Reuse your orange juice bottle

By Ashley Carman@ashleyrcarman  Jan 28, 2019, 10:38am EST SHARE Image: Loop Pepsi, Unilever, and Nestle plan to start offering their products through a subscription delivery service with one key twist: all of its packaging will be reusable. The service, called Loop, will launch with 25 big-name partners, and it hopes to stand out by offering a more environmentally friendly take on a subscription plan. Loop compares its service to the milkman. Just like the milkman dropped off fresh milk and then came back for the bottles once people consumed their supply, Loop will have UPS drivers drop off a reusable bag with miscellaneous products inside. Once they’re used, consumers can schedule for their old containers to be picked up and new containers to be dropped off. Loop will handle the cleaning and reuse aspect of the packaging. The service is supposed to launch in parts of Paris, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in mid-May. Loop is also planning to work out delivery for London through Tesco later this year, and it’s aiming to launch in Tokyo in 2020. For now, it’s starting with a small trial of users. Every brand designed its own packaging for use with Loop so they stay true to the company’s image while still being reusable. Some of Unilever’s products are expected to last eight years, according to The Wall Street Journal. The products will cost roughly the same as single-use containers, but people will have to pay a container deposit between $1 and $10, and shipping will start at $20, but it will decrease with every item added. Image: Loop It’s a neat idea that fits in with the push to stop the use of disposable straws. If the service is convenient, fast enough, and not overly expensive, I can imagine people actually wanting to use it for the good of the planet.  

Tim Cook, Matt Damon, economic worries and social unrest The week of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is a fire hose of news. Headlines, predictions, sightings and tidbits that months and years later are recognized as the flash point for much larger shifts and trends can often get overlooked. To help you sort through it all, we’ve put together this crib sheet of everything that we think was important that happened here in Davos. (Yes, I’m writing this from Davos on my way home.) Before we get into the substance, a couple of observations. The World Economic Forum has traditionally brought together the world’s top political and business leaders. But this year, the political leaders were largely absent — remaining in their home countries to handle crises largely of their own making (President Trump with the shutdown and Prime Minister Theresa May with Brexit). The surprise guest this year was Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, making his first appearance; it may be an indication of Apple’s increasing dependence on foreign markets for growth.

