A sustentabilidade é um tema cada vez mais urgente e sua relevância tem crescido exponencialmente nos últimos tempos. Recentemente o contexto da pandemia evidenciou a necessidade de voltarmos nossos olhares para aspectos socioambientais. Se por um lado o meio ambiente se recupera da ação humana durante essa pausa forçada, famílias inteiras que já viviam em situação de vulnerabilidade viram suas rendas diminuirem.

A Nestlé lançou o Ninho Recicla, um programa nacional de reciclagem de sachês da marca NINHO lançado em parceira com a TerraCycle.

By moving away from disposable packaging, companies can address the global problem of plastic waste. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, only about 9 percent of the 9.9 billion tons of plastic generated globally since the 1950s has been recycled. And almost half^PDF of the plastic waste poisoning marine life, contaminating food, and clogging waterways and sewers comes from consumer packaging. As citizens and governments wake up to this plastic pollution problem, they’re turning to business to solve it. In response, companies are trying to craft new approaches to plastic, whether reducing overpackaging or rolling out biodegradable materials made of seaweed and cornstarch. But one solution — the reuse and refill business model — stands out for its potential to shift consumer behaviors while unlocking new revenue streams and cost savings for companies. It’s easy to see why cheap, sturdy, and lightweight plastic quickly became a convenient, even innovative, packaging option for consumers. The popularity of plastic skyrocketed in developed countries in the 1970s after the invention of the polyethylene shopping bag. Within two decades, plastic packaging had flooded the world; consider how, in developing countries, companies have marketed items as varied as shampoo and hot sauce in tiny single-use sachets. Products in cheap, throwaway packaging solved immediate consumer problems — for example, by offering unbeatable value pricing to millions of low-income consumers — but created a long-term health and environmental disaster. Now, businesses such as Chilean startup Algramo, literally meaning “by the gram,” are tackling the crisis by offering the same value to consumers, but in reusable containers. Algramo makes products including rice, detergent, and other everyday staples available in small, affordable quantities via smart vending machines and reusable containers. Its bottles are equipped with RFID tags that allow consumers to earn discount credits with each use, incentivizing them to refill rather than throw away the containers. Flush with funding from Closed Loop Partners, Algramo is set to introduce this innovation in the U.S., too. It has good reason to do so: On a per capita basis, North America, Japan, and Europe generate the most plastic waste. Algramo is in good company. As part of the New Plastics Economy initiative, launched two years ago by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the U.N. Environment Programme, more than 400 organizations have set concrete targets toward reducing plastic use by 2025. Many of those companies, both startups and established brands, are testing reuse and refill solutions. Their motivations aren’t strictly altruistic: The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates a US$10 billion business opportunity in converting even 20 percent of global plastic packaging to a reusable model.  

It's hard to picture now, but one day, something other than coronavirus might change your trip to the grocery store. Imagine entering your nearest chain grocery store to find nuts, pasta, flour, and fresh produce sold exclusively in bulk, with high-tech measuring and distribution methods specific to each product. In the cleaning and houseware aisles, there's laundry detergent, shampoo, and lotion getting dispensed into reusable bottles, which the store will clean upon return. It's not totally impossible. But for now, David Pinsky, a plastics campaigner at Greenpeace, notes that if consumers want package-free options, very few, if any, major retailers provide them. No one wants to get stuck with tons of excess packaging after buying some soap or pasta. Sometimes, though, it just...happens. That's not your fault: Grocery store experts note that most consumers focus on cost and convenience when they set foot in a store, and it's unlikely they look for the items with the least packaging. For consumers focused on cost and convenience, it would certainly be a lot easier to avoid generating packaging waste if that waste just wasn't there in the first place. That's where package-free efforts come in. Getting major grocery stores to go entirely package-free is likely a pipe dream, according to grocery store experts, plastics and waste experts, and small, package-free store owners. In all likelihood, big chains probably won't ever get there. But a radical overhaul to the way packaging is made, used, and dealt with in big chain stores? That's more possible — and likely a better goal.

