Tom has been named to the 2019 list CNN’s Risk Takers. He’s in good company, as you’ll see if you click on the link.  The air date for Tom’s feature has yet to be determined. In the meantime, you can click on Tom’s picture for a summary of what his full piece will be about.

Unilever's Dove brand will use only 100% recycled plastic bottles in North America and Europe by the end of 2019 -- “where technically feasible,” it says -- and will package single packs of Dove in plastic-free material around the world starting next year. “Development is also underway to replace the plastic outer wrap of beauty bar multipacks with a zero-plastic material,” Unilever reports. More radically, earlier this year, Unilever disclosed that Dove, Degree and Axe will begin testing new stick deodorant containers made of stainless steel designed to be reused and refilled up to 100 times. Calculating that a consumer would use one stick a month, that container could last more than eight years. Dove also reiterated its plans for this development on Monday. But for now -- or at least the near future -- the move to recycled plastic for containers will apply for Dove and its branch brands, Dove Men+Care and Baby Dove. “Dove continues to search for solutions where recycled plastic is not currently technically feasible, including for caps and pumps,” it says. A Nielsen report says 73% of millennials will pay more for a product made from sustainable material, and now many packages boldly boast their environmental qualifications for consumers to see. Many major brands are working on similar initiatives, but Dove says it’s ahead of the pack. “By taking these steps, Dove will be the biggest brand in the world that has moved to 100% recycled packaging," says Richard Slater, Unilever chief research and development officer, in a statement. “This should send a clear signal to the global recycling industry that there is a huge consumer demand for recycled packaging. We will continue to innovate across our brands to change the way we use plastic for good.” Earlier this month, Unilever committed itself to cutting its use of virgin plastic by half -- that's more than 100,000 tons -- by 2025, and to helping to collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells. It claims those goals make it the “first major global consumer goods company to commit to an absolute plastics reduction across its portfolio.” For the recyclable deodorant sticks, Unilever is working with a Trenton, New Jersey company named Terra Cycle whose Loop system is not only being tested on several Unilever products worldwide but also by products from Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Nestle and other major brands. Under the arrangement that Unilever announced earlier, consumers would order goods from the Loop website and have them delivered conventionally. But customers will pay a deposit. When they are done, they can bring it to a retailer for a refill, or return it for a refund. The containers are cleaned and reused. ' Loop is also testing a delivery plan for a wide variety of consumer goods. Unilever has said it wants all of its plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. It believes it is making good progress, and says the company’’s packaging volume is now at the same level it was in 2010, despite “the business growing significantly.”

Disposability was sold as a convenience in the post-war years of the 1950s, but it’s become a plague of plastic and nonrecyclable trash that now pollutes every corner of the world. It’s enough to make one nostalgic for the milkman—that reliable delivery person who not only dropped off milk in convenient glass bottles, but also picked them up again to be refilled and reused. Ah, those were the days… and we may see those days again. Loop—an online “circular shopping platform”—aims to revive the image and model of the milkman on a larger scale, offering customers door-to-door delivery of brand-name grocery store products in durable packaging that Loop will collect and use again.

Reusability: Back to the future

“Loop is a very utopian idea,” says Tony Rossi, Loop’s Philadelphia-based vice president of business development. “About three years ago, our CEO challenged us and himself to really solve the idea of waste at its core.” For Loop, this means enabling brands and retailers—the heart of our “take, make, dispose” linear economy—to move away from single-use packaging into durable, multiuse containers. Ultimately, the idea is to spark a wider movement to a circular economy, an economic model based on getting us much use out of the products and resources that are already in circulation, and thereby reducing both consumption and waste. The image of the milkman is a perfect embodiment of the circular economy. “One of the things that we found with the milkman model was that the milk bottle was an asset that was owned by the milk company,” Rossi explained. This made it desirable for the milk company to invest more in its milk bottles, to ensure that they would be long-lasting and durable.