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The topic du jour (besides the shutdown) was a debate over where the global economy was headed. Chief executives professed confidence that their earnings would continue apace, while economists and investors talked about the prospect of a recession in 2020. And others, like Ray Dalio — and Seth Klarman, who did not attend, but whose annual letter was a constant talking point — worried about social unrest. Interestingly, Dr. Doom — Nouriel Roubini — was actually upbeat. A Chinese chief executive described his country’s economy as “ugly” — he used that world repeatedly — suggesting that the underlying foundation there was more fragile than most economists acknowledge. That could lead to weakness in China spreading to the rest of the world. And the general sense is that while the U.S. and China may reach a trade détente, we might be headed for a decades-long economic cold war. Larry Fink’s letter and the concept of E.S.G., shorthand for “environmental, social and governance,” got a lot of discussion this year — it felt like it might be a tipping point in the dialogue. European companies are still more interested in E.S.G. than U.S. companies, but it feels like a trend that isn’t going away. TPG’s Rise Fund started a new company, Y Analytics, to measure E.S.G. Bono, a board member of Rise, was on hand to talk about impact investing and to support his Red brand, which he started a decade ago in Davos (DealBook broke that story at the time) as well as his One franchise. Matt Damon was in town to raise money for his water.org, which is turning into a quite successful story (side note: Mr. Damon had to borrow a suit because his bag got lost by Swiss Air). Jane Goodall was also in Davos — and let me say that she is as nice as she is important. Even the Vatican sent a delegation to talk about conscious and inclusive capitalism. And Rebecca Blumenstein, the deputy managing editor of The New York Times, interviewed Bill Gates on Twitter about his work around the globe. ____________________________ Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in Davos, Switzerland; Stephen Grocer in New York; and Tiffany Hsu and Gregory Schmidt in Paris. The U.S. versus China: It’s not a trade war, it’s a tech war The soap opera of tariff negotiations has riveted economists and executives: Will Beijing keep its promises? Will Washington cooperate? But the real drama is not about trade, but about technology, many in Davos have said. The brewing conflict could affect generations and disrupt the world order, according to Fred Kempe, the chief executive of the think tank Atlantic Council. He wrote: The growing danger is that the tech race could become the primary battleground in a struggle between democracy and autocracy — and between China and the U.S. The dangers of a technological Cold War, a zero-sum contest for global dominance that ultimately separates Chinese and U.S. tech sectors from each other and divides up the world, are increasing. What’s the worry? The billionaire George Soros said that artificial intelligence, when in the hands of authoritarian regimes, was a “mortal threat” to the world. He cited China, which is developing a social credit system that would use personal data to judge an individual’s trustworthiness, as an example. President Xi Jinping could eventually have “total control over the people,” making him “the most dangerous opponent of open societies,” Mr. Soros said. What do the Chinese think? The technology industry relies heavily on global interactions and is “probably suffering the most right now,” said Ken Hu, the deputy chairman of Huawei. The Chinese telecommunications company has been accused by multiple nations, including the U.S., of violating trade rules. Other players, such as the Chinese state-owned oil and gas company Sinopec, say they expect Chinese companies to scale back foreign investment — steps already taken by Alibaba and by GAC Motor. Last year, nearly 60 percent of Chinese C.E.O.s considered the U.S. to be the most important foreign market; this year, only 17 percent feel the same, according to one survey published this past week. Hope for resolution? Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said via video link that Washington was willing to play nice with Beijing if China pledged to protect intellectual property. At a dinner in Davos, a top Chinese regulator heard complaints from international business leaders about the ownership structure of state-owned enterprises and about the Made in China 2025 effort, which aims to take the lead in industries such as artificial intelligence and robotics. But China wants its space. Vice President Wang Qishan said in a speech that “it is imperative to respect national sovereignty and refrain from seeking technological hegemony.” He added: We need to respect the independent choices of model of technology management and of public policies made by countries, and their right to participating in the global technological governance system as equals. More forecasts for a global economic slowdown A recession may not be coming this year, but neither is a boom, Greg Ip of the WSJ writes. The International Monetary Fund downgraded its 2019 forecast for global growth to 3.5 percent. That’s a respectable number, he writes, but the world is struggling to sustain even that muted pace. The reason: The world cannot tolerate interest rates as high as it once did. The “neutral” interest rate — one that is high enough to contain inflation, yet low enough to avoid recession — is much lower than before. The underlying cause: As aging workers retire and birthrates drop, the labor force has grown more slowly. Productivity has also eked out smaller gains than in the past. The upshot: Central banks need to proceed carefully, because a little fiscal tightening goes a long way. More on the global economy: Ray Dalio, founder and chairman of the hedge fund Bridgewater, said he foresaw slower growth rates in the U.S. and Europe. France is sticking to a 1.7 percent economic growth forecast for 2019, the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said. Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the I.M.F., warned against an overreliance on central banks, urging countries to strengthen their economies through fiscal and structural changes. In the absence of world leaders, the atmosphere was downbeat. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.CreditAndrew Harnik/Associated Press   Image Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.CreditAndrew Harnik/Associated Press Tax the rich Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t in Davos this week. It just felt like she was. The New York representative’s proposal to impose a 70 percent tax rate on income above $10 million came up frequently among the uber-wealthy in attendance. In those elite circles, filled with people whose fortunes have soared in recent years, the idea was not popular. Michael Dell, the billionaire founder of Dell Technologies, is not a fan, for one. Scott Minerd, the chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners, said the concept was “scary.” Glenn Hutchins, the chairman of North Island and a co-founder of Silver Lake Partners, suggested that it was an attempt to “score political points” and that it would probably be unsuccessful. Ken Moelis, the chief executive of the investment bank Moelis & Company, said it would be “disastrous for the economy.” Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire chief executive of Blackstone, said he was “wildly enthusiastic” about Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s pitch. (He was being sarcastic.) But as the economy slows and 2020 election talk surges, taxing the rich is a topic that will most likely continue to surface. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a Democratic candidate for president, proposed a so-called ultramillionaire tax this week on the 75,000 wealthiest families in the country, including President Trump’s. Still, top earners would probably figure out how to sidestep such rules, Mr. Minerd said. The political pendulum is swinging. The conservatives found out they’re being held hostage by the extreme right. Now the Democrats are going to find out they’re being held hostage by the extreme left. Defending the international order Globalization had some powerful defenders in Davos, with world leaders imploring delegates not to abandon postwar principles of international integration. Several took jabs at the absent President Trump without mentioning him by name, criticizing his “America First” foreign policy and his habit of provoking trade disputes. The vice president of China, Wang Qishan, whose own country has been accused of running roughshod over foreign competitors and global business rules, nonetheless condemned “practices of the strong bullying the weak and self-claimed supremacy.” Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong, said that certain countries were drifting from the multilateral framework of the past few decades. “If that is no longer the mainstream, we could be in trouble,” she said. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who leads a country that is deeply reliant on international trade and increasingly surrounded by neighbors confronted by protectionist tendencies, urged Western powers to “act against the fragmentation of the international architecture.” She said that global organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank should be reformed and that countries should embrace compromise. She added: I think we should understand our national interest in a way that we think about the interests of others, and from that create win-win situations that are the precondition for multilateralism. Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan, pledged his country’s support for “the free, open, and rules-based international order.” He called on forum participants to “rebuild trust toward the system for international trade.” A call for greater oversight of Big Tech World leaders called for more regulation. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said his country would push for a new international system for the oversight of data use. His proposal was echoed by others: • The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said African Union leaders would discuss greater oversight of the tech sector at a meeting early next month. • Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany cited a need for the European Union to have a “common digital market.” • Vice President Wang Qishan of China also said that more international cooperation in regulating the market was required. Talk focused on global governance, data privacy and the impact of artificial intelligence, but there was no consensus on what approach to take. Some official sessions tried to put a positive spin on the effects of technological advances, but the optimism seemed out of step with public concern about the disruptive effect on privacy and politics. Tech leaders make the rounds: On his first trip to the forum, Tim Cook, the Apple chief executive, met with world leaders, including President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Dubai’s crown prince, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, acknowledged that her company needed to earn back the trust of the public. Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, said that as facial recognition technology grew, he would “welcome regulation that will help the marketplace not be a race to the bottom.” The milkman makes a comeback Environmental issues took center stage, with world leaders and celebrities weighing in and new partnerships being formed. One of the biggest initiatives announced at the forum was an alternative recycling platform called Loop, which seeks to change the way consumers buy brand-name products. The concept: The project revives the milkman concept, in which products are delivered in reusable containers that are returned to the manufacturer. The partners: Some of the largest consumer goods companies — including Danone, Mars Petcare, Mondelez International, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Unilever — are working together on the project as a way to limit waste. The pitchman: Tom Szaky, founder and chief executive of the recycling company TerraCycle, headed to Davos two years ago to meet with the leaders of packaged goods companies and push his big idea. Climate concerns dominated much of the discussion elsewhere at the gathering: • In an interview with Prince William, the naturalist David Attenborough took world leaders to task for waiting too long to address climate change. • Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand joined the chorus, urging her global counterparts to think about the role they play in addressing climate change, while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan called for action on the issue. • The singer Bono poked fun at sustainable development goals, saying, “The S.D.G.s, it does sound like a sexually transmitted disease, doesn’t it?” • An expected drop in private jet traffic to Davos this year could be a sign that participants are taking the environmental impact of their travel more seriously. • Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, gave a speech urging the global elite to protect the planet. The best of the rest • Forum participants seemed receptive to Saudi Arabia’s damage control campaign over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (Reuters) •The World Economic Forum hosts 3,000 official participants, but the population of Davos swells to 30,000 during the week. Here are the unaffiliated events, sessions and parties that drew celebrities like Matt Damon and Wyclef Jean. (CNBC) • The Bank of England is ready for Brexit and is disillusioned with Bitcoin, said its governor, Mark Carney. (Bloomberg) • Hundreds of protesters, some waving signs that read “Let them eat money,” complained that the elite participants at Davos cared more about the bottom line than about the state of the world. (AP)

Loop will send you name-brand products, like Tide detergent, Crest mouthwash, or Häagen Dazs ice cream. When you’re done, you ship the empty container back, where it gets cleaned and reused for the next customer. [Photo: Loop]

