chain.

Courtesy of Loop Plastic pollution is one of our greatest environmental threats. These companies are fighting back Remember when the idea of bringing reusable grocery bags to the store felt impossible? Look how far we have come! However, there is so much more to do to mitigate consumers’ reliance on single-use plastics. These companies are changing the way we think about packaged goods, from ice cream containers to takeout boxes. We’re betting that these forward-thinking startups are poised to make a huge impact on single-use plastics and forever change consumers’ habits.

Loop

You heard it here first: Loop is going to revolutionize packaging. Loop is a first-of-its-kind shopping system that delivers consumer goods, like food and cleaning products, in multi-use containers that are then collected, cleaned, refilled, and reused. It’s like the milkman model of yore, but on a much larger scale. The company is a collaboration between TerraCycle and several major consumer product brands, like Proctor & Gamble, Nestle, PepsiCo, Unilever, Mars Petcare, The Clorox Company, and Coca-Cola. Loop’s goal is to create a “zero-waste option for the world’s most popular consumer products while maintaining affordability, improving convenience, and returning disposable or durable items to a circular life cycle.” Loop launches in spring 2019; sign up at loopstore.com.

There’s a common thought that for a brand to be sustainable, it has to sacrifice something along the way. Maybe it’s a certain material, or a slice of the profit, or a sense of luxury. But why do we operate under that assumption? Maybe it would help to take the word sustainable out of the conversation; it’s been overused and abused enough that few consumers really understand what it means. Here are some better words for it: timeless, resilient, durable. Those instantly sound a lot more appealing. And to make something timeless or durable—whether it’s a glass bottle or a dress—you’ll inevitably select the best materials, the best craftsmen, the best technology.   That’s the realization Tom Szaky, the CEO of TerraCycle came to when he and his team were dreaming up their latest venture, Loop, an e-commerce platform that will offer familiar single-use products—dish soap, shampoo, beverages—in reusable, re-fillable packages. “[At TerraCycle] we’ve been recycling materials and making products out of recycled materials for 16 years, but we got to this reflection point where we asked ourselves, ‘Is what we’re doing the solution to waste?’ ” he explains. “Recycling is a solution to the system of waste, but not the root cause. It’s like taking Tylenol every morning because you have a migraine. The Tylenol is a solution to the symptom, but you aren’t solving the reason you have a migraine.”   The earth’s “migraine” is the climate crisis, and you could say the “Tylenol” is the persistent greenwashing and meager efforts from global brands to reverse it. The root cause isn’t one specific thing, like fast fashion or air travel; more broadly, it’s our culture of disposability. That refers to the single-use plastics we throw away immediately and the clothing we dispose of almost as fast. “Disposability really emerged around the 1950s,” Szaky explains. That’s when plastic came into regular use as a cheaper alternative to glass or metal in our daily items. Fast fashion didn’t emerge quite that long ago, but the concept of disposability—and a lack of concern for the items being disposed of—eventually trickled into our closets, too. In the 1920s, an average middle-income woman might have purchased two or three items a year and wore them for 10 to 20 years. Now, the same woman is buying 65 items of clothing per year and, on average, wears each garment three times, according to Szaky. “It’s not just fashion, it’s everything,” he continues. Almost every item we consume has gone the way of disposability: Consider the makeup you buy at Sephora, which is likely packaged in non-recyclable plastic. Decades ago, it came in crystal containers or a refillable tube. Milk is another good example: It used to be delivered in glass bottles, which were later picked up to be refilled, but in the ’50s, glass bottles were replaced by single-use cartons and plastic jugs. “An interesting thing to point out is that back when you got milk in a glass bottle, you didn’t own the bottle—it was property of the dairy,” he adds. “They were financially motivated to make it a long-lasting and durable bottle. But when disposability took over, it shifted to the consumer owning the carton. Do you really want to own it, though? Do you want to own that coffee cup the minute it’s empty?” Um, no thanks. Shouldn’t the manufacturer be responsible for what happens to the product it’s selling? That’s where Szaky’s theory for Loop comes in: “If we switch ownership back to the manufacturer, magic happens,” he says. Ahead of Loop’s launch, he’s been working closely with brands like Pantene, Living Proof, Ren Skincare, Häagen-Dazs, and Procter & Gamble on durable, thoughtfully designed containers that can be sent back to to be refilled. Most of them look a lot better than their single-use counterparts, too: Ren’s best-selling body wash is now available in a sleek, recycled ocean plastic container that can be refilled; Pantene is finalizing a design for a luxe, refillable aluminum bottle with a matte gold finish; and your favorite Häagen-Dazs flavor will soon come in a double-wall steel pint instead of coated paper. And when you order those items online—granted you’re in New York or Paris, the first cities where Loop will be available—they will get delivered in a Loop tote, a soft, reusable shipping container that would replace the cardboard boxes you piled up in your lobby. We’re living in a time where everyone orders everything online, from toilet paper to makeup to meal kits, which means an excess of paper and plastic waste, not to mention harmful emissions from the planes, trains, and trucks involved. Instead of throwing away or “recycling” Loop’s shipping container, you’ll simply schedule a pick-up. As Loop expands into more cities, it could truly revolutionize e-commerce.