From laundry detergent to ice cream

Häagen-Dazs container Much more than milk, you can buy a grocery list of goods from Loop: tea, laundry detergent, shampoo, even ice cream, all in reusable containers. Loop is working with some of the world’s biggest brands to test this back-to-the-future idea of selling products in reusable containers. The list Rossi gave of some of Loop’s early partners was impressive: Procter and Gamble, Unilever, Nestle, Clorox, Mars, and Danone, to name a few. The containers Loop uses to ship these products aren’t your run-of-the-mill Ziplocs or Tupperware containers. Just as the milkman model would suggest, there is significant investment in high-quality, durably designed containers for Loop’s products. “For me one of the most innovative and kind of jaw-dropping products so far has been the Häagen-Dazs ice cream container,” says Rossi. “It’s double-walled.” Loop’s Häagen-Dazs container is not only designed to have the longest lifespan possible—it is also designed to keep your ice cream deliciously frozen, all the way from the Loop warehouse to your door. But Loop’s containers aren’t just utilitarian; they are also beautifully designed. “There is a counter- or shelf-worthiness to the package, where you as a consumer are proud to put that on your counter,” said Rossi. Loop is trying to make sustainability “irresistible.”

How it works

Loop has no storefront. Instead, customers visit loopstore.com and place an online order, which Loop ships to their door via courier. When they are done with their products, customers can schedule a Loop courier to come pick up the empty containers. Loop has even designed a reusable shipping tote to be used for both delivery and pick-up, thus avoiding the Styrofoam and bubble wrap waste nightmare of most online purchases. Loop works on a deposit system, in which customers pay a deposit on the packaging of the products they order. You would, for instance, be required to pay a five-dollar deposit on your Häagen-Dazs ice cream container on top of the cost of the ice cream itself. Once you return the empty container, however, you would be reimbursed for the amount of the deposit.

Coming soon!

Before you get too excited, note that Loop is currently in its pilot phase, with test markets operating in the eastern United States and in Paris, France. Each test market has 5,000 participating households, but demand is high. There are currently waiting lists in these markets, with people itching to give Loop a try. With so much demand, Loop is working on launching the platform directly through retailers, as well as expanding the platform globally. Loop plans to launch new markets in the western United States, Germany, Japan, and Australia next year. Canada can expect to see Loop in the Greater Toronto Area in fall 2020. A sampling of Loop products in reusable containers.

Better for the environment?

While Loop’s circular economy model does a tremendous job of reducing packaging waste, the shipping and the materials used to make their new, durable containers must still be taken into account. According to Rossi, Loop has done multiple life cycle analyses of the impact of its reuse model as compared to that of single-use models. These analyses take into account eight different environmental factors, including carbon emissions, water usage, and impact on air and water quality—and reuse consistently comes out on top. “On average, it takes about three reuses of that durable package to have the same environmental footprint as three single-use packages,” Rossi explained. If a package is used between three and seven times, it performs 51 per cent better than single-use packaging in terms of environmental impact. If used more than seven times, this improvement increases to 70 per cent.

Waste not! Change is coming

Waste and other environmental issues are all over the news and social media these days, whether it be microplastics, plastic bags, or Greta Thunberg’s climate strikes. For Rossi, this increase in public attention and awareness of the environmental impact of our current lifestyles can mean only one thing: change is coming. “People aren’t content with the way that things are today. And everybody acknowledges the fact that we need to change. And I think that’s a powerful message. And that is forcing the hands of anybody who makes products, or is in business, to think about their environmental footprint.” Indeed, change is desperately needed. As Rossi said, “We realistically can’t fast forward 30 years into the future and continue to behave the way we’re behaving today.” He hopes Loop can play a role in spreading the gospel of the waste-not circular economy. Loop is a company owned and operated by TerraCycle, a social enterprise based in the United States that specializes in collecting and repurposing hard-to-recycle waste and operates in 20 countries. We interviewed Rossi after he presented on Loop at the Recycling Council of Alberta Sea Change conference held in Jasper, Alberta, October 2–4, 2019.