What package-free efforts mean for our plastic addiction 

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that containers and packaging alone, which includes food-related containers, comprise over 23 percent of the materials going into landfills in the U.S. That's a problem because the plastic packaging waste from retailers, particularly single-use plastics that are sometimes used for just seconds by a consumer, can last for lifetimes in the environment, says Pinsky. Plastic pollution is already known to devastatingly harm our oceans and wildlife. A 2019 study from the Center for International Environmental Law also found that greenhouse gas emissions currently produced when making and managing plastic threaten the global community's ability to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius, and that the threat will become worse if plastic production grows as planned until 2050.  Grocery retailers could be part of the solution by moving away from single-use plastics, though. Part of the trouble right now is that supermarkets typically don't release data about their plastic footprint, Pinsky notes. Because of this, it's difficult to estimate the impact of going package-free at a given chain. Instead, by focusing on recycling to address plastic pollution, Pinsky notes that retailers "often feed into the industry narrative that individual responsibility will solve the problem; that the customer is to blame for the pollution crisis." A 2019 Greenpeace report, which Pinsky co-authored, evaluated the overall plastic footprints of big U.S. retailers, including Costco, Walmart, and Trader Joe's. Greenpeace did so based on each company's policies around mitigating their plastic footprint, actual reduction, and transparency concerning single-use plastic. With their metrics, no store scored better than 35 out of a possible 100, a failure in his book. While we don't know every store's plastic footprint since complete plastic footprints are not available publicly, we've seen glimpses. While Kroger, Trader Joe's, Costco, and Whole Foods didn't provide Mashable with their plastic footprints when asked, Trader Joe's, Costco, and Whole Foods sent Mashable information about their plastic reduction efforts. Walmart, for its part, says it will release data on its plastic footprint in a forthcoming Environmental, Social & Governance Report for 2020, marking its first year doing so, according to Walmart's press team. When Kroger began phasing out plastic bags in 2019, National Geographic wrote "The company calculated that they handed out about 6 billion plastic bags a year, about six percent of the total number of bags distributed annually across the country. That’s the equivalent of about 32,000 tons of plastic, or enough to fill over 3,000 moving trucks jam packed with bags." It wasn't always this way. Before the advent of the grocery behemoths we see today, how people typically accessed food involved a lot less packaging, says Marc Levinson, an economist and historian who chronicled the changes to retail juggernauts in his book, the Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America. Think of, say, a milkman reusing glass bottles, or a general store selling portions from bulk items. The evolution of how Americans access and eat food is nuanced, long, and, ultimately, fascinating. Grocery aisles packed with ready-made food in disposable packaging marks the current chapter of this saga. It's a story centered on convenience and cost, say Levinson and Jon Steinman, the author of Grocery Story: The Promise of Food Co-ops in the Age of Grocery Giants. In plenty of cases, packaging is necessary to preserve, transport, and sell products, says Darby Hoover, a senior resource specialist for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) focusing on the food system. On the other hand, for lots of products, the packaging just serves marketing purpose, Levinson points out. A cashew in a giant tub is just a cashew, but a cashew in a package with a company's label on it becomes a marketable entity. "A package is a billboard," Levinson says. "From the point of view of sellers, they don't want to go back to the days when products were sold in bulk." In the 19th century, if you were trying to buy, say, molasses, your local grocer would simply pour molasses for you. There was no such thing as "name-brand" molasses.