• BY ADELE PETERS6 MINUTE READ

In the not-too-distant future–as soon as this spring, if you live in or near New York City or Paris–you’ll be able to buy ice cream or shampoo in a reusable container. When you’re done eating a tub of Haagen-Dazs, you’ll toss the sleek stainless steel package in your personal reuse bin instead of your trash can. Then it will be picked up for delivery back to a cleaning and sterilization facility so that it can be refilled with more ice cream for another customer. Loop, a new zero-waste platform from a coalition of major consumer product companies, will launch its first pilots this year. “While recycling is critically important, it is not going to solve waste at the root cause,” says Tom Szaky, CEO and cofounder of TerraCycle, a company that is known for recycling hard-to-recycle materials, and one of the partners behind the project. [Photo: courtesy Loop] “We run what is today the world’s largest supply chain on ocean plastic, collecting it and going into Unilever and Procter & Gamble products and so on,” Szaky says. “But every day, more and more gets put in the ocean, so no matter how much we clean the ocean, we’re never going to solve the problem. That’s really where Loop emerged…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.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] TerraCycle worked with companies like Procter & Gamble, Nestle, PepsiCo, Unilever, and more than a dozen others for over a year to develop the new platform. Each package in the system is designed for 100 or more uses. In the initial launch, products will be available through Loop’s e-commerce site. When you order, say, deodorant or mouthwash, you’ll pay a deposit for the bottle. The order will show up in a reusable tote–designed by engineers at UPS to withstand repeated journeys–instead of a cardboard box. As you use up products, you’ll throw the empty containers back in the tote. When it’s full, you can go to the Loop website to request a delivery driver to pick it up (or, if you prefer, drop it off at a UPS store).   [Photo: courtesy Loop] For consumers, the process is designed to be as seamless as possible. “The goal isn’t as much to get you to change, it’s instead to create systems that don’t make you change–but have you then solve the issue in the process,” Szaky says. “Creating consumer change is phenomenally difficult. So the first question we asked in developing the model was why did disposability win? Why did it take over? I think it did because disposability is convenient and affordable.” Others have tried to tackle the problem of trash through other models, like refillable packaging or zero-waste grocery stores. But when those solutions fall short of the convenience or affordability of standard plastic packaging, they struggle to gain mass adoption. Loop aims to be essentially as convenient as throwing something in the trash; you don’t even need to rinse the container, so in that respect, it’s simpler than recycling. Apart from the refundable deposit on the package, the cost of the products will be similar to what customers pay now. Customers may also pay for shipping the totes back and forth, though a certain number of products can be shipped free, depending on the weight. ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads   [Photo: courtesy Loop] UPS, which is partnering on the initial pilot to both deliver orders and pick up totes of empty containers, says that the system fits into its existing operations. “If you think of a typical day for a package-car driver, that driver will leave the building in the morning with a full package car,” says Patrick Browne, global director of sustainability at UPS. “As he’s going throughout the day delivering, on a very engineered route to reduce miles, at the same time, he’s picking up packages. So the effect is that driver leaves full and comes home full.”   [Photo: courtesy Loop] When a package is returned, a customer gets back their deposit (or, if they’ve opted for an automatic subscription, the receipt of the container can trigger a new order). Empty packages go to a facility to be cleaned, and then get sent back to manufacturers for refilling. All of this shipping does have a carbon footprint, but when TerraCycle calculated the total impact of the packaging, they found that it’s between 50-75% better for the environment than conventional alternatives.   “The major [environmental] cost of a product, whether it’s durable or disposable, is its creation–making it for the first time, extracting materials from the earth, and so on,” Szaky says. “That doesn’t happen in reuse. Instead, what you have is the cost of some shipping as well as the cleaning, and that ends up being significantly better than the cost of remanufacturing.” Shifting the ownership of a package from a consumer back to a brand creates new opportunities. “It shifts from being a cost to the manufacturer to being an asset,” he says. Instead of aiming to make the cheapest packaging possible, packaging can be designed to look better on shelves. It can also perform better; the Haagen-Dazs ice cream tub, for example, can keep ice cream frozen for multiple hours. [Photo: courtesy Loop] As brands worked on the packaging designs, it also led to some changes in the products. A toothpaste tube is too difficult to reuse, so Unilever designed toothpaste tablets that consumers can chew instead of squirting out of a tube. The tablets come in a reusable, zero-waste container (they also use less water). And in some cases, the products themselves can also come back for recycling. Loop will sell diapers, for example, in a returnable diaper pail, and then recycle the parts of diapers that are recyclable.     [Photo: courtesy Loop] The model is similar to milk deliveries in the early 20th century, though it’s yet to be proven that it can work in the modern world. In the pilots this spring, Loop will test how the system works, including the durability of containers, the impacts on manufacturing operations, delivery, and, crucially, whether consumers reorder products this way. (At a later point, it will begin to roll out the products at brick-and-mortar stores; the details of the system at physical stores haven’t been finalized yet.) Success, Szaky says, will depend on consumer acceptance, and the fact that the platform sells brands that are already hugely successful will help. “We don’t have to prove our brand of shampoo, it’s already the best,” he says. “We don’t have to prove that consumers shop at our store, they already do this. It’s just giving them an alternative way to access those things.” If the early pilots go well, the platform could become mainstream. The fact that these are major brands like Tide and Gillette–and not niche brands targeting green consumers–is significant. The largest brands are acknowledging that packaging needs to change. (Many have already committed to move to reusable, recycleable, or compostable plastic packaging.) Eight of the 10 companies that Greenpeace has listed as the world’s largest contributors to the plastic waste crisis are part of Loop, and the coalition is in talks with the other two. “We are objectively in a garbage crisis, and brands are really looking to bring solutions to end the crisis,” Szaky says.

Davos, Switzerland (CNN Business)Has business finally woken up to the enormous challenges posed by climate change? This year's World Economic Forum provides some hope. Climate was a major theme in Davos, where panel discussions on everything from global warming to ocean sustainability and biodiversity drew large crowds. Naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough was given top billing and primatologist Jane Goodall appeared on a panel. A dinner hosted by climate and environmental groups was one of the hottest tickets of the week. The focus on climate reflects developments that have been hard to miss even for profit-obsessed CEOs. Damaging storms have in recent years resulted in major financial losses and a California utility company has been brought to its knees by billions of dollars in claims related to wildfires. Companies have also seen how easy it is for their reputations to be tarnished over environmental issues — and how easy it can be to change. "Things change instantly because of the power of social media," Burberry (BBRYF) board member Orna Ni-Chionna said during a panel discussion in Davos. Ni-Chionna knows what she's talking about. Burberry was caught in a PR firestorm when it emerged last year that unsold clothes were being destroyed. "When this was discovered, the social media theme that rocketed to the top was 'Burberry burns.' It took me about five minutes to send an email to our chief executive and ... it took our chief executive three weeks to have a completely new policy," she said. Call to action Talk is well and good, but there was widespread recognition in Davos that real change won't happen without action. For experts here, that means corporate and government policy reforms. Many speakers acknowledged progress won't be made until the economics change. "There are still fossil fuel subsidies from G7 countries — that's ridiculous," said Rachel Kyte, special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy. "Why we are subsidizing something we know is killing our children, poisoning them and affecting their ability to learn? That's beyond me," she added. There were new initiatives too. Procter & Gamble (PG), PepsiCo (PEP), Nestlé (NSRGY) and Unilever (UL) joined forces with waste management company TerraCycle to launch Loop, a project that will allow people to reuse containers for some of the world's most popular household products. 'Feel the fear'  The spirit of the event was reflected in two attendees with little in common: One is a former vice president of the United States; the other a 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl. What Al Gore and Greta Thunberg share is anger at corporate executives who aren't moving quickly enough to address climate change. "I don't want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic, I want you to feel the fear I feel every day," Thunberg told attendees. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg talks to journalists during her trip to Davos. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg talks to journalists during her trip to Davos. Gore participated in a friendly panel discussion with David Attenborough on Tuesday, where he warned that politicians are in denial about environmental risks. The former Democratic presidential candidate was downright fired up by the end of the week. On Thursday, he stood before a room packed with CEOs and climate change experts and warned that humanity's survival is at stake. "Who is with me?" he yelled into the microphone as the crowd roared their approval. The question everyone was asking: what will follow that roar?