1/4 Maggie Marilyn’s non-plastic bags are made from cassava (root starch) and vegetable oil and can biodegrade in water. Photo: Courtesy of Maggie Marilyn The takeaway isn’t just that the tote and those reusable packages are the more sustainable options; they’re also better-looking and more luxurious, which is how you get customers to pay attention. “There’s a huge opportunity for design here that just isn’t possible in disposable packaging,” he says. “Durability enables reuse, which is always the best thing to do with an object, but it also offers unparalleled luxury. If you’re coming from a place of ‘being responsible’ or ‘solving your sins,’ progress is always going to be incremental. But forget sustainability—if you can win the consumer without it, that’s the golden ticket. If you divorce sustainability from a Tesla, it’s still a winner.” On a similar note, Blueland just launched with a mission to reduce our dependency on single-use plastic, starting with an elevated take on cleaning supplies. CEO and cofounder Sarah Paiji Yoo was horrified to learn about the micro-plastics in the water she used to make her son’s baby formula, but found it nearly impossible to eliminate plastic from her life. “I didn’t have any choices as a consumer because so many of our everyday products, like window cleaner, toothpaste, and laundry detergent, all come packaged one way: in single-use plastic,” she says. Her first solution for Blueland is the ingenious Forever Bottle, a shatterproof, refillable BPA-free plastic spray bottle: Fill it with water, drop in a coin-size cleaning tablet, and in minutes, you have a cleaning product ready to use. “I would love to move the consumer mindset from single-use consumption to one of reuse,” she continues. “I’m so excited that we’re living in a time where consumers are interested in where and how their products are made, and they view ‘better products’ as the ones that are sustainably sourced, manufactured, and sold.”   How does all of this relate back to fashion, exactly? As far as packaging is concerned, Loop’s reusable container sounds like a no-brainer solution to the boxes and plastic bubbles you normally receive in an e-commerce order. For now, only the brands on Loop’s platform will be able to ship with the reusable totes, but several designers are streamlining their packaging to cut down on waste, or they’re eliminating plastic altogether. Gabriela Hearst uses compostable TIPA bags in lieu of plastic, and Maggie Marilyn recently introduced a biodegradable cassava-root bag that dissolves in the water. You could say upcycling factors into Szaky’s model of reuse, too—see Marine Serre, Rentrayage, and Re/Done—and a few companies are integrating the concept into their newest products, like Adidas, which just launched a sneaker that can be recycled into another pair; For Days, a T-shirt subscription service that recycles your tees into new ones when you’ve worn them out; and Eileen Fisher, who gladly takes back her clothes to be spun into new garments. In these cases, like the glass milk bottle, you don’t really own the sneaker or the T-shirt; once you send it back to the brand, it’s their responsibility to properly reuse or recycle it.   Szaky also sees a future where Loop has partnered with major clothing companies and independent designers to “loan” out their inventory on the platform, similar to Rent the Runway. “The idea of fashion itself creates waste—we throw things away not because they’re worn out, but because we don’t like the fashion anymore,” he says. “We’re working with a few apparel brands, and it’s been really cool to see them wake up to this idea of rentals, like, ‘Wait a minute—if I can make a shirt that costs X, but it goes around [via rental] over and over again, it could make me hundreds of X in profit.’ And then you don’t have so much waste, and the consumer doesn’t have a closet full of crap.” He says a new approach to design will be crucial to actually achieve this: “If you make something trendy, fashion renders it waste,” he says. “Timeless design would become the focus [for designers], and quality and durability. An infinitely durable item is infinitely profitable.”

Loop’s revolutionary Tote, a reusable shipping container that could eventually replace cardboard and plastic packaging. Photo: Courtesy of Loop Of course, “timeless” means different things to different people. For some, it’s a little black dress, while others consider a leopard turtleneck to be pretty basic. And even if you can’t wrap your mind around the idea of renting all of your clothes—because that reality seems very, very far away—Szaky’s focus on high-quality, luxurious design should still resonate. It follows the commonly referenced idea that we should buy fewer, yet better pieces that are more expensive, more luxurious, and more carefully made, as opposed to constantly filling our closets with trendy fast fashion. Plenty of women already shop this way, and not necessarily because it’s a sustainable choice; it just leads to a better wardrobe, because it’s lined with items you truly love. So until your favorite designer is available to rent on Loop and is being shipped to your door in a Loop tote, that’s arguably the best way to consume more consciously—and always skip the plastic bag!

That to me is the magic of durable. ‘Durable’ allows us to elevate designs so much that you don’t even have to care about sustainability; you should love it. Now if you also happen to care about the environment, that’s a double benefit. You don’t lose the design benefit. You’d just also be like, ‘Oh wow, I’m also saving the planet in the same go. Isn’t that great?’

—  Tom Szaky CEO at TerraCycle and Founder of Loop

 

—  Regrets? I have a few. Here’s one: In the late 1980s, in Washington, D.C., I voted what I subsequently realized was the wrong way on the so-called Bottle Bill, which aimed to put deposits on bottled drinks for the ultimate purpose of increasing recycling. It was a practical response on my part (doesn’t mean it was right, however). To get your money back, you had to store the bottles someplace. In a 600-square-foot apartment filled with the flotsam and jetsam of two people, that required some innovative thinking, and thinking wasn’t (and sometimes still isn’t) something I was necessarily inclined to do.

Thirty years later, there’s no question that I would do the thinking on this particular issue, but the irony is, now I wouldn’t even have to. Tom Szaky has done that for me. That shouldn’t be a total surprise; when you arrive in the US as a Hungarian refugee, leave Princeton University after a year in change to start a company, you’re pretty bright. In fact, you’re more than that, you’re smart and confident AND you probably have a damn good idea. Szaky’s damn good idea was called TerraCycle, which today is one of the world's leading innovators in the field of waste management. Inc. magazine named Szaky the #1 CEO under the age of 30, back in 2006. Inc. didn’t ask me, but I’d have voted for that.