What small stores are doing, and what big chains can learn 

If you actively seek out items with less packaging, you're probably not going to big chains anyway. You're turning to alternative options that have popped up to meet this desire: package-free stores and delivery services; co-ops offering food in bulk; refillable stations for basics like shampoo and lotion. It's not like a big chain trying to cut down on packaging operates the same way as these stores and services (more on that later) but understanding what has — and hasn't — worked can help illuminate what could. Take the Czech company MIWA, which Pinsky says has features that could be appealing to a big grocer otherwise hesitant to adopt reuse models. MIWA's "smart containers" help automate the weighing of bulk purchases, as well as payment, and provide usage data, which he notes is valuable for retailers since they care about consumer behavior and restocking needs. There are other innovations out there, too. In the realm of grocery deliveries, there's Loop, which offers customers major label products like Häagen-Dazs, Crest, and Tide that arrive in a "Loop Tote." (Customers pay a refundable deposit for each package.) When the reusable containers are empty or in need of a refill, people send them back to Loop in the tote, where they're cleaned and reused. CEO Tom Szaky says Loop solves the negative consequences of throw-away packaging, while "maintaining the virtues of disposability — affordability and convenience." Typically, Szaky says, manufacturers aren't incentivized to care about their packages after they're with the consumer, which leads to a plethora of inexpensive, disposable packaging. Under Loop's system, though, the package for a product becomes an asset to the manufacturer: Szaky says manufacturers want to make packages durable and long-lasting so they can withstand as many reuses as possible. As is, Loop can fill a major need with respect to eliminating packaging in grocery deliveries. (Steinman notes that in June, online grocery sales hit a record of $7.2 billion, with 45.6 million households using online grocery services.) Down the road, Loop also intends to expand its in-grocery store presence worldwide, Szaky says. (A spokesperson says Loop is first scheduled to be in stores in 2021.) Big chains can also innovate after examining the challenges that smaller, package-free stores might encounter. First, not everything can be sold through bulk or refillable methods, even at smaller stores. At Sustain LA, a zero waste company that sells refillable home and beauty products, Leslie VanKeuren Campbell, the company's founder, and her team sell things like dish liquid, body lotion, and mouthwash at refillable stations at farmer's markets, in its store, and through deliveries. She notes that it might be harder for a large chain to have a proprietary, spill-proof dispensing system than it was for her when Sustain LA opened its own brick-and-mortar shop. Even on her own store's scale, finding the right pumps for particular items proved difficult. Sometimes, depending on the consistency of what was being dispensed, pumps could get jammed or take a while to dispense. (To this end, there are particular pumps that work better for, say, shampoo, than other items.) At a small store, this is mainly a minor inconvenience, but for a big chain it could be a major deterrent, VenKeuren Campbell points out. At Sustain LA, if a customer gets frustrated, the staff can quickly help, but at a bigger chain, a dysfunctional pump could lead to a big loss in sales. Then there's the way in which bulk items get converted into refillable or reusable formats. Steinman notes that when his local co-op tried to go package-free, they found that disposing of the containers for bulk laundry liquid being purchased actually carried a bigger environmental impact than what they would have saved by not using individual containers. (VanKeuren Campbell says Sustain LA typically refills bulk containers with vendors, or they donate big drums to animal shelters, or send them back to vendors.) "Beans still get to the store in something," Hoover of the NRDC says. "There's never zero packaging."

What's stopping the package-free revolution?

