To solve the ever-growing problem of too much waste and plastic, a coalition of major consumer product manufacturers is borrowing an old-fashioned idea.

Most Care2 readers probably won’t remember the days when the milkman came to call each morning. He used to bring milk and cream in glass bottles, which customers used and then put outside for him to retrieve. Today, that idea is getting a fresh coat of paint. Thanks to a new marketing platform called Loop, the producers of many of the items you buy will market their goods in reusable, returnable stainless steel containers. That’s called zero-waste packaging, my friends, and its time has come. “While recycling is critically important, it is not going to solve waste at the root cause,” Tom Szaky, CEO and cofounder of TerraCycle, one of the partners behind Loop, told Fast Company. “To us, the root cause of waste is not plastic, per se, it’s using things once, and that’s really what Loop tries to change as much as possible.” There’s a lot of truth in that statement. We buy so much stuff these days because it’s convenient and single-serve. Yes, it’s plastic — but it’s not plastic’s fault. Our love affair with convenience has landed us in the mess the world now faces. Here’s how the Loop platform will work:

• Customers purchase products — anything from Dove deodorant to Haagen-Dazs ice cream — from Loop’s website
• The purchase includes a deposit for the container
• UPS, a Loop partner, will deliver the products to the customer’s home in a re-usable, compartmented tote
• As the products are used up, customers place the empty containers back into the tote
• When the tote becomes full, customers request a pickup via Loop’s website or drop off the tote at a UPS Store

Loop automatically replenishes the products a customer sends back, so the things you use all the time will come to you as you finish them. Loop calls it “the first subscription model that manages itself.” Each package is designed to be used at least 100 times. Use of that tote to move the products back and forth means there are no cardboard shipping boxes to get rid of — sorry, Amazon. Just consider the volume of garbage that will drop out of the waste stream if this model of packaging becomes the standard for the future. The array of brands participating in the Loop pilot program in New York City and Paris is remarkable. Here are only a few:

• Crest
• Seventh Generation
• Tide
• Clorox
• Pantene
• Nature’s Path Organic
• Hidden Valley
• Febreze

Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Danone, Mars Petcare, Mondelēz International and others will provide their products in reusable containers for Loop’s pilot program. Assuming all goes well, we can expect to see Loop roll this idea out to a broader geographic area. With a little luck, maybe zero-waste packaging will be the future of commerce. Sometimes old ideas are the best ideas, after all. Like the old song says — everything old is new again.

Produzir menos lixo depende de nós, mas grandes marcas já estão de olho nessa preocupação. A Loop é uma iniciativa criada por algumas gigantes da indústria para nos ajudar a solucionar esse problema e acabar de vez com os descartáveis.

As record high and low temperatures are being recorded all over the globe and unrecycled plastic waste continues to pile up in the middle in the ocean, almost forming and entire plastic continent in itself, it’s pretty obvious that time’s up and action is needed as soon as possible. Recycling waste on the same scale as we have been doing until now seems to be a solution that is not effective enough. There’s a need for a radical change in the way we consume and deal with our waste and this man, Tom Szaky, an author, CEO and an eco-revolutionary, is here with an idea that could change everything. – The Loop Project.

The old days of a milk man delivering fresh milk and then recollecting empty bottles again can return, but this time in a way more life-changing way

Tom Szaky, entrepreneur, author and an ecological warrior, recently came up with a game-changing idea

Image credits: Tom Szaky

Tired of the impossibility of avoiding plastic waste while using certain necessary products

He came up with an idea on how to make reusable and refillable packaging the new norm by presenting the Loop project

Image credits: loopstore_us

Loop will work in a way that can be summed up with: “shop and enjoy, then we pick up and refill”, just like with milk in the old days

Firstly, the goods that customers ordered online will be presented to their doorstep in a reusable Loop Tote bag

And once the items are used up, you just place the empty packaging back in the same Loop bag and request a free pick up so they could collect it, clean it and refill it with the same product

Here’s a simplified scheme of the whole groundbreaking novelty

Among 25 brands that have joined the project are Evian, Oral-B, Clorox, Gillette, Dove and others

The project will kick off in May 2019 with only 5,000 customers in Paris and New York City to test the idea

London, Tokyo, San Francisco and further expansion is planned in the future

If the whole initiative proves to be successful, more brands will be included in the catalog, which means more reusable packaging used by more people

Loop’s aim is to eliminate the idea of waste and if successful, this is going to one giant leap for humanity into a waste-free future