Tom, you have a great, unusual back story, leaving Princeton at age 19 to found TerraCycle; talk about having the courage of your convictions. But let's not dwell on the past. Tell us what kind of company TerraCycle is now, and where you’re going. Tom — Absolutely. So, TerraCycle now is 16 years old as an organization. We operate in 21 countries around the world and our mission is to eliminate the idea of waste, and we do that in a number of different ways. We have three divisions. Our first, the TerraCycle brand, is really known for is collecting and recycling those things that are difficult to recycle. From your dirty diapers to your cigarette butts and hundreds of other packaging forms in between. Our second division is not about collecting and recycling, but about integrating waste like ocean plastic into products like shampoo bottles. It’s more about making things recycled. Now, our third division, Loop, was announced 100 days ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It’s all about: How do we shift away from what we believe is the root cause of waste, which is using something just once, or “disposability,” and shifting towards a no-waste system, where we use things over and over, or with “durability.” All while trying to maintain the benefits of disposability, which is to make things cheap and convenient. That’s what Loop is all about. Twenty-one countries? How do you manage around 21 countries? Are there 21 Tom Szakys around the world? Well, in a way, yes. TerraCycle is made up of about 300 team members. So, there’s 299 other people like me running around, trying to advocate for the work we do. The important thing is that if you think about any one of our divisions, whether it’s TerraCycle collecting and recycling, or integrating waste, or Loop and moving to durables, the underlying way they work is actually incredibly similar, which is: Each type of waste is a unique animal. Each one has to be collected, processed. In TerraCycle, it's more shredding and melting and recovering material, while in Loop, it's more about cleaning. And then working with major brands and major retailers to enable these things to exist.      

“We need to eliminate the idea of waste...And that’s why recycling, and I say this as a recycling company, is only a temporary solution, not a perfect solution.”

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Even though you are obviously an environmentally conscious company, you’re still going to have to deal with regulators. You’re still going to have to deal with maybe some pushback, right? I have to say that as a ‘purposeful organization,’ we’re very lucky that people generally love us and want to help us exist versus make it challenging for us to exist. It’s usually we’re being advocated for, versus being advocated against. Usually from a legal framework, most of the laws of the land are structured to actually help companies like us to exist, versus hurt. So, it’s usually net-beneficial. When I’m asked is it good if a new law passes, a new regulation around waste, I’m always like “Absolutely!” Cause it's helping us take a step forward. A lot of it, too, is in partnership with the major brands and major retailers that we partner with. They take on a lot of the work as well, because it’s all around their products, and by partnering with them, a lot of the challenges go away. I’ll circle back to that about the partnerships. But first ... Waste: Are you basically trying to eliminate the word? The concept from our consciousness? You know what I’m saying? Yeah, I do, I totally hear you, and I think every company has to have a big hairy goal. This is a ridiculously big hairy goal, but the direct answer is ‘yes.’ I mean, if you asked a tree what is waste, I don’t think a tree could define it. Cause it doesn’t exist in nature, or any animal if you asked them, what is waste, they couldn’t define it because in nature there is no such thing, right? My useless outputs such as the carbon I exhale are super-useful to other organisms. So, the useless outputs to organism A are typically useful outputs to some other organism and such. There are no outputs that are useless in both cases. And that is the modern idea of waste: outputs that are useless to the creator but also useless to any other organism that may want to eat it. In fact, most cases that animals think that waste is food, they eat it to their detriment.

“If you asked a tree what is waste, I don’t think a tree could define it. Cause in nature there is no such thing.”

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We need to eliminate the idea of waste. This is why recycling is an important temporary solution, but strangely and academically, if you looked up the word ‘recycling’ in a dictionary, it would be bound to the word ‘waste’. In other words, the word ‘waste’ has to appear in the definition of the word ‘recycling.’ And that’s why recycling, and I say this as a recycling company, is only a temporary solution, not a perfect solution. Can you show me, I mean, not just tell me, the difference between TerraCycle and Loop? Oh, sure, let me pick a product that exists in both businesses to compare and contrast. I actually even have a prop here. Bear with me. Ok, let’s do something like an ice cream container, because I happen to be having one in my hand. So today, if you bought an ice cream container, it would probably be paperboard, right? If you bought like a Häagen Dazs or let’s say a Ben & Jerry’s or something. Now that paperboard container, when you're done with it, is not recyclable and will end up in a landfill or an incinerator. That’s today. With our first division, we would, and we do this with Ben & Jerry’s for example in Japan, give you an opportunity to be able to collect that used paperboard ice cream container, and we would take it. We would shred it. We would separate the plastic from the paper and recycle both into new plastic and paper products. That is recycling, right?

“This Häagen Dazs container is like the best ice cream container in the world. It’s beautiful. It has new function. And, the amount of work to have this go-around again is incredibly little compared to the amount of work to recycle something, let alone to dispose of it.”