In large part, Levinson sees the lack of package-free options as a logistics problem: For big chains with massive amounts of traffic each day, even seemingly minuscule decisions can have a rippling impact. "For modern food retailers, logistics is extremely important, and packaging is important to decide those logistics," Levinson says. "There's a concern in shaving every hundredth of a cent possible." For the Walmarts and Whole Foods of the world, it's not quite as simple as scaling up the same practices as smaller companies. They operate on a much bigger scale than mom-and-pop package-free options, Pinsky says similarly. Take bulk items: Bread, coffee, and other dry goods could be sold in bulk in more places, Steinmain notes, in the sense that they can be sold without packaging. Logistical concerns get in the way, though: Levinson points out that cashiers need to weigh bulk items at checkout which slows down the line. It seems minor, he says, but for a big chain that would lead to a loss of sales that few seem willing to give up. "The key stress test is to test these things for scale," Szaky, of Loop, says. "Any extra work; they're not going to be able to do it. It's just not going to be possible." Ultimately, though, Hoover maintains that big chains need to address the root of the waste to really get packaging (and specifically plastic packaging) out of their stores: suppliers. In 2019, the Break Free from Plastic initiative conducted 484 cleanups in 50 countries (and six continents) and identified the brands whose products showed up as litter most often. The audit revealed the same brands had the most plastic waste for a second year in a row: Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and PepsiCo. The Walmarts, Krogers, and Costcos of the world have sway with suppliers. If a grocery chain actually wants to go package-free, Hoover notes it would have to communicate that desire to the suppliers covering their products with (potentially unnecessary) packaging. This is one place in which big chains actually have potential for package-free options in a way that smaller mom-and-pop stores don't: The Walmarts, Krogers, and Costcos of the world have sway with suppliers, Hoover notes. Mashable asked Whole Foods, Walmart, Trader Joe's, Kroger, and Costco about the roadblocks towards package-free options. Kroger, Costco, and Whole Foods declined to comment. Commenting on bulk methods overall, a Trader Joe's spokesperson told Mashable via email that Trader Joe's has evaluated the use of bulk bins in its efforts "to minimize waste and shift to sustainable packaging," but "with the expansion in the number of stores and focus on reducing waste, the use of bulk bins is not a sustainable option for us at this time." That said, the spokesperson maintains "[Trader Joe's is] constantly evaluating options and are committed to making improvements." Trader Joe's didn't comment on other roadblocks. When asked about the potential financial deterrent of slow lines from weighing more bulk items, Walmart had no comment. When asked about mechanical troubles associated with refill stations that might deter a larger chain from implementing them, Ashley Hall, director of strategic initiatives at Walmart, told Mashable via email: "We believe the issues can be addressed and it is a technology to watch." When asked about reducing packaging by communicating a desire for less packaging with suppliers, Hall writes: "Since 2006, Walmart has been encouraging suppliers to reduce packaging in the products we sell," adding that the company distributes a voluntary survey to suppliers about their product packaging. Levinson agrees that these giants can impact what suppliers make, including items with less packaging, but the likelihood of chains doing that out of the goodness of their hearts is slim, in his opinion. "They know what's moving, and what's not moving," Levinson says. "If they decide the 32-ounce [container] isn't moving, they'll tell the supplier. The consumer is calling the shots here." Still, how can you call the shots when you're not able to decide what shots are available in the first place? Without more package-free options, you're stuck picking between a 16-ounce plastic container, or a 32-ounce one.

Where do we go from here?

Grocery store experts say that for some customers and grocers, forgoing certain forms of packaging, or using reusable containers when handling food and hygiene items, sounds perilous amid the spread of coronavirus, leading to resistance to package-free efforts. That concern isn't founded, necessarily — a cohort of 125 virologists, epidemiologists, and health experts recently said consumers can safely use reusable containers during the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides specific advice for preventing the spread of the virus while grocery shopping, adding: "There is no evidence that food or food packaging play a significant role in spreading the virus in the United States." Still, some states, counties, and cities, have rolled back plastic bag bans which went into effect before the pandemic. (Additionally, in the early days of the coronavirus' spread in the U.S., the Plastics Industry Association lobbied the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to declare that bans on single-use plastics presented a public safety risk.) "In a way, we've gone back many decades," Steinman says, in reference to the increased use of single-use plastics in stores during the pandemic. "I'd like to think we'd be able to move past this, and get back on track with package-free shopping." Pinsky sees a decrease in momentum as "largely temporary." If there's one thing the pandemic quickly revealed for people, it's that our sense of "normal" is hardly static. There have been massive overhauls to the ways in which we get basic goods in the past, but where the current moment will take package-free options down the road remains to be seen. It could go many ways: Maybe the plastics industry, reinvigorated by single-use plastic ban reversals amid the pandemic, will continue its stronghold; maybe consumers, now more aware of the systems in which they live, will push back on their limited options for accessible, package-free food. Maybe packaging will be the next lobbying effort in statehouses and city halls across the country, after plastic bags and styrofoam clamshells. "It's really a turning point for the world that we need," Pinsky says, referencing both the Black Lives Matter movement and the pandemic. "We need to rethink the way the world has been operating."