Stores like Aldi and Trader Joe’s are trying to decrease excess plastic, but experts say it’s not enough. Plastic packaging can be both a blessing and a curse. It’s usually deployed to protect food, preserve freshness, and prevent spoilage and waste, which are all good things. At the same time, supermarkets can’t seem to help themselves from overpackaging items to the point of perversion, like a single banana — which already comes in its own Mother Nature-approved wrapper — plated on a Styrofoam tray and shrink-wrapped in even more plastic. Other forms of plastic appear completely gratuitous. Do pasta boxes really need tiny film windows for previewing the noodles? Supermarkets aren’t the only source of packaging waste, but they’re a major contributor. They’re also where most people interact with brands like Nestlé, which sells more than 1 billion products a day, 98 percent of which come in throwaway formats. When the Break Free from Plastic initiative audited more than 187,000 pieces of trash from 42 countries across six continents last October, the names that reared their heads most frequently were Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and — yes — Nestlé. Supermarkets have been promoting recycling as a way out of this morass, but it hasn’t been enough, according to environmentalists, who say that single-use plastic needs to be purged from the get-go. It’s a concept that a growing breed of “zero-waste” grocers are experimenting with, too. “If your bathtub was overflowing, you wouldn’t reach for a mop to clean it up; you would turn it off at the source,” says David Pinsky, an anti-plastics campaigner at Greenpeace. “And that’s what we need to do on plastics.” LESS THAN 14 PERCENT OF THE NEARLY 86 MILLION TONS OF PLASTIC PACKAGING PRODUCED GLOBALLY EACH YEAR IS RECYCLED The fact of the matter is we’re not doing a good enough job of recapturing plastics, which are made from nonrenewable resources such as crude oil and natural gas and contribute to climate change throughout their life cycle. Less than 14 percent of the nearly 86 million tons of plastic packaging produced globally each year is recycled, and of that, only 2 percent goes into high-value applications. The rest is landfilled, incinerated, or buffeted into the environment, where it clogs up the seas, the beaches, and the digestive tracts of sea life. Much of the trouble with recycling plastic is it’s “incredibly finicky,” says Darby Hoover, a senior resource specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Different municipalities accept different types of plastic, and the little triangle with the number at the bottom of a plastic container — if you can even find it — refers to the type of resin and not if or how it can be recycled. Sometimes, despite a recycling facility’s best efforts, a plastics stream becomes contaminated, which impairs sellability. But even if a facility does get it right, there isn’t always a market to funnel all the different types of plastic. “What’s been happening with China, in particular, is that it was America’s No. 1 buyer of plastic and paper, but now it’s saying that the stuff we send to them needs a much lower contamination rate, and we can’t do that,” Hoover says. Complicating the matter is complex packaging such as Tetra Pak cartons — the type plant-based milks, soups, and broths come in — and Capri Sun-type juice pouches — which contain different layers of material fused together — are even more difficult to reclaim. “So they’ve got aluminum and different types of plastic, then a bunch of glue that holds it all together,” Hoover says. “It’s very, very hard to separate out all those materials and figure out how to recycle any of them.” THE GLOBAL PLASTIC PACKAGING MARKET IS EXPECTED TO SOAR TO $412 BILLION IN 2024 The problem isn’t going away anytime soon. Plastic packaging is a booming industry with a powerful lobbying presence that can block lawmakers from enacting bans on plastic bags, Styrofoam containers, and other landfill fodder. Fueled by growing demand for flexible and functional food and beverage packaging, the global plastic packaging market is expected to soar from a value of $344 billion today to $412 billion in 2024. We throw away most single-use plastics within minutes of use, yet they can persist in the environment for 1,000 years. “We do need to fundamentally rethink the way that we use plastics,” says Sara Wingstrand, project manager of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative, which has rallied more than 350 businesses, governments, and other organizations, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, Walmart, and Target, in 2018 to support the elimination of unnecessary plastic packaging and transition the rest to reusable, recyclable, and compostable versions by 2025. “Recycling is a part of the solution, but it’s becoming evident that there is no way that we can recycle our way out of the plastic pollution crisis.” One key hurdle is that supermarkets are often blissfully unaware of how much plastic they’re employing. The material is relatively cheap