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Now in Loop, we change the container to stainless steel. Incredibly beautiful. A fantastic container. And this, when we pick it up from you, dirty with ice cream residue in it, gets cleaned and refilled. That’s the difference between Loop and TerraCycle and how they work. The benefit is with Loop, you get a way better container. This is like the best ice cream container in the world. There’s nothing better than this. It’s beautiful. It has new function. And also, the amount of work to have this go-around again is incredibly little compared to the amount of work to recycle something, let alone to dispose of it. Okay, I’m really impressed about that ice cream thing. I’ll show you another one for fun. Here, for example, is the newly designed Loop toothbrush, made from metal. But first, imagine an old plastic toothbrush. Okay? Sure. In a plastic toothbrush today, you can’t recycle at home, so you throw it out. That’s today, there’s no choice. We have, at TerraCycle, created a national program with Colgate and with other brands as well, but with Colgate in the U.S. that nationally allows you to recycle your toothbrushes by sending them to us and we shred them, melt them, and maybe make them into a playground. That’s TerraCycle. In Loop, when this newly designed toothbrush comes back, now this is a bit more complex. So, the new toothbrush has parts of it that are reasonable to reuse. Like, check this out. The bottom of the new toothbrush, this part, that’s reasonable to reuse. So, this is cleaned and goes to the next consumer. While the head, no matter how well I clean the head, you would never be comfortable using someone’s old head. So, this goes to recycling, and all we do is put a new head on and out it goes to the next consumer. So here, the bottom is what goes to re-use. And this is probably the most beautiful manual toothbrush ever invented. I mean it's beautiful. Metal, feels amazing, and that’s what durability does. It doesn’t just solve for the environment. It actually makes a way, way, way better product.

“And this Oral-B is probably the most beautiful manual toothbrush ever invented. I mean it’s beautiful. Metal, feels amazing, and that’s what durability does. It doesn’t just solve for the environment. It actually makes a way, way, way better product.”

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That’s great, because what you’re saying is that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Yup. How do you interact with the customer, incentivizing them to participate? How do I get the mailer to send back to you? Who pays for that? Do I have to go to the actual post office, cause it's bulky or whatever? Okay so, I’m going to always compare and contrast TerraCycle and Loop because one is recycling, and one is reuse. Let’s first start with TerraCycle, which is recycling. Take a shampoo bottle. Okay? Today, most cosmetic packaging is not recyclable. So, if you wanted to take today’s disposable, not recyclable cosmetic packaging, you can go on TerraCycle.com, type in “cosmetic packaging.” Type in your location or you could look for an already existing public location. Which is say, someone who has set up a program. You know, put out a cardboard box and said “Please collect your cosmetics in here” or if you don’t have one near you, you could create your own by joining and putting out your own cardboard box, and say your business or your office, your school or your community center, your church. And then you could choose to register that to be public so the next person searching can find you. Then whenever that box is full of not just yours but hundreds of cosmetic packages, you download a free shipping label from our shipping website. Send it in and then in some cases, even get an incentive for every piece of waste you send to us; say two cents per piece of waste to any school or charity of your choice. We’ve given away about $40 million in that approach so far in our history. And then we take the waste and then we recycle it by shredding, melting it into new objects. That’s on TerraCycle, and there the direct answer to your question is: in most cases, the brand; in some cases, the retailer; and in some cases, the city pays so that you have a free program. And if that isn’t the case, we offer paid versions where you as an individual could buy it if we haven’t been successful getting a sponsor to fund it.

Tom Szaky demonstrates the beautifully designed re-usable Clorox Disinfecting Wipes packaging for Loop. And Loop? Loop is embedded into retailers. Carrefour in France, Tesco in the U.K., for example. We’re going to be announcing the U.S. retailer in May; it’s a big one. All leading retailers in their respective countries. So that’s like that cool toothbrush, the cool ice cream container, right? Those would be available either through their online e-commerce portals or through their stores. So, imagine like a durable section of their e-commerce platform or a durable section of the store. You go in, and let’s just say you bought the Häagen Dazs ice cream and the Oral-B toothbrush, the ones I showed you just now. On each one, you pay for the content, about the same as you normally would. And then you put a deposit on the durable component or the durable package equal to the value of that durable package. So, the Häagen Dazs, let’s say it’s $6 to buy a pint. Then in Loop, it’s going to be $6 plus maybe a few dollars’ deposit on the package. In the toothbrush, the consumable is the brush. Let’s say a brush is usually a few bucks so the brush head is a few bucks, but the handle is maybe a little more deposit because it's so beautiful and luxurious etcetera. If you buy it in the store, you just leave the store with it. If you buy online, it’s delivered to you in a durable shipping container. Now here’s the fun part. When you’re done with it, and your toothbrush is worn out, your Häagen Dazs is empty, there’s no cleaning, dirty, like garbage, you put it into the durable shipping container you received if it’s e-commerce, and if you bought it in the store, you put it into effectively a durable garbage bag that you can get in the store. Like literally like garbage: dirty, no mixing. You then take it, if you bought it in the store, you take that garbage bag and you drop it off in a Loop bin at the store, and then a day later, we’ll check it in and give you all your deposits back in full, and if you bought it online, you can give it to the e-com driver on your next delivery, and he’ll take it or she’ll take it away, and then it comes to us, and then when we check it in and give you all your deposits back. And then you just go buy it again. Whether online or in the store. Is it going to be an automatic refill? In the online version, you can set your product to be “refill me when returned” or “don't refill me when returned.” Only in the online version. Which means that if you send in an empty Häagen Dazs and you set it as “refill me when returned,” the empty container triggers an order of the next one. That’s awesome. Now let me ask you, what percentage of my incentive is my sense of social responsibility, which I guess you could argue that would be the two cents to charity, but I’m talking about more like the ‘I just want to do good for you’ part. And the whole concept of not throwing things in the garbage, how much of the incentive is financial in any way or could it be? With TerraCycle, the recycling, that $40 million to be given away has never gone into an individual’s pocket at all. It always goes to a school or charity of the collector's choice. And so, the motivation in TerraCycle is entirely environmental and social. Environmental for not having waste and social for helping benefit people with those donations. There is no economic benefit to you. In fact, it’s a little bit more hassle. Loop, which is our re-use section, let me ask you, if you were as anti-environment as a human being can be, wouldn’t you still prefer your Häagen Dazs in that new package rather than in the paperboard one? Totally. That to me is the magic of durable. ‘Durable’ allows us to elevate designs so much that you don’t even have to care about sustainability; you should love it. Now if you also happen to care about the environment, that’s a double benefit. You don't lose the design benefit. You’d just also be like, “Oh wow, I’m also saving the planet in the same go. Isn’t that great?”         Talking globally, is it hard to get people to do the right thing, with the environment? The branded TerraCycle programs are entirely built on “please do the right thing. Please be a good human being.” That’s what they’re focused on. And that’s not easy. I mean, we’ve grown, we’ve been very successful as an organization. But, TerraCycle’s revenue this year will probably be like $37 million or something. That’s not bad, but that’s not monstrous, you know? I’m proud of that, but it’s not billions as many companies can be, right? Loop on the other hand, because I can play into one’s selfish motivations of ‘just better, more convenient,’ all that, I think could be billions very quickly, and we’re seeing that response already. The level of interest of consumers and so on is monumentally greater than we have ever experienced in TerraCycle’s core business. Now Loop couldn’t have existed without TerraCycle existing, but I feel like there’s way more opportunity for growth on Loop than there is on TerraCycle. Let’s shift a little bit from the environment to branding. To marketing. Do you find it easy to find audiences with consumer-goods companies? Today, I do. Today is incredibly easy but remember this is year 16 of putting in my dues, almost two decades of doing what I would say are quite innovative things and building on a lot of success. That also means a lot of struggle, a lot of failure, but we’ve shown a lot of success, and we’ve shown a tremendous amount of innovation. So, at this point, I can get to about any consumer-product company quite quickly, but that wasn’t the case if you asked me five or 10 years ago; it would have been much harder. I think that’s also compounded because now people are awoke to the idea of not TerraCycle per se, but to the issue of waste. Three years ago, people didn’t understand the issue of ocean plastic, but now they do.

