Welcome to Planet for All—a series that will empower you to change our world. This week, we’re teaming up with sustainable thought leaders to unpack five of the biggest threats to our environment and pinpoint accessible, meaningful, and heart-driven action that we can all take to make a huge difference. Today, we’re exploring the massive plastic waste problem with tell-it-like-it-is trailblazer Tom Szaky.

Un millier de produits de douze multinationales seront mis en vente dès l'année prochaine sur une plate-forme où tous les emballages seront consignés, et certains articles même réemployés. Dénommé Loop, ce site d'e-commerce sera conçu et géré par TerraCycle, entreprise américaine spécialisée dans le recyclage des déchets plus "difficiles".

It’s a green shopper’s dream to curb plastic waste: Häagen-Dazs in stainless steel pints, Tropicana in glass bottles, Pantene in aluminium containers and hundreds more products all refillable and delivered to your door in what harkens back to the days of the milkman. But whereas the milkman would replenish your dairy on the spot, this pilot program, called Loop, would collect and clean your containers before scheduling the next service. Backing Loop are dozens of big name companies including PepsiCo and Nestlé, which announced their project at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in hopes that eco-conscious consumers are ready to deliver on their calls for eliminating single-use containers. New York, Paris and London will be the first cities to test the refillable brands.   But is the reusable market still too niche? How cost-effective would the rollout be and what unintended environmental impacts would need to be avoided, such as even more congested roads to keep up with delivery? More importantly — would you buy in? Call us at 866-893-5722 or comment below.   GUESTS: Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, a recycling firm and parent company for the pilot program Loop, which will handle the delivery, returns and cleaning for a number of companies testing refillable brands; he tweets @Tom__Szaky Susan Collins, head of the Container Recycling Institute, a nonprofit focusing on research and education towards container recycling and deposit systems Kit Yarrow, consumer research psychologist, professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco and author of “Decoding the New Consumer Mind”

A large number of global consumer companies have launched an initiative to reduce waste from packaging. Through the Loop service, companies like Unilever, Nestle and Coca Cola are planning to offer reusable packaging that is collected after use and then refilled and reused. Photo: Walk Some of the world's largest consumer companies have joined forces with the recycling company TerraCycle to launch a global shopping system for reusable packaging. The shopping system Loop has been developed to reduce the world's dependence on disposable plastic by offering circular solutions for consumer products. Through Loop, companies plan to offer consumers reusable packaging that is collected after use and then cleaned, refilled and reused. Loop was launched during the World Economic Forum's Davos Summit. Over 20 global consumer companies have been involved in financing Loop, including Procter & Gamle, Nestle, Unilever, Pepsi, Coca Cola and Body Shop. Food chains such as British Tesco and the logistics company UPS also participate in the initiative. "Loop is a long-awaited innovation that challenges companies to take a new grip on our value chains and integrate reusable product packaging as part of our work to reduce waste," says Laurent Freixe, CEO of Nestlé in the US, in a comment. According to the life cycle analyzes that Loop has carried out together with its partners, the environmental benefits of the long-lasting products show that they are better than for disposable packaging, while at the same time the waste is reduced. Loop will be launched in the spring in France and the Northeast USA. The service is expected to be launched in more countries in 2019 and 2020. A spokesperson from Loop tells Current Sustainability that so far there are plans to launch the service in the UK, Canada and Tokyo, but more markets are expected to be in the future.