Campanhas para diminuir a produção de lixo finalmente entraram para a lista prioridades de grandes marcas. Se você não conhece a Loop, precisa conhecer.

Loop launches in May with a pilot program. The company behind it says it will help customers cut down on single-use materials Loop will launch a pilot program in Pennsylvania in May 2019 for reusable packaging for products like Crest mouthwash, Coca-Cola bottles, Hidden Valley Ranch dressing bottles and more. A Trenton, New Jersey-based sustainability company is rolling out a new program, offering a ton of household products packaged in ways that could reduce our contributions to the rapidly-declining state of our environment. TerraCycle recently announced it's launching Loop in the northeastern U.S. and in France. Loop will allow shoppers to buy products like shampoo, deodorant, mouthwash, ice cream, juice, and detergent from major distributors but packaged in reusable containers. The pilot program will be available in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York in May. The point is to help consumers cut down on those single-use plastic containers that usually end up in landfills — like plastic Coke bottles, Febreze canisters, Pantene shampoo bottles, and Haagen Dazs ice cream tubs. With Loop, containers will be made from steel or glass. In Philly we learned the depressing reality not too long ago that even recyclable materials get sorted into the trash because they're contaminated with leftover food or water, too hard to sort by material, or are hard to sell to other countries on the recycling market. Actually, 25 percent of what we recycle in this city ends up in a landfill. So, here's how it'll work. Customers will be able to visit Loop websites and order waste-free products from brands like Pepsi, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever. Then, they'll receive their products in a tote that eliminates shipping materials like cardboard boxes. Haagen Dazs is one of the brands partnering with TerraCycle that will transform its single-use products into reusable containers. After users are finished with the products, they won't need to clean or dispose of the containers. Loop will pick up the containers from the customer's home, clean them for safe reuse, and replenish the products. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the products will cost "roughly the same" as their cost on grocery store shelves. But, users will have to pay deposits of anywhere between $1 and $10 per container. Loop is currently recruiting 5,000 interested customers for the pilot program. According to the Journal, it will expand to London and 10 additional cities later this year and into 2020.

 

 

Algumas das maiores empresas de consumo do mundo estão abrindo espaço para a reutilização de materiais. Isso ficou claro com o projeto lançado no Fórum Econômico Mundial em Davos, chamado “Loop”, que tem como propósito oferecer produtos em embalagens reutilizáveis para diminuir o uso de plástico e ajudar na preservação do meio ambiente, informou Emily Chasan, para Bloomberg.

Representantes de empresas multinacionais da indústria alimentícia e de produtos para casa anunciaram, durante o Fórum Econômico Mundial de Davos, a promessa de reduzir os resíduos plásticos até 2030. Para atingir esse objetivo, as companhias começarão a testar em 2019 uma nova maneira de consumo, trazendo de volta as embalagens retornáveis. Entre as empresas que se comprometeram com a meta estão: Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, Danone, Mars Petcare e Mondeléz International.

Plastic in and of itself isn’t to blame for the world’s waste problem. Rather, it's the way we use it. Companies send products and packaging into the world that are designed to be disposable — used just once, then thrown away — and consumers demand the convenience, accessibility and price points of single-use plastic items. Everyday examples include consumer product packaging or consumables, such as food and beverage and household goods, and disposable and single-use products, such as cleaning pads, coffee capsules and eating utensils. E-commerce is made possible with plastic, and manufacturing logistics and operations have come to depend on it. Inexpensively made, disposable plastic offers consumers the ability to purchase, use and toss, instead of repair or reuse, and at a lower cost than their durable counterparts. As a result, people own more things than ever before and easily can replace them, allowing consumers to buy again and again and again.

One (use) and done

Disposability is favored over durability in the global economy because it drives consumption. Many disposable items are lightweighted (made with less material or out of plastic instead of metal or glass), supporting mass production and increasing profits for manufacturers. The trade-off is that most examples of lightweighted and disposable items are considered unrecyclable in most consumer programs. Every step away from durable, reusable materials towards plastics and multi-compositional pouches and films effectively has cut recyclability in half. Producer efforts to instate reclamation systems and collection schemes to supplement and invest in recycling have not been developed at a comparable rate.  

Disposability is favored over durability in the global economy because it drives consumption.

Even the ubiquitous water bottle, thrown away in the United States at a rate of 60 million plastic water bottles every day,  often ends up in the garbage despite being considered recyclable.   Thus, single-use items are at best captured by well-managed disposal systems of landfilling and incineration. The rest of it ends up as litter, polluting communities where people live and contaminating the natural world. This systematic tracking of human-made material — material that cannot be absorbed by nature — on a one-way path to disposal is where plastic becomes problematic.