“This is year 16 of putting in my dues, doing what I would say are quite innovative things and building on a lot of success. That also means a lot of struggle, a lot of failure. At this point, I can get to any consumer-product company quite quickly, but that wasn’t the case five or 10 years ago.”

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“I think that’s also compounded because now people are awoke to the issue of waste. Three years ago, people didn’t understand the issue of ocean plastic, but today they do.”

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The award-winning TerraCycle Head & Shoulders packaging for the European market made with recycled beach plastic. And once you get inside the door it’s a relatively easy sell? Well, this is interesting. Two answers. With TerraCycle, we don’t go into a brand and say, “You should take a responsibility over your waste because it’s causing a problem.” Instead, the way we frame TerraCycle when we go into a brand is, we say, “By creating a recycling platform on your toothbrushes, people won’t necessarily buy more toothbrushes, because consumers buy what they need. They’ll just happen to buy your brand instead of the other brand.” We frame it as how it’s going to make them win at what they deeply care about, which is market share or profitability or increase of net sells. That’s how we frame it, right? In Loop, the way we frame it is to say, “You have a waste problem and you have an innovation problem. Your innovation problem is that packaging and products are getting cheaper every day, which means what can you do to innovate and make your consumer delighted?” After all, for many products, innovation is limited. Imagine if you’re a toothpaste tube, what could you really do other than change the artwork if you had five cents a package to redesign with? You can’t really innovate much more with five cents other than changing the artwork. That’s pretty limited, but with Loop, you can redo everything. You can change the entire ecosystem of what is it to dispense toothpaste. And completely change the entire equation. And that allows for breakthrough innovation, and, oh, by the way, it completely solves your waste problem. But in that order. So, you guys are a packaging company maybe as much as you are a recycling company, as you are anything else? With Loop, we don’t design packaging nor make packaging, right? Instead what we do is, we help you create systems around the packaging that make the packaging better. It occurs to me, if you guys are really successful, do you put yourself out of business? Absolutely. I look forward to it. In your lifetime? Look, the sooner the better. Who knows? I mean, the waste problem is so gargantuan. I think that’s a bold answer to say, ‘in my lifetime,’ but that outcome would be quite fine. Köszönöm Tom, for taking 45-minutes out of your very hectic schedule!

All photography of Tom Szaky shot exclusively for CASE/BY/CASE NYC on location in Trenton, NJ at TerraCycle by Chloe Sobel. Thank you very much for hosting us Tom and Lauren!  

When we think of our wellness journey from a You. We. All.perspective, we’re inspired to build a better future for everyone (our planet included!). We know you want to help make a difference, so this year we've teamed up with Target in an exciting partnership to launch Social Good, a new platform where you’ll find stories on some of the most important social and environmental movements going on today. The cool part? Most of these stories include an actionable way you can help make the future brighter—right now.   This year, we’re using Earth Day as an opportunity to shed some light on all the good we’ve managed to accomplish in the first 111 days of 2019. Here are 19 environmental feats worth celebrating.

6. Brands signed onto the reusable economy.

In the not-so-distant future, you’ll be able to order household staples like cleaning supplies and ice cream in reusable packaging that will be collected from your doorstep once you’re done with it. It’s all thanks to Loop, a new initiative by recycling company TerraCycle that wants to make single-use packaging a thing of the past and already has buy-in from major players like Unilever, P&G, and PepsiCo.