Loop products in returnable packaging are scheduled for launch nationwide this month, while retail partners in the U.S., France, and Japan plan to offer Loop in their stores later this year. For those consumers going the e-commerce route, there is a $20 shipping fee for orders under $150. In addition, the tote used to deliver and return product comes with a $15 deposit fee. As of presstime, consumers across the U.S. who are interested in shopping online for a range of grocery, household, and personal care products in gorgeously designed, durable, and resusable packaging will have the chance in June, when Loop launches nationwide. Since May 2019, the ground-breaking Loop circular shopping platform has been available in 10 states in the Northeast and in Paris. According to Tom Szaky, founder of recycling company TerraCycle and of Loop, the 10-month pilot allowed participating Consumer Packaged Goods companies, retailers, and Loop itself to gain insights and tweak the program for wider availability. Just as exciting, if not more so, according to Szaky, is the news that Loop will be launching in retail stores, including Kroger in the U.S., Carrefour in France, and AEON in Japan, later this year. Currently 400 brands have joined Loop, 20% of which are now available for purchase on Loopstore.com and 80% of which are still in development. Says Szaky, it can take a CPG anywhere from six to 18 months from the time they join Loop until they have product ready to ship. Among some of the more well-known CPGs that have signed on are Seventh Generation, Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Unilever, and Mars Petcare. Loop also sells a “private-label” brand, Puretto, which Szaky says is being used by name-brand companies to test products on the platform while they develop their own, unique version. “As soon as that version is live, we disable the Puretto version,” he explains. Szaky notes that the rapid speed of the nationwide launch—Loop was only just unveiled in February 2019—is due to the fact that “it’s a platform and not a producer or retailer.” He continues, “By being a platform, it is really our fantastic brand partners that are doing all the production and ramping up, and the retailers that are doing the scale up and later the in-store deployments. What we really have to ramp up is the ability to accept that used packaging, sort it out, and clean it. And that’s an area that TerraCycle has almost two decades of experience doing in disposables. Now we just have to bring the same experience to reusables.” With the e-commerce model, all packaging—both filled and empty—is handled through Loop’s Northeast location, from which it sends orders to consumers and where it cleans the empty packaging. Loop will also soon be adding another location on the West Coast. “As the stores move into bigger and bigger volumes, we will deploy in total seven major facilities in the U.S.,” Szaky says. “I expect that to take about two to three years.” Outside the U.S., Loop has one facility in each country in which it operates and is planning to add more. When the in-store platform becomes available, CPGs will supply the stores with product directly. Then, when consumers are through with the product, they will drop off the empty packaging at the store, and Loop will pick it up for cleaning. For those consumers going the e-commerce route, there is a $20 shipping fee for orders under $150. In addition, the tote used to deliver and return product comes with a $15 deposit fee. Deposits are also required for every package and range anywhere from $1.25 for a glass liquid soap dispenser bottle from Soapply, for example, up to $10 for a rust-resistant metal container with one-touch dispensing lid for Clorox disinfecting wipes. One of the biggest learnings from the Loop pilot says Szaky is that the deposit costs have not deterred consumers from using Loop. “I thought they would be, but they haven’t in any capacity,” he says. “Even deposits as high as $10 have not been a deterrent. So we’re very, very happy about that.” Not only that, Szaky says, but they also found that within 90 days of purchase, there was a 97% return rate for the packaging by consumers. “I was surprised, but I think it has to do with the fact that people want the product inside, and they’re happy to have us professionally clean it and have it professionally refilled so they can access it again.” For the in-store business, the only deposits are for the containers, which consumers are refunded when they return the empty packaging to the store.  