(Photo: TerraCycle’s circular delivery system Loop. Credit: LoopStore.com) Global recycling organization TerraCycle unveiled a new circular delivery service for consumers called Loop. The coalition supporting this reusable and returnable system includes Procter & Gamble, Unilever, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Nestlé, Danone, and UPS. TerraCycle describes Loop as a circular shopping platform that replaces single-use disposable packaging with durable, reusable packaging. Consumers subscribe and order products that get delivered by UPS in a specially designed shipping tote instead of a box. Goods arrive in durable, reusable or fully recyclable packaging made from materials such as alloys, glass, and engineered plastics, according to UPS and TerraCycle. Once the products — such as ice cream, shampoo, and spices — are used, customers place empties back into the tote, schedule a free pick-up, and the system makes sure the products get automatically replenished. “Loop hygienically cleans and sanitizes the empty packaging you send back so they are ready for reuse, instead of ending up as waste after a single use,” the company’s site says. The system debuted at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Loop will not just eliminate the idea of packaging waste, but greatly improve the product experience and shopping convenience,” said TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky. A pilot program is slated for Paris and the metro New York area this year so the system can be optimized. P&G announced that its brands Pantene, Tide, Cascade, Crest, Ariel, Febreze, Oral B, Gillette, Venus, Pampers, and Always will be part of Loop. Nestlé says that Häagen-Dazs is debuting a reusable stainless steel double-walled ice cream container with the launch of the service. Unilever’s Dove, Axe, Degree, REN Clean Skincare, Hellmann’s, Love Beauty and Planet, Love Home and Planet, and Seventh Generation are also participating. “We want to put an end to the current ‘take-make-dispose’ culture and are committed to taking big steps towards designing our products for re-use,” said Unilever CEO Alan Jope.  

It’s the early 1960s. Girls are fainting over the Beatles, Sean Connery is James Bond and a revolutionary trend is sweeping the nation: Plastic. Plastic is about to have its breakthrough moment in the food industry. The plastic milk jug, specifically, is on the brink of taking off: the “market potential is huge,” the New York Times correctly notes. To American families, a third of which are still getting their milk from a milk man, plastic is a wonder package. It’s lighter than glass. It doesn’t break. Unlike paper cartons, it’s translucent. You can see how much liquid is left in the jug. With a plastic container, everybody wins. Except for the milk man. And, as it would turn out, the planet. Recycling is a failing industry.” TOM SZAKY, TERRACYCLE CEO Fast forward to now. Plastics are expected to outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050.  Marine life is choking on the debris: Microplastics are in our soil, our water, our air, getting into our bodies with potential consequences that we don't fully understand yet. Massive amounts of plastic have piled up in landfills, some emitting greenhouse gases and contributing to global warming over the seeming eternity they take to degrade. Plastics are threatening the health of the planet and its inhabitants, and they’re not going away. Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Danone, Mars Petcare, Mondelēz International and others — some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies — are partnering on a potential solution to limit future waste. They’re working together on a project known as Loop, to be announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday. It offers consumers an alternative to recycling — a system that isn't working well these days. At this point, the partners are testing the waters. It’s an experiment they’ll roll out to several thousand consumers in New York and Paris this May, with plans to expand to London later in 2019 and Toronto, Tokyo and San Francisco in 2020. The Loop tote bag (Mark Kauzlarich for CNN) Loop is a new way to shop, offering about 300 items — from Tide detergent to Pantene shampoo, Häagen-Dazs ice cream to Crest mouthwash — all in reusable packaging. After using the products, customers put the empty containers in a Loop tote on their doorstep. The containers are then picked up by a delivery service, cleaned and refilled, and shipped out to consumers again. In other words, it’s the 21st century milk man — here to save the world from single-use plastics. Maybe. From trash in Trenton to a global stage Two years ago, Tom Szaky traveled from Trenton, New Jersey to Davos with a half-baked idea and a loose plan to pitch it to the leaders of the world’s biggest brands. Szaky, now 37, is the CEO of TerraCycle, a modest waste management company. TerraCycle expects its global 2018 sales to amount to $32 million and is currently trying to raise $25 million from small investors. A Princeton dropout with big ideas and a casual demeanor, Szaky spent the first years of his career talking about “worm poop,” a phrase he used to market his fertilizer business in a way that got him a ton of media attention. By the time he was 24, he had landed contracts with Walmart and Home Depot. His mission — to eliminate waste first and make a profit second — is so seductive, some employees have taken major pay cuts to work for TerraCycle. The company’s Trenton headquarters is decorated with garbage; Szaky’s office walls are hanging curtains made from empty plastic bottles. Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle and the brains behind Loop. (Mark Kauzlarich for CNN) At Davos, he said, a certain vibe made top business leaders amenable to his idea. “Have you ever been to Burning Man?” Szaky asked during an interview with CNN Business. “The closest comparison —and it’s a weird comparison to me — is going to Burning Man.” At Burning Man, the annual week-long event where participants build a temporary community in the Nevada desert, people inherently trust each other, he said. At Davos, he was able to approach any business leader and, because of a similar type of openness, be granted an audience.