In 2017, the global cosmetics industry was valued at 532 billion dollars. A ton of beauty products are purchased and used every single day. Eventually, those products turn into empty packaging that needs to be disposed of. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the 2015 rate of recyclable materials like plastic, glass, and paper actually being recycled was only at 34.7 percent. That means that the majority of foundation bottles, moisturizer jars, and shampoo and body wash bottles (as well as other pieces of household waste) are going into landfills. As a beauty editor, I test a lot of products. So many, in fact, that I rarely finish an entire bottle of shampoo or jar of moisturizer. I’d like to say that I always rinse out each and every one of the products I’m no longer using, then recycle the bottles accordingly. The truth is, though, I don’t — and part of the reason is, I didn’t always know how, or if the products can even be recycled in the first place. Do I have to rinse out everything before I recycle it? Are there any containers that can’t go in the trash? Can I mix the empty packaging from all of my products in the same recycling bin? These are the questions I ask myself every time I’m ready to dispose of a beauty product. And, when I’m not sure one of my products can be recycled, I just throw it in my bin and hope for the best. It's called “wish-cycling,” and as I learned while researching for this story, it’s exactly what you shouldn't be doing. That’s why one of my 2019 goals is to make sense of it all so that I recycle more of my beauty products and throw less in the trash. RELATED: Here's What Actually Makes a Deodorant Natural To demystify the process, I spoke with Alita Kane, community liaison of The Recycling Partnership, a non-profit organization that provides recycling consulting to communities nationwide. I gave Kane the task of breaking down general recycling rules, and how they apply to your beauty products. Check out her advice below.

1. Recycling Plastic Can Be Complicated, So Find Out What's Accepted In Area

Most of your beauty products likely come in plastic packaging (and the rest are likely in glass, but more on that later). Given the recent war waged on plastic straws and the impact the material has on the environment, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that plastic should be a priority. The only problem is that all plastic is not created equal. “The challenge is that plastic comes in so many shapes, forms, and sizes,” says Kane. “To narrow down what can actually go in your bin, stick to bottles, containers, jugs, and tubs.” This can include products like shampoo bottles, moisturizer jars, and body wash bottles. Kane says that recycling availability is different across the country, and is constantly changing — often at a pace that people can’t keep up with the latest information. The rules aren't consistent across the board, so before recycling your products, you'll want to do some digging on your local city hall and/or sanitation department websites for information. However, she says that one of the biggest factors affecting what your municipality will pick up is which manufacturers are getting sent these materials. When your recycling is picked up curbside, it’s brought to a material recovery facility (or MRF). Then, it’s sorted, packed into bales, and sent to manufacturers for reuse. “Depending on who that MRF is, and who they have purchasing their materials, locally and internationally, is really going to make a difference on what your municipality is able to allow you to put in that recycling bin,” she explains. RELATED: These Natural Lipsticks Have Amazing Color Payoff

2. That Arrow Symbol You Learned In School? It Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means

When I see a three chasing arrow symbol (also known as the Möbius Loop) on one of my products, I always assume it means it’s made of recyclable materials. It turns out that the chasing arrows, and the number that appears in the middle of the symbol, indicate the type of resin that the package is made from. Technically, that packaging is only recyclable if that resin is accepted by your area’s curbside recycling program. “These arrows are not an indicator of recyclability,” confirms Kane. “There is no one out there policing whether or not a company can put that symbol on their products, so a lot of times it’s misplaced. It doesn’t indicate recyclability as much as it tends to indicate the contents of the product packaging and what type of resin material it’s made from.”

3. Shape And Size Matter

If you’re like me and throw lipstick tubes and sample-sized serums into your recycling bin, Kane says you could be doing more harm than good. Product packaging that’s too small usually gets lost when it’s being sorted. Kane says a good rule of thumb is to leave anything that’s smaller than an index card out of your recycling bin. These items unfortunately have to be tossed into the trash, or recycled by a third party program (more on that later). As for the shapes of packages, the materials need to be hard. Anything that’s flexible or squeezable — tubes of toothpaste, hand cream bottles, and sheet mask pouches — can’t be recycled. RELATED: The 8 Best Non-Toxic Sunscreens for Summer 2019

4. Yes, You Need To Rinse Your Empties

A few drops of shampoo left in the bottle is perfectly fine, but if there’s almost enough in bottom for you to shampoo your hair with, you’ll need to take the extra step to clean it. If liquids co-mingle with other recyclable materials like paper and cardboard, it can get everything wet and ultimately ruin its ability to be recycled. Kane says that if the if the recyclable materials cross-contaminate, they can’t properly be sorted and processed, and thus can’t be repurposed into new materials. Removing any adhesives or glitter stuck on product packaging is also important for the same reason.

5. Pay Attention To Caps And Pumps

Plastic caps are too small on their own to be recycled, but if they’re left on the bottle or jar they came with, you can put them in your bin. As for pumps, check to see if they have a metal ring in them. “Technically that would be a mixed material so you wouldn’t want to have that together,” says Kane. Take the pump off, put that part in the trash, and then put your empty lotion bottle in the recycling bin.”