TO RECYCLE OR REUSE? — Tom Szaky isn’t rooting for the collapse of the recycling business — but he is prepared to capitalize on it. Szaky, founder of reusable packaging startup Loop, is trying to persuade Americans to return to the days of the milkman, only this time shampoo, peanut butter and ice cream would arrive on doorsteps in specially designed containers and the empties returned for refills. “When less things become recyclable, our relevance increases,” Szaky tells The Long Game. “We’re a reaction to a failing recycling system.” Loop works with brands including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé and Mars to create durable packaging that Loop cleans and sells back to them. Kroger plans to begin selling Loop products in some of its West Coast grocery stores by the end of this year, and Walgreens stores on the East Coast will join next year, Szaky says. The company is valued at $100 million, with more than 100,000 customers so far on its online testing platforms.

While there’s no scientific evidence to support this claim, there’s a widely shared consensus that most people eat ice cream directly out of the container. While a seemingly unimportant detail in the production of this popular dessert, for Nestlé, it was one of the most critical considerations as it planned out a new, radical design for its Häagen-Dazs ice cream brand. In January of 2019, Nestlé announced a partnership with TerraCycle, a global recycling organization that was rolling out a first-of-its-kind home delivery service called Loop. TerraCycle, known for its mission to eliminate waste by creating new products from the collection of hard-to-recycle materials, has been around for two decades. Last year, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky unveiled Loop, a shopping platform that will enable people to consume products in customized, brand-specific, durable packaging that is collected, cleaned, and refilled. As the world shines a spotlight on sustainability initiatives that factor in recycling single-use packaging, Loop takes the eco-friendly, green model to the next level by introducing reusable containers. And some of the biggest food and beverage and consumer package goods (CPG) companies including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Clorox, Mars, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, and more, were onboard for the pilot program that launched last year. For its part, Nestlé joined Loop as it committed to expanding its global efforts to develop new packaging designs that minimize the impact on the environment, noting that by 2025 the company plans to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable. As part of the Loop pilot program, Häagen-Dazs ice cream was delivered in a reusable, stainless-steel, double-walled ice cream container, which keeps product fresh and cold while maintaining the pint at a comfortable temperature for the person eating the ice cream straight from the container. The design also enables the ice cream to melt quicker at the top, and its rounded edges means the last spoonful doesn’t get stuck in the corners of the container. “The package design process was a critical part of the entire Loop process,” said Steve Yeh, a project manager at Häagen-Dazs. “It’s not just about making a reusable container, it’s also about creating a high-touch consumer experience.” According to Yeh, the Häagen-Dazs package went through a total of 15 iterations before it finally launched. “Nestlé committed major resources to design and develop the original package.” The team also worked closely with Loop on developing breakthrough cooling technology for the Loop Tote, which the ice cream container is delivered in via UPS. Terracycle officials admit there is a cost to manufacturing partners committing to Loop—from the investment in new durable packaging to the design of the product to the time spent understanding how to handle new packaging lines and how to scale to meet demand. But the reality today is that sustainability efforts are here to stay. And any new endeavor is going to require an upfront investment. According to a new business intelligence report from PMMI, the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies (and Automation World parent company), packaging sustainability has moved beyond a trend and is now a global shift. Released in March 2020, the report, “Packaging Sustainability: A Changing Landscape,” reveals how sustainable packaging initiatives at CPGs are affecting machines, materials, and packaging formats. The report states that the global sustainable packaging market reported that total value of revenue was estimated at $220 billion in 2018 and is predicted to reach $280 billion in 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 6%. The report is based on information collected from 100 sources and 60 interviews. The majority of the CPGs interviewed are looking to switch to lighter weight, recyclable, and sustainable materials to reduce waste. About 36% of the CPGs interviewed are exploring the circular model of reuse/return/refill. The circular economy For decades consumers have been participating in the “throwaway lifestyle,” where single-use products are disposed of resulting in massive amounts of waste. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the total generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2017 was 267.8 million tons or 4.51 pounds per person per day. Of the MSW generated, more than 94 million tons of MSW were recycled and composted, equivalent to a 35.2% recycling and composting rate. In other words, we don’t have a good track record for recycling. TerraCycle thought there must be another way—which is Loop. “The genesis of Loop is a tighter, closed-loop system that has manufacturers taking back ownership of their packaging,” said Ben Weir, Loops’ business development manager for North America. “It’s bringing about the reusability of packaging in something that is durable and long-lasting and that can be cleaned and used hundreds of times.” It’s not a new concept, but rather a throwback to the milkman model in which consumers returned the glass containers. What’s new is the aesthetic benefits that will drive consumer brand perception—and, while not obvious at first—it is a better economic model for the manufacturer. “The concept of a circular economy is an economic model, not a sustainability framework,” said Tim Debus, president and CEO of the Reusable Packaging Association (RPA). “By decoupling growth from the consumption of finite resources, maintaining product values at their highest, and building market resilience to source material disruptions. It is estimated that the circular economy offers $4.5 trillion of value from new growth and innovation opportunities, and the world today is only 8.6% circular.” There is an enormous opportunity, but manufacturers may hesitate due to the upfront investment related to packaging design and retooling machinery. According to Nestlé’s Yeh, the company used its Bakersfield, Calif., facility to ramp up its production of ice cream in reusable and durable containers for the Loop pilot project. “We decided to retrofit an existing line to support the platform versus investing in a new line. It was not an easy changeover and required some reengineering. Some of the changes involved installing more modern equipment including better code daters and more modern metal detection.” Yeh said they also incorporated improvements to existing processes, which requires additional staff to handle the containers. “Once the platform expands, we would then visit a fully automated system.”