TerraCycle's new circular shopping platform rescues big packaged brands from PR crisis Remember the sea turtle with a straw fused up its nose? The viral image that broke your heart and made you swear off straws? There’s more. On February 4, the UK’s RSPCA released the latest round of disturbing photos of wildlife – maimed seals, ducks, deer, even cats – ensnared in plastic bags, bottles and other snaggy remnants of our disposable economy. A flurry of British media headlines cut to the chase: record numbers of animals are killed or injured by plastic. It doesn’t take a PR insider to tell you that new reports of wildlife injured by plastic litter are sure to get packaged goods makers biting their nails and bracing for impact. With public outrage over disposable plastics growing steadily, major international brands have been under heavy pressure to rethink their packaging models. Over the last few months, the world’s largest consumer goods makers and sellers responded by announcing some surprisingly aggressive waste reduction targets. With some cajoling from the UK-based Ellen MacArthur Foundation, roughly 300 major corporations responsible for 20 per cent of the planet’s plastic packaging, including Unilever, Colgate, SC Johnson, H&M, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, signed onto a “new plastics economy” commitment. They’ve vowed to make sure all their plastic packaging is either recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025. The targets are impressive. They’re also, as shareholder advocacy group As You Sow noted, aspirational. Making your plastic packaging recyclable is one thing. Making sure it all gets recycled is another, particularly with global recycling infrastructure in a free fall, as China and now Malaysia and soon Vietnam shut their doors to the planet’s less desirable recycling scraps. (Not to mention that 90 per cent of plastic is never shipped off to be recycled to begin with, regardless of whether it’s technically recyclable). Compostable packaging targets get messy, too, when you consider that many cities with curbside composting, such as Toronto, reject most certified compostable packaging (like, say, compostable coffee pods) in their green bins because they’re, in a nutshell, not compatible with their systems. That leaves the most meaningful option – and the gateway to a truly circular economy – behind door number three: reusable. Deposit return systems on refillable drink containers, including beer or milk bottles, have been the golden child of the circular economy since, well, the golden era of the milkman. Other circular economy darlings have usually been limited to companies that make products that can be taken back and/or and refurbished, like an old Patagonia coat. The idea has never really gained traction with the make ‘n toss packaged good set – until now. Enter Loop’s new “circular shopping platform” – heralded as the 21^st century milkman. But instead of a milk truck, your friendly neighbourhood UPS driver will be tasked with dropping off (and picking up) a leak-proof reusable LOOP box filled with an array of popular brands like Pantene, Tide, Seventh Generation, Dove, Tropicana, Nature’s Path, Body Shop and more so people can get everything from mayonnaise to deodorant in branded stainless steel, glass and refillable plastic containers – all within 48 hours of ordering. Once you’re done, call UPS for pick-up and the containers will be returned to Loop for sanitation then to manufacturers for refill. It’s a conscious consumer’s dream. It also sounds like a lot of greenhouse gas-intensive shipping. TerraCycle, the company behind Loop has said it’s calculated the total impact of its shopping platform and says that, overall, Loop products are 50 to 75 per cent better for the environment than conventional alternatives. Usman Valiante has his doubts. The senior policy analyst with Corporate Policy Group LLP has been involved in rolling out producer take-back initiatives in B.C. and Ontario and cautions that early carbon footprint estimates often miss the mark: “If you look at the greenhouse gas footprint of Amazon, online shop was supposed to reduce the amount of truck trips, when it’s actually done the opposite.” It would be “fine, if the entire transportation system ran on renewable energy,” says Valiante. “But it’s not.” Loop has argued that while it might add more delivery trucks to the road, it’s system will ultimately involve fewer garbage trucks. It also plans to break into brick-and-mortar retail outlets in the future. Loop’s real world