6. Glass And Paper Are Pretty Simple To Recycle

The good news: not all recyclable materials are as complicated as plastic. Paper and cardboard, and glass are among the easiest things to recycle — for now. The cardboard boxes that your products come in, along with any paper instruction booklets, are typically safe to toss into recycling bins. If your area picks up glass, stick to putting bottles, containers, and jars in your bin. Kane says that things like moisturizer containers can be picked up curbside as long as they’re bigger than an index card and don’t have any mirrors on them because that would make it a mixed material. VIDEO: How to Use Tinted Brow Gel  

7. Your Hairspray and Dry Shampoo Are Recyclable

Spray cans made from aluminum, steel, or tin can be thrown into your blue bin. “If it’s an aerosol like a dry shampoo, make sure it’s completely empty,” says Kane. “If it has a plastic cap, that plastic cap should come off.” Since material facilities don’t have the equipment to sort mixed materials, the cap needs to be removed in order for the spray can to be successfully recycled.

8. Know Your Other Recycling Options

Alternatively, you can check whether the brand or store you purchased the product from has their own recycling program. A few examples? Unilever, the parent company of brands like Dove and TRESemme is partnering with Loop, a shopping platform that will carry some of their brands' products in sustainable packaging that when empty, gets picked up, cleaned, and refilled. Credo Beauty has a partnership with TerraCycle, a third-party recycling program, and will take customers’ empties in exchange for customer loyalty points. The biggest takeaway? Think twice before throwing any beauty product packages into your recycling bin. And if that eye cream jar, moisturizer bottle, or eyeshadow palette can’t be recycled, check to see if the brand or a third-party company can take it back. Yup, it’s a little extra work, but our planet is worth it.

Our environmental crises might conjure the seventh circle of hell, but a group of trailblazers may just help lead us (and, yes, our beauty routines) to eco-redemption.

Debuting next month, the "circular shopping platform" aims to make reuse as popular as recycling.       Loop will deliver Haagen-Dazs ice cream in a reusable stainless-steel container. (Photo courtesy of Loop) What if you combined Amazon Prime with a 1950s milkman and Target's democratic design? That pitch might make the judges on Shark Tank scratch their heads, but it's the exact premise of a grocery delivery service that will debut in the Northeast next month, with potentially revolutionary implications for sustainability and the environment. On May 21, Loop will launch a "circular shopping platform" at loopstore.com. It will stock hundreds of familiar branded products — including condiments, ice cream and personal-care items — in durable, reusable packaging instead of single-use bottles, boxes and cans. Customers subscribe to the service and place orders that arrive via UPS; after the products are used up, Loop circles back to pick up the empties at no charge, then cleans and sanitizes them for reuse. Replenishments are automatically delivered. It's the brainstorm of TerraCycle, a company founded in 2001 to recycle previously unrecyclable materials. The overarching concept is the circular economy: Instead of "make and dispose," the goal is "reuse and eliminate." Materials are used for as long as possible, then recycled or reused, with the goal of creating zero waste.

"It's funny: Most of the things we buy, we don't really want to," says TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky. "When you go to say Starbucks and you buy a cup of coffee, you buy the coffee, but the cup is also in the price, and you own the cup. But do you really want to own it in the end? If we change ownership — instead of having the consumer own the package, the manufacturer owns it — the manufacturer is motivated to move away from making a product as cheap as possible to making it as durable as possible." To kick off the service, Loop partnered with some of the world's biggest manufacturers of grocery items, including Proctor & Gamble, Nestlé and Unilever. Brands available at launch will include Pantene, Tide, Crest, Gillette, Pampers, Always, Dove, Seventh Generation and Hellmann's. The reusable containers are made from innovative polymers and metals that are stylish and functional: Häagen-Dazs ice cream arrives in a stainless steel, double-walled container that's warm to the touch but frozen inside; Axe deodorant comes in a container that looks designed by Apple. "The design level is a whole new departure from anything in disposable," says Szaky. "Durability enables reuse, but it also enables amazing materials that can be leveraged in beautiful designs." But what if consumers don't want to pay for that premium? "That's crucial. For scale, we need not just the big brands and big retailers, but affordable pricing," says Szaky. "The goal with all the products is to cost about the same as what you normally pay." A small deposit will be charged for the containers; it's fully refunded when they're returned. "We need Loop to be affordable for it to really change the world," says Szaky. "Even middle income and rich people don't want to pay a premium if they don't have to. This is about more than just the circular economy. It is the circular economy at its heart, but it's also about the future of how we consume."  

In 2017, the global cosmetics industry was valued at 532 billion dollars. A ton of beauty products are purchased and used every single day. Eventually, those products turn into empty packaging that needs to be disposed of. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the 2015 rate of recyclable materials like plastic, glass, and paper actually being recycled was only at 34.7 percent. That means that the majority of foundation bottles, moisturizer jars, and shampoo and body wash bottles (as well as other pieces of household waste) are going into landfills. As a beauty editor, I test a lot of products. So many, in fact, that I rarely finish an entire bottle of shampoo or jar of moisturizer. I’d like to say that I always rinse out each and every one of the products I’m no longer using, then recycle the bottles accordingly. The truth is, though, I don’t — and part of the reason is, I didn’t always know how, or if the products can even be recycled in the first place. Do I have to rinse out everything before I recycle it? Are there any containers that can’t go in the trash? Can I mix the empty packaging from all of my products in the same recycling bin? These are the questions I ask myself every time I’m ready to dispose of a beauty product. And, when I’m not sure one of my products can be recycled, I just throw it in my bin and hope for the best. It's called “wish-cycling,” and as I learned while researching for this story, it’s exactly what you shouldn't be doing. That’s why one of my 2019 goals is to make sense of it all so that I recycle more of my beauty products and throw less in the trash. RELATED: Here's What Actually Makes a Deodorant Natural To demystify the process, I spoke with Alita Kane, community liaison of The Recycling Partnership, a non-profit organization that provides recycling consulting to communities nationwide. I gave Kane the task of breaking down general recycling rules, and how they apply to your beauty products. Check out her advice below.