and it makes up a fraction of a business’s operating expenses, Wingstrand says. And the thing is, you can’t reduce what you haven’t measured. Some supermarkets are trying, though. In South Africa, the supermarket chain Pick and Pay is trialing packaging-free “nude zones,” where customers can bring their own containers for fruits and vegetables that are laser-etched with the supplier code and sell-by date in lieu of plastic stickers. Similar “food in the nude” campaigns are taking place at grocers in New Zealand, which banned single-use plastic bags in July. This past April, Metro, a supermarket chain in Quebec, became Canada’s first major grocer to allow its customers to fill up their own reusable containers with meat, seafood, pastries, and ready-to-eat meals. Shoppers examine bags of salad at a PriceChopper supermarket. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images The United Kingdom, where a “polluter’s tax” on any single-use packaging that doesn’t contain at least 30 percent recycled materials is poised to debut in April 2022, is also making strides. Its major supermarkets have committed to a UK Plastics Pact to design out “problematic or unnecessary” single-use packaging by 2025. Waitrose is piloting refill stations at select stores for pasta, wine and beer, and detergent, and Sainsbury’s plans to introduce refillable packaging “at scale.” As part of its pledge to use only reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging by 2025, Aldi has banned black plastic trays, which near-infrared sensors at recycling centers have trouble picking out from a sorting belt. Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket, has convened with its suppliers to examine solutions that may require a design or materials overhaul. It’s even mulling banishing brands that use “excessive or inappropriate” packaging. It should come as no surprise that supermarkets in the US — bolstered by America’s corporate-friendly policies — have lagged behind. “Europe is probably more favorably predisposed to regulation and restrictions,” says Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at GlobalData, an international data-analytics consultancy. (Case in point? The European Union has a roadmap for making all plastic on the European market recyclable by 2030.) “Whereas the US is much more focused on freedoms of companies and individuals, and government is probably a lot more reluctant to legislate on certain things.” “THE [US] GOVERNMENT IS PROBABLY A LOT MORE RELUCTANT TO LEGISLATE ON CERTAIN THINGS” That isn’t to say there has been zero progress. Target is working on ditching expanded polystyrene foam packaging from its own-brand packaging by 2022. Select products in its Everspring line of home essentials are packaged in containers with up to 100 percent post-consumer recycled plastic. Costco has eschewed PVC clamshell packaging, which is not recyclable and can leach toxic chemicals when it degrades, for recyclable PET or recycled PET made from water bottles. Straws and Styrofoam meat trays are now verboten at Whole Foods, which is also replacing its hard plastic rotisserie chicken containers with bags that use roughly 70 percent less plastic, a spokesperson says. Walmart, the world’s No.1 brick-and-mortar retailer, aims by 2025 to incorporate at least 20 percent post-consumer recycled content in its own-brand packaging, which will also be 100 percent recyclable, reusable, or industrially compostable. In terms of general merchandise packaging, Walmart says it will work with suppliers to nix PVC by 2020. But a June report by Greenpeace, which rated 20 leading US supermarkets on their efforts to eliminate single-use plastic, found a universal failure to “adequately address the plastic pollution crisis they are contributing to.” In fact, no supermarket scored more than 35 out of a possible 100 points. Even the American iteration of Aldi, which rose to No. 1 for setting out a plastics reduction target and plan, needs to ramp up its ambitions, according to Pinsky. Since 90 percent of the products on its shelves are private label, rather than from name-brand suppliers, Aldi has a bigger say in its packaging decisions. “Aldi’s only committed by 2025 to reduce its plastic footprint by 15 percent,” he says. “So while some supermarkets are starting to take small steps in the right direction, none are acting with the urgency or the ambition that’s needed to truly tackle the plastic pollution crisis.” Transparency, Pinsky says, is a sticking issue. No supermarket, for instance, publicly reports its plastic footprint, which makes it difficult for the public to evaluate progress year over year. Time-bound, comprehensive plans are still few and far between. And some grocers are merely substituting one single-use material for another, as in the case of Trader Joe’s, which drew plaudits earlier this year for plans to strip its stores of 1 million pounds of plastic by removing plastic bags from its checkout counters, switching to compostable produce bags, and replacing Styrofoam trays with recyclable alternatives. But