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many high-profile sustainability initiatives have taken a back seat to single-use packaging, with many grocery stores banning reusable bags and Starbucks no longer accepting refillable mugs. Despite this, Loop is going all in on reusable packaging, launching its waste-free CPG delivery platform nationwide through retailers Walgreens and Kroger with heavyweight brand partners including PepsiCo, Nestlé and Unilever. Loop, which launched a pilot last spring in New York and Paris, sells products like Nature’s Path granola and Haagen Dazs ice cream, with products from beverage brands like Chameleon Cold Brew and Tropicana currently in development. It also offers household and personal care items from companies like Procter & Gamble and The Clorox Company. The products are offered in reusable jars and containers delivered to consumers in a reusable tote, and when the containers are empty, consumers pack them up in the tote and schedule a pickup with partner UPS, who sends them to be cleaned and sterilized. If consumers have a subscription (about 30% of Loop users do), returning a container triggers the purchase of a new item to be sent. Non-subscribers put down a small deposit on the container and get it back when it’s returned. “Loop tries as best as it can to emulate the convenience of disposability to make it feel like a disposable system,” said Loop CEO Tom Szaky, who is also CEO of parent company TerraCycle. The worries surrounding reusability that have arisen amidst the COVID-19 pandemic haven’t seemed to apply to Loop, said Szaky, though they have been experiencing similar supply chain backups as other food and beverage companies. Though the nationwide online launch with Walgreens and Kroger was already in the works, it’s actually been accelerated to early this summer as more consumers have shifted to purchasing products online. “It’s not that single use is safe or unsafe, it’s not like reusable is safe or unsafe, it’s how you deploy those ideas that makes it safe or unsafe,” he said. “It’s the systems behind it that govern safety.” TerraCycle’s larger mission is to “eliminate the idea of waste,” said Szaky, through collecting and recycling materials that are not traditionally recyclable, like toothbrushes and candy wrappers, and also integrating waste back into products, like using ocean plastic in a Head & Shoulders bottle. With Loop, Szaky has taken the goal of waste elimination one step further, starting a division that “tries to solve waste without it ever occurring.” The root cause of waste is using things once, but single-use packaging hasn’t always been the norm, said Szaky, with milk bottles delivered by a milkman being a prime example. In fact, it only rose to prominence in the mid-1900s as packaging moved from being the property of the manufacturer to property of the consumer. “Do you want to own a coffee cup when there’s no coffee in it, or own a toothpaste tube when there’s no toothpaste in it?” said Szaky. “Why should we?” Owning the packaging comes at the price of the consumer, and as packaging is made cheaper, it’s usually made less recyclable. To address this problem, Loop partners with CPG companies to create reusable versions of their products that lower their carbon footprint, in a concept that Szaky said is “sort of like the idea of organic but instead of caring about farming practices, we care about reusability.” According to Szaky, brands are motivated to join Loop for two reasons: they get to innovate in ways they never have before, and they’re able to upgrade their sustainability. Once brands partner with Loop (and pay an onboarding fee), the company works with them to support the creation of sustainable packaging, like stainless steel ice cream containers and glass