GHG numbers will be crunched further during its trial run in New York and Paris starting this May. If all goes well, Loop trials will be coming to Toronto, Tokyo, San Fran and London next to much fanfare. Many of Loop’s early brand partners could no doubt use some good press. Coco-Cola, Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Nestle, Mars, Clorox, Mondelēz have all been slammed by Greenpeace as the world’s largest contributors to the ocean plastic crisis. Their branded packaging has been turning up in Greenpeace ocean trash audits from Asia to Canada. It’s actually why Loop’s creator, Toronto-raised and Jersey-headquartered Tom Szaky reportedly pitched those brands first. Partnering with Loop doesn’t just save them from a PR crisis and position them as innovators. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has also been drawing corporate players to the circular economy table with the promise of boosted brand loyalty and deeper data dives on consumers. As Institute for Smart Prosperity’s Stephanie Cairns points out to, when people sign up to have weekly deliveries of Haagen-Dazs [the only ice cream brand in the Loop store so far], Nestle doesn’t just get brand loyalty, it starts amassing specific data about exactly who’s eating its ice cream and when. “For a lot of brands, this a very attractive idea,” says Cairns. TerraCycle (founded in 2001) has always known the power of flipping the script on branded packaged goods. One of the recycling company’s earliest upcycled products involved transforming old branded juice pouches into new branded tote bags. Okay, so not everyone wants to sling a Luna-wrapper-turned-messenger bag over their shoulder. But with TerraCycle’s new Loop initiative, they’ve figured out a classier way to close the loop on disposables, working with consumer good companies to develop sleek, branded reusable containers, on which deposits will be paid. The concept should test well with well-heeled, urban Aspirationals – the 40 per cent of people who, according to BBMG, wan­­t to buy from companies that do good. Particularly those Aspirationals already doing a lot of online shopping and feeling guilty about their packaging trail. But not every consumer will want to or can afford to fork out $20 for shipping and up to $10 per container on a deposit, which throws a bit of a wrench in the reach and scaleability of the model. For others, no amount of shiny reusable packaging will scrub the tarnish from the Coca-Colas and Nestles of the world. Emily Charles-Donelson works with Toronto Tool Library and Sharing Depot, where customers can borrow items and refill their own soap containers. She’s worried that Mondelēz, Clorox and friends will be selling Millennials more of the same old problematic products in feel-good packaging. “Loop’s reusable container program has the potential to significantly amplify the growing culture of reuse, moving us away from the erroneous notion that recycling is a viable solution to the waste crisis,” says Charles-Donelson. “Zooming out, however, LOOP is a halfway solution dreamed up within the parameters of the same broken corporate narrative that fueled the environmental crisis in the first place.” Can we buy our way out of this mess? Probably not, especially if we’re buying disposable paper towels and sewer-clogging antibacterial wipes in refillable containers. But at least we’re starting to come to terms with the glaring reality that we can’t recycle our way out. Until we’ve figured out a new green economy that isn’t so deeply hinged on ever more consumption, the world needs Loop and others like it to catch on, do well, scale up beyond the 20,000 stainless steel tubs of Häagen-Dazs being piloted (humans, after all, buy 13 billion litres of ice cream every year) and to thrive as one of many circular economy solutions around the globe. Maybe more than anything, we need the Loops, Tool Libraries and Sharing Depots of the world to be supported by ambitious and binding circular economy regulations, along the lines of what we’re seeing in Europe and the UK (we’re waiting on you, Canada).  At the moment, Cairns says, “We [in Canada] don’t have a public policy framework that’s going to easily enable a [refillable] product to come into the market and be collected through regular waste pick-up streams and recirculated back to suppliers.” “The Loop model really highlights the defects in Canada’s current system,” says Cairns, but she points out it also shows the potential that’s out there “if we unleash creative thinking out-of-the-box thinking.”s  