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Szaky was at Davos in 2017 because TerraCycle had helped Procter & Gamble launch a line of Head & Shoulders shampoo that came in bottles made with plastic collected from beaches. While he was there, Szaky — a slick, charismatic pitchman — landed a spot on stage with the CEOs of Walmart, Alibaba and Heineken. He also secured short meetings with the leaders of consumer packaged goods companies and pitched them on his big idea. Szaky asked companies to think differently about who owns their packaging. Today, companies sell consumers both the product and the package it comes in. Ultimately, it’s up to the customer — and also the municipality where they live — whether an empty bottle gets recycled or tossed in a landfill. Under the current system, the fate of the bottle is out of the manufacturer’s hands, so companies aim to produce the cheapest possible packages, Szaky said. But what if, instead, the manufacturer retained ownership of the bottle by collecting and reusing it? The company could count it as a longer-term asset on its balance sheet and depreciate it over time. Under that system, the manufacturer would be incentivized to invest more resources in an elegant, durable design, Szaky argued. At Szaky’s pitch meetings, some important subtext went unsaid. The plastic waste that ends up in landfills and oceans has the logos of the world’s biggest brands all over it. He had specifically targeted companies that were featured on a Greenpeace list of worst plastics polluters, because he knew they had a potential public relations crisis on their hands. “I don’t have to rub this in their face,” Szaky said, because the companies are “painfully” aware of their reputations. The consumer goods giants got on board. And after that trip, Szaky got serious about making Loop a reality by Davos 2019. Now, eight of the 10 companies mentioned in the Greenpeace report are Loop partners. How it works Loop customers have to make an account and fill up a basket online. The prices for the items should be comparable to what they would be at a nearby store, Szaky said. In addition to the regular cost of the item, customers must put down a fully refundable deposit for each package. The deposit varies from about 25 cents for a bottle of Coca-Cola to $47 for a Pampers diaper bin (which TerraCycle said eliminates the need for a Diaper Genie). Shipping becomes free after the customer buys about five to seven items, depending on the size and bulk of the products.

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In the United States, the items arrive via UPS in a Loop tote bag.  Frozen items, like ice cream, come in a cooler within the tote. As customers go through products — use all the shampoo, eat all the ice cream — they fill up the totes with the empties. Unlike traditional recyclables, the packages don’t need to be washed. At the end of the cycle, a UPS driver picks up the tote. Customers can keep repeating the cycle or opt out and recover their deposit. Even banged up packages earn back the deposit — customers only lose that money if they fail to make a return. When the packages are no longer suitable for use, TerraCycle recycles them. Loop may be convenient for users in some ways, but there are potential drawbacks. Szaky acknowledged that it’s a lot to ask people to use yet another retail website. He hopes that Loop will eventually be integrated into existing online shops, including Amazon. “We’re not trying to harm or cannibalize retailers,” Szaky said. “We’re trying to offer a plug-in that could make them better.” Already, two large retailers, Carrefour in France and Tesco in the United Kingdom, are Loop partners and more may join the project. Eventually, Loop packages may also be sold on store shelves. Shoppers who want to be a part of Loop’s soft launch in May have to apply. The first group of users will be selected based on location and overall interest in the platform, according to TerraCycle. The test will allow Loop to iron out any kinks before the program is open to the broader public, Szaky said.  

The engineering challenge

Partner companies have to pay to participate in Loop. Szaky didn’t disclose the buy-in amount, but said it’s in the low six figures. On top of that, many are redesigning their traditional packages — an expensive endeavor that could cost another seven figures, Szaky said. Szaky said TerraCycle asked the Loop partners to design packages that can survive at least 100 reuses. Rick Zultner, TerraCycle’s director of product and process development, is more measured; he called that figure a “nice goal to meet.” “Some things can definitely meet that,” Zultner said, adding that if the packages are reused at least 10 times, they’re probably still better for the environment than single-use plastics. TerraCycle needs to conduct its beta test to make sure that hypotheses like these are right. “There is a fundamental advantage of reuse versus recycle,” Virginie Helias, Procter & Gamble’s chief sustainability officer, said. But “we need to have certain conditions” to make it work, she added. Carbon emissions from trucking and other factors could outweigh the environmental benefits of Loop if packages are only reused a few times, or if the transportation system is too spread out. Loop has conducted life-cycle analyses to try to estimate the environmental impact in a variety of situations. To maximize the number of reuses, Loop packages are made out of durable materials like stainless steel, aluminum, glass and engineered plastic, which is stronger than disposable plastic.

Single-use vs. Loop’s reusable packages

         

Loop/CNN

Loop packages are sleek and innovative. Degree’s refillable deodorant in silver and white looks like something Apple would make. Ingredients and, when relevant, nutritional information for all products appear in an insert inside the Loop tote instead of on the packages. In Paris, Loop users can recycle soiled Pampers diapers and Always menstrual pads in this bin. (Procter & Gamble) One package — a bin launched by Procter & Gamble in the Paris test — is designed to hold soiled Pampers diapers and Always menstrual pads. It has a carbon filter to block odors. The hygiene items, which are traditionally thrown out, are instead recycled, while the bin is sanitized and sent out again. Nestlé’s new Häagen-Dazs container, part of the New York launch, is designed to keep ice cream cool in the Loop tote and cooler for 24 to 36 hours. Kim Peddle-Rguem, president of Nestlé’s US ice cream division, called the redesign a “torture test.” It took 15 tries to get the container, a double-walled stainless steel vessel, right. In one prototype, the ice cream wouldn’t harden at a critical stage. Another package was too difficult for customers to open. For now, Nestlé is making 20,000 containers for the Loop test. Five flavors will be available: Strawberry, vanilla, non-dairy chocolate salted fudge truffle, non-dairy coconut caramel and non-dairy mocha chocolate cookie. Häagen-Dazs Loop containers. (Brinson+Banks for CNN) Because the test is so small, Nestlé isn’t making Loop products in any other facility — which means it has to truck everything from California to the East Coast. If the project takes off, Nestlé will rethink that route to make sure it’s environmentally sound. “This process isn’t yet perfect and we know it will need to continue to be updated and refined,” said Peddle-Rguem. “We will be analyzing all parts of the process, including shipping and how many times consumers are reusing the container to find those areas for adjustment.” A plastics crisis Consumer goods companies say their customers are demanding more environmentally-friendly packaging. “We’re seeing that very clearly in our research,” said Procter & Gamble’s Helias, adding that wasteful packaging is “becoming a deterrent for purchase.” Mondelēz, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and others are aiming to make all or some of their packaging out of recycled materials by 2025. Szaky doesn’t think they’ll be able to pull it off. “Recycling is a failing industry,” he said. Roughly 30% of US recyclables are exported overseas. But in 2017, China — then the world’s largest importer of waste and scrap  — stopped accepting unsorted paper and some types of plastic from other countries, throwing the US recycling system into a tailspin. The Chinese ban left many communities scrambling for a new place to send their recyclable waste. Some municipalities halted curbside pickup for recycling, others recycled fewer items or raised prices. The operators of some recycling facilities reportedly stashed recyclable waste, looking for a new buyer, but ultimately dumped it in landfills. Unaware consumers may continue as usual, without realizing their recyclables aren’t being recycled at all. Last year, “we saw a global shift in how recycling works,” said Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit group that uses corporate funding to help develop recycling infrastructure. We want to put an end to the current ‘take-make-dispose’ culture and are committed to taking big steps towards designing our products for re-use.” ALAN JOPE, CEO OF UNILEVER China’s ban is not the only reason that recycling is struggling. Ironically, an effort to reduce packaging called lightweighting — making plastic packages, like water bottles, lighter as a way to use less plastic and reduce the amount of fuel needed to move packages by truck — poses recycling challenges because light packages fly off recycling conveyor belts and get lost. Plus, low oil prices make it cheaper for companies to just make plastic from scratch, Szaky noted. Overall, about 91% of all the plastic waste ever created has never been recycled — a statistic so “concerning,” the Royal Statistical Society named it the 2018 international statistic of the year. Recycling is not the best way to cut down on waste. “Preventing in the first place is always better than cleaning up after,” Harrison noted. If Loop works correctly, it would do just that. The question is: will it work?