plant-based bioplastics, which stores increasingly favor, can still contribute to microplastic pollution if released into the environment, Pinksy notes, and molded fiberboard could harbor cancer-causing chemicals. “WE NEED TO SHIFT OUR CULTURE BACK TO MORE REUSE SYSTEMS” “It’s clear that recycling or substituting materials is not going to solve this problem; we need to see a focused reduction of plastic production in the first place,” he adds. “We need to shift our culture back to more reuse systems.” One result of the plastics backlash is the idea of the zero-waste supermarket. Brianne Miller, a marine biologist, was so sickened by the swaths of plastic that greeted her in different dive sites around the world — even the remote ones — that she left academia to co-found Nada, a zero-waste grocer that is not only the first of its kind in downtown Vancouver but in all of Canada. At Nada, everything, including fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, cheeses, nut butters, and sauces, is sold loose. Customers can load up their own jars, containers, and drawstring bags, or pick up cleaned and sanitized ones that are available for sale. Depending on what they need, they can pick up a barrel of crackers or just a handful. But customers are just one piece of Nada’s master plan; the store also works with its suppliers to deliver their products free of disposable packaging. “In many instances, suppliers are dropping off products every couple days or every week, so it’s quite easy, for example, to have things like coffee beans dropped off in a reusable Rubbermaid tote,” Miller says. “And then when the next shipment comes in, the container goes back to the supplier, and then it’s refilled and reused again, so we have this circular loop of containers that are coming and going from our store.” Nada sources as close to the store as possible, which helps with the minimalist approach, since products don’t have to be coddled across vast distances. “Instead of shipping cucumbers from across the country, we have the local farm, so that packaging isn’t necessary in the first place,” she says. Zero-waste supermarkets, especially full-service ones like Nada, may seem like an answer to our plastic packaging problem, except they’re still a rarity. In.gredients, an East Austin business that billed itself as America’s first zero-waste grocery store, shuttered permanently in 2018. There is a smattering of others in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Hong Kong, but they are largely boutique outfits with narrow aisles and more hipster appeal than options. For the vast majority of people, single-use plastics are still an inescapable aspect of their shopping reality. One other solution is a return to the old “milkman delivery” model of yore. The brainchild of TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based “waste solution development” firm, Loop offers popular products — think Häagen-Dazs ice cream, Hidden Valley ranch dressing, Tropicana orange juice, and Quaker Oats oatmeal — in durable glass and aluminum tubs designed to be returned, cleaned, and refilled. Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Danone are just some of the marquee names that have thrown in their support. Loop has also roped in a number of retail partners, including Kroger and Walgreens in the United States, Tesco in the United Kingdom, and Carrefour in France. “It’s super important to us to meet consumers where they’re already shopping,” says Heather Crawford, Loop’s vice president of marketing and e-commerce. Unlike with bulk or zero-waste supermarkets, customers don’t have to sling their own containers or wash them, which could help adoption. “People want a better, more sustainable option with less waste, but they’re not always willing to change their behaviors to get there,” she says. “Loop removes all of the friction from the systems that exist in the current zero-waste solution.” Tory Gundelach, vice president of retail insights at the consulting agency Kantar, sees a growing desire from customers for forward-thinking efforts such as Loop. “Younger shoppers, particularly, are becoming more attuned to the effect of their actions on the environment or society as a whole,” she says. “Shoppers increasingly want to see the retailers and brands they engage reflect their own personal values.” Nearly two-thirds of millennials and Gen Z-ers say they prefer “brands that have a point of view and stand for something,” Kantar’s research has found. And therein lies supermarkets’ business proposition. Reducing packaging through resource-efficient design or losing it altogether can save money on raw materials and shipping costs — always a plus for the bottom line — but it can also win over a demographic that is only going to grow into its spending power. “Shoppers are telling us, ‘I’m putting my dollars against the retailers and the brands that feel like they have values that line up with my values,’” Gundelach says. “And to do that, of course, brands and retailers have to put out what their values are that they stand for.”