Who pays the cost for disposable plastics?

The linear, take-make-dispose economic model has delivered profits, created jobs and met consumers’ desire for accessible, innovative and convenient products. But it is not sustainable. Developing economies with a lack of waste management are most deeply awash in trash. That we might see more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 is old news in light of the recent United Nations report that says we only have 12 years to steer ourselves away from climate catastrophe. It is today’s consumers, not producers of these disposable items, who bear the brunt of this waste. Making their way into marine environments, plastics never fully degrade, leaching chemicals, releasing greenhouse gases and breaking down into microplastics, which are mistaken by animals for food and thus penetrate the human food chain and water supplies.

Material of value

But again, plastic isn’t the bogeyman. While its single-use, disposable configurations lend value to businesses externalizing the environmental, social and financial costs, it has infused immense value to industry as a whole — an enabler for the packaging, construction, transportation, health care and electronics sectors. The idea that plastic, or any material for that matter, is disposable is what is causing problems. Plastic was once considered an expensive material and used to produce high-value items. Prior to World War II, products were repaired and consumables refilled in durable containers through service models such as the milkman. By the time the war ended, a matured plastics industry was freed up to create a culture of consumerism and feed a new disposable economy.  

Plastic can be made for reuse and can exist in a circular economy, as can glass, treated paper, lab-grown leather and 3D-printed produce.

Waste and disposability has been around only a bit more than 70 years. Is the world ready to go back to reusable packaging? Consumers are used to the convenience and cost of disposable, single-use packages.   Bulk and refilling stations that use reusable plastic, stainless steel and glass containers either provided by the retailer or the consumer do exist today, and they work best when consumers are incentivized to use them with discounts and promotions. But business must be on board for such systems to work. Bottle bills and container deposit schemes provide evidence that reusable, returnable packaging configurations work to change the perception that resources are disposable. Today the 10 U.S. states with bottle bills boast a 70 percent average recycling rate, compared with an overall rate of 35 percent. The challenge is that bottle bills not only are not growing but declining due to pressure from industry.

The role of business: moving the needle

Moving away from disposability and towards durability is the key to reducing waste and designing a more sustainable economy. Industry holds this key. It is the role of business to be a reflection of the needs and desires of consumers, who want access to the quality products and services they trust and, while they are at it, want to do the right thing. Companies that understand this and are able to make it easy for consumers tap into an increasingly conscious consumer base and are poised to grow and profit by doing the opposite of their counterparts stuck in the linear economy. This shift is already taking place. The biggest consumer product companies in the world have taken the initiative to lead us into a circular economy by working with TerraCycle to develop the global, first-of-its-kind shopping system called Loop. Through this service, consumers can shop for iconic and trusted brands such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, PepsiCo, the Clorox Company, The Body Shop, Preserve and more — redesigned to be smarter and waste-free. This model features durable, elegant packages owned by the brand, not the consumer, that deliver the world’s favorite products without sacrificing the convenience and affordability that make disposable products desirable, with the added value of delivery and refilling services. The aim is to make products even easier to buy and use, harkening back to the circular systems worked for us for millennia. Through Loop, consumers responsibly can consume products in specially designed durable, reusable or fully recyclable packaging made from materials such as alloys, glass and engineered plastics — plastics researched and developed to be life-resistant, beautiful and far from disposable — saving energy, resources and diverting pollution with every use. Changing perspectives around the value of our finite resources and the impact waste has on the planet can start with plastic. Plastic is valuable and worth capturing for recycling. It is useful and malleable enough to design for durability and certainly worth conserving. Plastic can be made for reuse and can exist in a circular economy, as can glass, treated paper, lab-grown leather and 3D-printed produce. Everything on this planet has value, even the human-made stuff. Consumers vote with their wallets every day for the future they want, and it’s up to companies and brands to spearhead the change they can buy into.

A UPS juntou-se à coligação das maiores empresas de produtos de consumo do mundo e à líder internacional de reciclagem TerraCycle para anunciar um sistema reutilizável e retornável para a gestão de embalagens de produtos de consumo.

Os responsáveis da Coca-Cola e da 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 a promessa de reduzir os resíduos plásticos até 2030.

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.

Algumas das maiores empresas do mundo, incluindo Unilever, Nestlé e PepsiCo, estão lançando embalagens reutilizáveis para determinados produtos, na tentativa de eliminar gradualmente os plásticos de uso único – e para melhorar sua própria reputação de poluidores.