When garbage was glamorous

Single-use packages were touted as convenient and elegant in mainstream media from the 1930s to 1960s.

     

   

Sourced from Life Magazine

Can the milk man make a comeback? For the largest players, Loop is a relatively small experiment. The partners are among the largest advertisers in the world. If they wanted to, they could throw their full weight behind promoting reusable packaging. But at this point, the companies are moving forward with caution and pointing to Loop as one part of their broader sustainability efforts. Nestlé will decide after about 12 weeks whether or not to expand its participation with Loop. Other partners are giving Loop more time. Unilever will evaluate the project over the course of about 12 months. “We want to put an end to the current ‘take-make-dispose’ culture and are committed to taking big steps towards designing our products for re-use,” Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever, said in a statement. Unilever is testing nine brands in the Loop launch, including Axe, Dove and Degree deodorants, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Seventh Generation soaps. Like Nestlé, the company will evaluate the project’s success by tracking the number of repeat customers. We’re “not yet worried about the financial side of this,” said David Blanchard, Unilever’s chief research and development officer, noting the company is more interested in evaluating whether Loop triggers a “behavior change” among some consumers. It’s easy to see how Loop could fail. It asks customers to completely rethink how they shop. It asks them to dole out deposit money upfront, something many people can’t afford to do. It assumes that, all things being equal, people prefer their detergent in a spiffy container and their deodorant in a sleek pod. In reality, people may not care. Loop could be a dreamy, idealistic house of cards. But it also could work. Small dairies throughout the country are already reviving the milk man by offering delivery services. And it’s not just milk. Refillable beer growlers are staging a comeback, with Whole Foods and Kroger offering in-store beer taps. Startups are trying to help people refill reusable soap containers at home, and millions of consumers are already refilling SodaStream bottles in their kitchens, a sign that there’s a market for reusable bottles. If there’s ever a time that these new models can succeed, it’s now, said Bridget Croke, who leads external affairs for Closed Loop Partners, which invests in recycling technologies and sustainable consumer goods. (Despite the similar name, Closed Loop Partners has no formal relationship with TerraCycle’s Loop project.) To make Loop work, she added, TerraCycle will “need the right investments, the right consumer goods partners.” And “they’re going to really need to understand how to make the consumer experience better than what they have today.” And with so many big companies on board, they have a “solid shot,” she said. Photo Illustration: Getty Images / Loop / CNN If TerraCycle manages to find a solution to plastics pollution — to dust off the milk man, spruce him up, give him a website and get people to shop — things will start to change. “Once these trends start to shift,” Croke noted, “then it starts to catch fire.” Szaky hopes that by the 2060s — a century after plastics came on the food scene —  things will have come full circle. “Hopefully 50 years from now,” Szaky said, “we look at waste as a strange anomaly and we’re happy it’s over.”

Major brands are testing out reusable packaging in an attempt to cut down on plastic waste. By Gaby Del Valle@gabydvjgaby.delvalle@voxmedia.com  Jan 24, 2019, 5:10pm EST SHARE Häagen-Dazs ice cream in a reusable metal container. Loop Some of the world’s biggest companies, including Unilever, Nestlé, and PepsiCo, are rolling out reusable packaging for certain products in an attempt to phase out single-use plastics — and to alleviate their own reputations as polluters. This move, still in the planning stages, is a necessary step in shifting the conversation on reducing carbon emissions from a consumer focus to one that holds companies responsible. Starting in May, Unilever’s Axe and Dove deodorants will come in refillable steel containers that are expected to last eight years. PepsiCo will start selling Tropicana orange juice in glass bottles and certain flavors of Quaker cereal in steel containers. Häagen-Dazs, owned by Nestlé, will come in refillable stainless steel tins. Procter & Gamble’s Pantene shampoo will come in aluminum bottles, and its Tide brand detergent will come in stainless steel containers. The idea is to get consumers to cut back on the single-use plastics that have become an indispensable part of everyday life. Businesses and consumers have long concentrated on the third “R” in “reduce, reuse, recycle,” but with this initiative, companies are renewing focus on the first two. (By the way, an estimated 25 percent of all recyclable products end up in landfills anyway.) And instead of encouraging changes on the supply side — i.e., putting the onus for sustainable living on the consumer, which was a common theme in arguments about whether plastic straws should be banned — this move indicates that companies are starting to accept their outsize contribution to global carbon emissions. This initiative, which is part of a partnership with the recycling company TerraCycle, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, suggests that businesses are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the suggestion that their practices contribute to global pollution. “I sometimes wonder if it’s a fair accusation that we’re in the branded litter business,” Unilever CEO Alan Jope reportedly said at a conference this week. Helping people cut down on plastics is certainly a good way of challenging that accusation, but there’s a catch. For now, the TerraCycle program is in a pilot phase. It will be available to 5,000 shoppers in Paris and New York City in May, according to the Journal’s report, and will expand to London later this year and to 10 additional cities, including Toronto and Tokyo, in 2020. Here’s how it works: Consumers who get selected for the trial get the chance to order hundreds of products online. Those products arrive in a reusable tote bag with no extra packaging. Once the containers are empty, TerraCycle picks them up, cleans them, and delivers refilled containers back to customers. “People talk about recyclability and reuse and say they’d like to be involved in helping the environment, so let’s see if it’s true,” Simon Lowden, the president of PepsiCo’s global snacks group, told the Journal. “You simply have to start somewhere to test it and see what the barriers are and who actually buys into the model,” David Blanchard, chief of research and development at Unilever, told the paper. It’s not surprising that these companies would want to test out costly new initiatives before offering them to the general public. But given the urgency of climate change — an October 2018 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said we have just 12 years to make unprecedented changes if we want to stave off the worst effects of global warming — it’s worth asking whether a lack of consumer interest or a perceived lack of sufficient profits will prevent reusable products from being offered to a wider consumer base. Nestlé, one of the companies participating in the TerraCycle initiative, is also planning to phase out many of its single-use plastic products and make all of its packaging recyclable by 2025. The company plans to completely eliminate certain “hard to recycle” plastics — like films, ice cream cone wrappers, and laminated paper cups — from its packaging. As Fast Company’s Mark Wilson pointed out, this isn’t going to come cheap — there’s “no immediate financial gain” to be made from going green. Companies can either absorb those costs, as Nestlé appears to be doing here, or pass them on to shoppers, which seems to be the case with the TerraCycle program. According to the Journal’s report, the reusable versions will cost “roughly the same” as their single-use counterparts, but users will have to pay deposits of $1 to $10 per container. Shipping starts at approximately $20. Given a choice between cheaper single-use products and more expensive reusable ones, why wouldn’t a cash-strapped shopper go with the cheaper option? (The answer, of course, is existential guilt and fear of watching a climate catastrophe play out in their lifetime, but not everyone can afford to go green.) Megacorporations aren’t the only ones redesigning products to make them more eco-friendly. The period underwear company Thinx recently designed a reusable tampon applicator that retails for $60, and other startups are making reusable versions of common household products like plastic wrap and Ziploc bags. In a world where consumers are often blamed for not being green enough — remember all the debates about whether banning plastic straws is actually good for the environment? — the TerraCycle program, despite being in its initial stages, suggests a future where the onus for changing consumption habits is placed on corporations rather than individuals.  