Várias das maiores empresas de bens de consumo do mundo vão testar um novo sistema de compras com embalagens reutilizáveis e recuperáveis em algumas das suas marcas mais famosas. A iniciativa pretende reduzir a produção de resíduos plásticos e o seu impacto no ambiente.

Empresa faz série de projetos para criar ações e campanhas em prol do meio ambiente; Mondelēz International cria plano de assinatura para distribuir embalagens recicláveis e duráveis

Durante o Fórum Econômico Mundial de Davos as empresas como Coca-Cola, Pepsico juntamente com as gigantes Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, Danone, Mars Petcare, Mondeléz International e outras empresas da indústria alimentícia e de produtos para casa anunciaram durante o debate sobre a “Transformação da economia do plástico” a promessa de reduzir os resíduos plásticos até 2030.

The coalition of brands would like us to buy consumable products in reusable containers, and then ship them back for refills. Americans generate a lot of waste—so much that we’re running into problems with how to get rid of it. We’re poised to run out of space in landfills within two decades, according to one estimate. Historically, we’ve sent tons of our used plastic to China (693 metric tons in 2016, mostly from single-use food containers), but as of last year, it is no longer accepting that waste. A new possible solution to this problem comes from a surprising source: Major brands like Unilever and Procter and Gamble are collaborating to reduce waste in an innovative shopping platform called Loop, announced last week. When you order, say, Häagen-Dazs ice cream from the service, the company will ship it to you in a sturdy container for which you’ll pay a small deposit. You’ll get that money back when you return the container via UPS. The company cleans the container, and refills it with product to sell again. It kind of sounds like corporations are giving themselves a giant pat on the back for reinventing recycling—now with the annoyance of consumers having to do additional shipping! Luckily, it’s a bit better than that: Loop seems like a genuinely good idea that can tangibly help solve a clear problem, even if the process will inevitably face at least a few snafus as it gets up and running. Loop calls itself “the milkman reimagined,” which is a pretty catchy description. While you might immediately fret about an under-recognized carbon footprint of all this shipping, it turns out it thought of that. Reusing the containers will save more material and energy than fashioning new ones each time—even with all the additional shipping. In fact, the full process is predicted to be as much as 75 percent better for the environment, according to estimates Loop shared with Fast Company. There’s an additional possible benefit, too: Mindfully shepherding containers in and out of your house seems like a good way to be more aware of consumption more generally. Loop might even inspire you to reconsider some of your specific purchases: There’s a slightly higher mental barrier to impulse-purchasing lotion at CVS if you’re committing to this system of using the entire thing and investing in its carrier. That’s exactly the kind of additional consideration we should be giving all of this stuff. There are some kinks to be worked out. For example, the timing of the subscription service seems a little wonky: Another shipment of a product could be set to be triggered when you return a container, as Fast Company explains. This helpfully eliminates the hazard of a bunch of, say, toothpaste piling up at your house faster than you can use it. But it also leaves a gap of however long it takes new toothpaste to ship during which you’ll be toothpaste-less. And speaking of toothpaste, it won’t come in tubes in the Loop model, Fast Company notes—they’re too difficult to refill. Instead, Unilever designed a chewable toothpaste. The possibility that this toothpaste is good seems … low. Loop is at least aware that there will be pitfalls: a press release says it will launch in just two cities to start, New York and Paris, so the platform can conduct “in-market learning experiments.” For the consumer’s part, the logistics of shuttling these containers back and forth aren’t effortless, but it’s not as difficult as, say, taking beer bottles to the supermarket for reuse. You can send back several containers at once in a reusable Loop box, which is picked up from your door by UPS. Loop says it won’t require customers to clean the container before sending them back, which might make it an even lower lift than recycling. The annoyance factor seems in line with other successful services that involve a lot of shipping, like Rent the Runway or Trunk Club (but without the liability of sending multi-thousand dollar gowns via post). One other benefit? The sample container designs look much nicer than your average containers. Packaging displayed on Loop’s website includes a pair of Pantene Pro-V bottles made from lightweight aluminum. The marketing claims are less blaring, the brand lettering is smaller. Instead there’s “I reuse, I love the oceans” in faux-cursive on the side along with illustrations of friendly sea life. Honestly, seems like a nice thing to have in your bathroom! I’m into personal care products that don’t make it seem like you need to buy a zillion things to look good. It’s also clear that this green halo presents a real upside for companies that participate. If consumers get into Loop, they’ll loosely lock themselves into a suite of specific products, something brands are eager to do. (This is the point of Amazon Dash buttons.) Companies participating will no doubt enjoy this benefit, along with the positive branding boost that comes from being involved in an innovative recycling platform. Plus, they’ve made no commitment to stop filling up landfills with traditional non-Loop packaging in addition to participating in Loop. Still, I’m inclined to root for Loop, even if it will be hard to execute. It’s this very element—how hard it will be—that confirms how lofty its goals are. This isn’t a feel-good baby step like banning plastic straws, nor is it a feel-good commercial about using more wind power. It’s an attempt to change how we think about the products we currently consume mindlessly. In that light, its first victory might be making us think about them at all.

Entre os parceiros do Loop estão as empresas Dove, Pantene, Gillette e Hellmann’s

O Grupo L’OCCITANE, fabricante e varejista cosméticos e produtos de bem-estar, baseados em ingredientes naturais e cinco marcas líderes, e a Loop Industries, Inc. (Nasdaq: LOOP), empresa líder de inovação tecnológica em plástico sustentável, anunciaram hoje a assinatura de um acordo de longo prazo para fornecimento de plástico PET 100% sustentável da marca Loop.