1. Recycling Plastic Can Be Complicated, So Find Out What's Accepted In Area

Most of your beauty products likely come in plastic packaging (and the rest are likely in glass, but more on that later). Given the recent war waged on plastic straws and the impact the material has on the environment, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that plastic should be a priority. The only problem is that all plastic is not created equal. “The challenge is that plastic comes in so many shapes, forms, and sizes,” says Kane. “To narrow down what can actually go in your bin, stick to bottles, containers, jugs, and tubs.” This can include products like shampoo bottles, moisturizer jars, and body wash bottles. Kane says that recycling availability is different across the country, and is constantly changing — often at a pace that people can’t keep up with the latest information. The rules aren't consistent across the board, so before recycling your products, you'll want to do some digging on your local city hall and/or sanitation department websites for information. However, she says that one of the biggest factors affecting what your municipality will pick up is which manufacturers are getting sent these materials. When your recycling is picked up curbside, it’s brought to a material recovery facility (or MRF). Then, it’s sorted, packed into bales, and sent to manufacturers for reuse. “Depending on who that MRF is, and who they have purchasing their materials, locally and internationally, is really going to make a difference on what your municipality is able to allow you to put in that recycling bin,” she explains.

2. That Arrow Symbol You Learned In School? It Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means

When I see a three chasing arrow symbol (also known as the Möbius Loop) on one of my products, I always assume it means it’s made of recyclable materials. It turns out that the chasing arrows, and the number that appears in the middle of the symbol, indicate the type of resin that the package is made from. Technically, that packaging is only recyclable if that resin is accepted by your area’s curbside recycling program. “These arrows are not an indicator of recyclability,” confirms Kane. “There is no one out there policing whether or not a company can put that symbol on their products, so a lot of times it’s misplaced. It doesn’t indicate recyclability as much as it tends to indicate the contents of the product packaging and what type of resin material it’s made from.”

3. Shape And Size Matter

If you’re like me and throw lipstick tubes and sample-sized serums into your recycling bin, Kane says you could be doing more harm than good. Product packaging that’s too small usually gets lost when it’s being sorted. Kane says a good rule of thumb is to leave anything that’s smaller than an index card out of your recycling bin. These items unfortunately have to be tossed into the trash, or recycled by a third party program (more on that later). As for the shapes of packages, the materials need to be hard. Anything that’s flexible or squeezable — tubes of toothpaste, hand cream bottles, and sheet mask pouches — can’t be recycled. RELATED: The 8 Best Non-Toxic Sunscreens for Summer 2019

4. Yes, You Need To Rinse Your Empties

A few drops of shampoo left in the bottle is perfectly fine, but if there’s almost enough in bottom for you to shampoo your hair with, you’ll need to take the extra step to clean it. If liquids co-mingle with other recyclable materials like paper and cardboard, it can get everything wet and ultimately ruin its ability to be recycled. Kane says that if the if the recyclable materials cross-contaminate, they can’t properly be sorted and processed, and thus can’t be repurposed into new materials. Removing any adhesives or glitter stuck on product packaging is also important for the same reason.

5. Pay Attention To Caps And Pumps

Plastic caps are too small on their own to be recycled, but if they’re left on the bottle or jar they came with, you can put them in your bin. As for pumps, check to see if they have a metal ring in them. “Technically that would be a mixed material so you wouldn’t want to have that together,” says Kane. Take the pump off, put that part in the trash, and then put your empty lotion bottle in the recycling bin.”

6. Glass And Paper Are Pretty Simple To Recycle

The good news: not all recyclable materials are as complicated as plastic. Paper and cardboard, and glass are among the easiest things to recycle — for now. The cardboard boxes that your products come in, along with any paper instruction booklets, are typically safe to toss into recycling bins. If your area picks up glass, stick to putting bottles, containers, and jars in your bin. Kane says that things like moisturizer containers can be picked up curbside as long as they’re bigger than an index card and don’t have any mirrors on them because that would make it a mixed material. VIDEO: How to Use Tinted Brow Gel  

7. Your Hairspray and Dry Shampoo Are Recyclable

Spray cans made from aluminum, steel, or tin can be thrown into your blue bin. “If it’s an aerosol like a dry shampoo, make sure it’s completely empty,” says Kane. “If it has a plastic cap, that plastic cap should come off.” Since material facilities don’t have the equipment to sort mixed materials, the cap needs to be removed in order for the spray can to be successfully recycled.

8. Know Your Other Recycling Options

Alternatively, you can check whether the brand or store you purchased the product from has their own recycling program. A few examples? Unilever, the parent company of brands like Dove and TRESemme is partnering with Loop, a shopping platform that will carry some of their brands' products in sustainable packaging that when empty, gets picked up, cleaned, and refilled. Credo Beauty has a partnership with TerraCycle, a third-party recycling program, and will take customers’ empties in exchange for customer loyalty points. The biggest takeaway? Think twice before throwing any beauty product packages into your recycling bin. And if that eye cream jar, moisturizer bottle, or eyeshadow palette can’t be recycled, check to see if the brand or a third-party company can take it back. Yup, it’s a little extra work, but our planet is worth it.