A new shopping platform announced Thursday at the World Economic Forum aims to change the way we buy many brand-name products. Loop, as the platform is called, would do away with disposable containers for things like shampoo and laundry detergent from some of the world’s biggest manufacturers. Instead, those goods will be delivered in sleek, reusable containers that will be picked up at your door, washed and refilled. “Loop is about the future of consumption. And one of the tenets is that garbage shouldn’t exist,” says Tom Szaky, CEO of the Trenton, New Jersey-based international recycling company TerraCycle, which is behind Loop. “Removing plastics from the ocean is not enough. We need to get at the whole idea of disposability and single-use items,” says Szaky. “We’re going back to the milkman model of the 1950s. You buy the milk but the milk company owns the bottle, which you leave in the milk box to be picked up when you’re done with it.” Companies partnering with Loop include Nestle, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and other top brands. “Our goal is that by 2030, all of our packaging will be reusable or recyclable,” says Virginie Helias, vice president and chief sustainability officer at Procter & Gamble. Loop, she said, “is a very new idea and somewhat risky because no one has tried it. But the response has been very positive, and we’ve selected 10 of our brands to be a part of the pilot project, with a plan to add more later pending positive results.” Pantene shampoo, for instance, “will come in a beautifully decorated, lightweight-aluminum pump container,” Helias says. “Tide in the U.S. will come in a stainless-steel bottle with a durable twist cap. Cascade will come in ultra-durable packaging. Crest mouthwash will come in a glass bottle. The idea is ultra-durability, convenience and also ultra-luxurious packaging.” Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream, a Nestle product, will be delivered in a posh, double-walled, stainless-steel tub designed to keep ice cream cold longer. And instead of adding dirty disposable diapers to landfills, soiled diapers can, starting only in the Paris area, be placed in sleek, durable diaper containers. When a container is filled, Loop will pick it up and deliver a clean, empty one. New technology allows Loop to process and recycle the dirty diapers, something TerraCycle has already started doing in Amsterdam. “We have only one planet, and we have to take care of it for the long term,” says Laurent Freixe, CEO of the Americas Region of Nestle, which hopes to do away with all its non-recyclable packaging by 2025. “We want to strive for Zero Waste at both the production and consumption level. Loop is so innovative that we felt we had to be a part of it and learn from it.” The rise of the “Zero Waste” movement and concern about the environment has led many businesses to try to reduce packaging and single-use containers. Loop is unusual in its international scope and the size of the companies participating. Initially, Loop will offer about 300 products, with plans to add to the list later. According to TerraCycle, partners include Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Nestle, Unilever, Mars Petcare, The Clorox Company, The Body Shop, Coca-Cola, Mondelez International, Danone, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, BIC, Nature’s Path, Thousand Fell, Greenhouse, Grilliance, Preserve, Carrefour, UPS and the sustainable-resource management company Suez. Greenpeace, which has criticized many big manufacturers for creating much of the plastic waste polluting the world’s oceans, joined in a panel about sustainable consumption at which Loop was announced in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. Jennifer Morgan, international executive director of Greenpeace, said beforehand, “While Greenpeace welcomes the aim of the Loop Alliance to move away from throwaway culture and disposability ... what the platform will mean for the environment depends on whether corporations worldwide are actually ready to change their business models, or if this effort just becomes a distracting side project to generate positive PR.” She warned that most businesses behind the initiative are still expanding production of single-use plastic, although company representatives focused on the progress they have vowed to make in adopting more sustainable packaging. Loop is slated to launch this spring in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and also in Paris and some of its suburbs. Shoppers will be able to buy Zero-Waste products from the Loop website to be delivered to their homes in specially designed shipping totes, and, eventually, at participating retailers, such as Carrefour grocery stores in Paris. Loop intends to expand to the U.S. West Coast, Toronto and the United Kingdom by the end of this year or early 2020, followed by Japan — ideally in time for the 2020 Olympics, Szaky says. “It means more delivery trucks, but far fewer garbage trucks,” he says.  