jars for beverages and nut butter. “Loop provides a much-needed innovation platform, challenging companies to take a fresh look at our value chains and integrate reusable product packaging as part of our efforts to waste-reduction,” said Laurent Freixe, Nestlé CEO for Zone Americas, in a press statement. “Nestlé is proud to be a founding investor and partner of Loop with the debut in the U.S of the Häagen-Dazs reusable container. It’s a critical part of our commitment to work with consumers to protect our planet for future generations.” Because new product development takes time, it can take from one to two years from the time brands sign on to the platform to actually begin shipping product to consumers. Szaky said of the 400 brands that have signed on, about 100 are currently shipping within the Loop system and the rest are in various stages of development. Partners like PepsiCo’s Tropicana orange juice, Purely Elizabeth granola, oatmeal and bars, Canadian brand Greenhouse’s kombucha and Nestle’s Chameleon Cold Brew are still in development. Retailers like Walgreens and Kroger are first launching Loop stores digitally, offering a selection of Loop products on their respective websites, before brick-and-mortar rollouts this fall where Loop will have its own section in the stores. Loop will also be rolling out in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Japan. The company has also created its own private label brand, Puretto, to test consumer interest. Puretto items, which include products like cheddar crackers, pretzels and bagel chips, are usually sold for six to 12 months, long enough to show proof of concept, and indicate that a national brand is considering developing a product for the category. While individual companies, not Loop, ultimately set the price for items, Szaky said prices are typically kept close to that of the original product. In a time when certain products like baking ingredients or cleaning wipes are seeing online surges, there hasn’t been a push for one particular item on Loop. According to Szaky, products typically don’t perform “better or worse” on the platform. “If you buy a certain ecosystem of products and you like the idea of reusable, you’re buying that same ecosystem of products, but now in reusable,” he said.

Loop, the zero-waste, refillable packaging delivery service, has announced that it is expanding nationally in the US this summer and coming soon to the UK, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Terracycle, which runs the service, has partnered with Kroger and Walgreens in the US, Loblaw in Canada, Tesco in the UK, and Carrefour in France. Terracycle piloted the Loop service in New York and Paris and later expanded to a few regions along the US east coast. Consumers order products from over 200 brands, including products from major international consumer goods companies such as Unilever, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble. Customers place orders online and receive it in a reusable Loop tote, with all of the products within coming in refillable packaging. Goods range from pantry items, perishables, home goods, and personal care products. Once finished, users request a pickup for empties, which is then picked up. Your empty containers go back to Terracycle, where they are then cleaned, sanitized, and refilled for the next customer. The announcement comes as consumers flock to grocery delivery services from companies such as Instacart and Amazon over fears of contracting COVID-19 and being in the vicinity of possibly contagious shoppers in-store. While delivery services provide relief from possible contact with coronavirus, Loop is the only service that offers zero-waste packaging. Loop is currently inviting interested consumers to sign up on their waiting list.