(Bloomberg) -- In the environmentalist mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle,” almost all of the attention has been paid to recycling. Now some of the world’s biggest consumer brands are trying to shift the focus to the second R, with a program that provides products in reusable containers that can be returned for a refund. The durable packaging program, called “Loop” -- a reference to a theoretical circular economy where nothing is wasted -- debuted at the World Economic Forum in Davos Thursday. Led by New Jersey-based recycling company TerraCycle, Loop will offer popular products from about 25 companies including Nestle, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo in reusable containers that customers order online or purchase in stores and return to the company when finished. The effort evokes the milkman of the 1940s, or even the glass bottle deposits still collected today. In many ways, that’s a better model, said TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky. “In the milkman model, the packaging was owned by the dairy and this kind of garbage didn’t exist.” About 80 percent of all plastic ends up in landfills or the ocean, and grocery packaging creates more waste than the popular scapegoats of plastic bags and straws. “We can’t recycle or clean our way out of this. We have to stop the waste from entering the system to begin with,” Skazy said. By mid-May, products from Loop will initially be available online to customers in Paris through Carrefour and, in the U.S., in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. TerraCycle is finalizing grocery partnerships in the U.S. and Toronto, adding distribution through London’s Tesco later this year, and targeting Tokyo in 2020. Loop will collect a refundable deposit that customers will get back when they return their containers. UPS will pick up the empties for no additional charge. Even allowing for the energy required to transport and prepare the products for reuse, the program reduces waste, TerraCycle says. It won’t stop the stream of plastic waste entering the ocean, but the containers do recover their environmental cost of production after three or four uses. The brands developed the durable containers with their own product designers. Clorox wipes will come in a shiny aluminum tube, Tropicana orange juice and Hellman’s mayonnaise will ship in durable glass. For Haagen-Dazs, Nestle designed a double-walled aluminum jar that actually keeps ice cream colder than the waxed-cardboard disposable packaging. “Reusability does bring an additional element of complexity,” said Simon Lowden, president of PepsiCo’s Global Snacks Group. The company’s designers wanted to keep the packaging looking “fresh and untampered” and make sure it can be cleaned multiple times. The beverage company is also betting on reusable packaging in other parts of its business, most notably its $3.2 billion acquisition of SodaStream last year. “We are looking to help build a world where plastics need never become waste,” Lowden said. “Trials like this help us evaluate the future potential for reusable models and our ability to scale initiatives.”  The packaging is about twice as expensive for manufacturers to produce, but the cost is offset through accounting rules that allow companies to depreciate the expense for wear and tear. TerraCycle has invested about $10 million in the project, using its free cash and raising capital. “It’s a very big bet, but why not?” Szaky said. “Baby boomers look at this nostalgically and say this is how we used to do it, while millennials say, ‘I’m sick of all this plastic waste.’”

New schemes to rid the world of plastic waste are popping up faster than spring dandelions. The latest one involves a coalition of the largest consumer product companies and international recycling leader TerraCycle, which unveiled a global, first-of-its-kind shopping system called Loop (not to be confused with Montreal-based Loop Industries Inc.). The initiative was designed to change the world’s reliance on single-use packaging and offer consumers a convenient circular solution while securing meaningful environmental benefits. Announced at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Loop is designed to enable responsible consumption of a variety of products in customized, brand-specific durable packaging that is collected, cleaned, refilled and reused. The content, if recoverable, will be either recycled or reused. A who's who of consumer product companies, including Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Mars Petcare, The Clorox Company, The Body Shop and Coca-Cola European Partners, along with Carrefour, UPS and Suez are on board. The founding partners want to demonstrate their commitment to developing more circular supply chains from package design and manufacturing to consumer use. The aim is to offer a zero-waste option for the world’s most popular consumer products while maintaining affordability, improving convenience and returning used disposable or durable items to a circular life cycle, either through reuse or recycling. The environmental benefits of Loop durable packaging versus single-use packaging have been proven and verified in Life Cycle Assessments under use pattern assumptions that will be further validated in pilot trials that will launch in the spring in Paris and New York City (covering New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey). Additional markets are expected to launch throughout 2019 and 2020. TerraCycle founder and CEO Tom Szaky told PlasticsToday in a telephone interview that this system shifts packaging from disposable and owned by the consumer to durable and borrowed by the consumer. “The brand owners own the packaging but you use the contents,” Szaky explained. “When you buy a bottle of shampoo you want the shampoo, not the bottle, but you have to deal with the bottle when the shampoo is gone. Plastic is okay but it has to be Eastman’s Tritan or PC and other high-value plastics, instead of low-value plastics.” The consumer goes online and orders a variety of products with different fulfillment options. The products are then put into a tote—a large camera-case type of luggage with an exterior made of PE fabric. The inside is lined with a PP “corrugated” board to impart rigidity. The tote is divided into sections separated by HDPE foam padding to hold and protect the different items, including a cooler insert for ice cream, which can keep it frozen for up to 30 hours. Nestlé said that it will ship its Haagen Dazs ice cream in these totes. When consumers are finished using the products, they put the empty containers in the tote and arrange for shipping through UPS. The consumer also pays for shipping the totes. The empty containers and bottles are then cleaned at TerraCycle and shipped to the various CPGs for refilling. Depending on what the consumers have chosen from fulfillment, the products they return triggers reshipment of those products. People order and consume, and the products come in containers that the manufacturer owns, not the consumer. When the tote is returned, it will be washed and reused. Ideally, Loop hopes to not have to wash the totes every time they are returned. In case of spills or if the tote gets messy it can be disassembled, with the fabric being laundered and the rigid components going through a dishwasher. When the tote has reached the end of its useful life, the various components will be disassembled and recycled. Only certain products will be available by the launch date, consisting of the most popular products from each of the brand partners. For example, P&G will have its Pantene and Tide products ready for the Loop platform and Nestlé will provide five or six flavors of Haagen Dazs ice cream, Szaky explained. “We’re trying to make it easy and convenient for the consumer,” said Szaky. “It can’t be too inconvenient for the consumer.” Szaky notes some 200 products have been foundationally redesigned by the world’s largest CPGs to accommodate this platform. “That means designing packaging to be reusable rather than recyclable,” he said. Haagen Dazs’ paper containers cannot be recycled so the containers had to be redesigned to be reusable, for example, and Unilever deodorant containers were not locally recyclable by the way they were constructed and also had to undergo a redesign. David Blanchard, Unilever’s Chief R&D Officer, said, “We’re acutely aware of the causes and consequences of the linear ‘take-make-dispose’ model of consumption. And we want to change it. That’s why we’re proud to be a founding partner of the Loop Alliance with nine Unilever brands. These brands have all embraced the challenge to redefine how consumers access the products they love, whilst eliminating waste. We believe this collaboration will complement our existing efforts to help create a packaging system that is truly circular by design.” With the redesign some labeling had to be changed to accommodate the reuse of containers which must undergo washing in hot soapy water to ensure sterilization. In some cases the labels remain on the containers. Szkay said that “it’s up to the supplier to do the design and labeling, which would be adhesive or glue-on, or etching or printing directly on the package.” When asked about a cost comparison between Loop’s platform and traditional plastic production, given the resources and energy used in two-way shipping, cleaning, potential relabeling and so forth, Szaky said that “if you add together the cost of the bottle depreciation and cost of washing at scale, it gets to about the same price. The packaging is an asset that amortizes over the number of uses.” Szaky concuded that “Loop will not just eliminate the idea of packaging waste, but greatly improve the product experience and the convenience in how we shop. Through Loop, consumers can now responsibly consume products in specially designed durable, reusable or fully recyclable packaging made from materials like alloys, glass and engineered plastics. When a consumer returns the packaging, it is refilled, or the content is reused or recycled through groundbreaking technology.”