TerraCycle’s Loop leads the charge as brands, retailers and consumers all express a desire to reduce packaging waste TerraCycle launched its Loop initiative in the spring, giving consumer packaged goods brands a platform to have their products delivered in reusable containers, as in the old days of the milkman bringing glass bottles to the doorstep. What followed was a small pilot in the Northeast that quickly garnered a waiting list of 90,000 consumers requesting the service.   “If we tried to launch [Loop] five years ago, I don’t know if it would’ve worked,” says Anthony Rossi, the program’s global vice president of business development. “But if there’s one thing we’ve seen so far, it’s that the consumer is now ready.”   A recent Nielsen survey found that 75% of consumers globally would “definitely” or “probably” change their consumption habits if doing so would have a positive effect on the environment; nearly half of U.S. consumers said likewise.   “And these consumers are putting their dollars where their values are, spending $128.5 billion on sustainable fast-moving consumer products this year,” says Kyle McKinley, vice president of design solutions at Nielsen. “Since 2014, these influential shoppers have grown sustainable product sales by nearly 20%, with a compound growth rate that’s four times larger than conventional products.” Nielsen expects sustainable-friendly shoppers in the U.S to spend upward of $150 billion on sustainable goods by 2021.

Good for Business

  Reducing waste isn’t just good for the world, it’s good for business. With consumers showing signs of wanting to play their role in reducing waste, brands and retailers are motivated to develop more sustainable goods and packaging options. Just this summer, a coalition of industry companies including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and SAP founded the Brands for Good coalition; separately, a host of CPGs, retailers and packaging providers formed the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. (Neither group responded to requests for an interview.)   Participants in the Brands for Good coalition are making commitments to embed social purpose into their brand promises and products; to use brand influence to make sustainable living accessible for consumers; and to collaborate with other players to change behavior to create a positive impact on the planet. Each company will launch its own projects with that shared mission in mind.   P&G played an integral role in the launch of Loop and is one of more than 100 brands already working with the platform. Three years ago, the CPG giant stood side by side with TerraCycle at the World Economic Forum to discuss its use of ocean plastics in Head & Shoulders bottles, and at that time began discussing the idea of reusable services. It has since also launched Tide Purclean, a plant-based liquid detergent, and has an overall goal to make all product packaging recyclable or reusable by 2030.   Other major CPGs such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, Unilever and Diageo, to name a few, have set similar public goals in an effort to reduce global waste by making packaging more recyclable.

Making a Commitment

  Nestle, another founding Loop partner, has “committed to making 100% of our packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025,” says Elizabell Marquez, director of marketing for the company’s Haagen-Dazs brand. The Nestle Institute of Packaging Sciences was created last year to advance these efforts, she notes.

  Clorox Co., also a Loop partner, is expected this month to announce an “ambitious product and packaging-related sustainability strategy as part of our broader environmental, social and governance strategy,” promises Andrea Rudert, associate director, corporate responsibility. Clorox previously set a goal to improve the sustainability of half of its product portfolio by 2020, with 2011 being the baseline year.   “We surpassed that goal two years early,” Rudert says. “In fact, as of the end of our 2019 fiscal year, we made sustainability improvements to 58% of our product portfolio.” The company has recyclable primary packaging for 92% of its lineup.   Other manufacturers making sustainable commitments include SC Johnson, which last spring launched Windex in special packaging at Target, Walmart and other retailers. The bottles are made from 100% recycled ocean plastic and are non-toxic and cruelty-free.   Windex is also planning this fall to launch a “Social Plastic” bottle that will include recycled ocean-bound social plastic sourced by Plastic Bank from Haiti, the Philippines and Indonesia. The effort is designed to help the environment but also provide social benefits to people living below the poverty line in those nations, according to a company release.   SC Johnson also expanded Windex’s concentrate cleaner offerings into products from such brands as Pledge, Scrubbing Bubbles, Shout and Fantastik. The concentrate refill bottles use 80% less plastic compared to a brand new, larger trigger bottle; consumers mix tap water with the concentrate into a reusable trigger bottle to significantly reduce plastic waste.   Elsewhere, Hasbro will phase out the use of plastics in its packaging beginning in 2020, doing away with the polybags, elastic bands, shrink wrap, window sheets and blister packs that have long been part of the toy buying experience. The company eliminated wire ties from packaging in 2010, and has been working with TerraCycle to recycle materials from old toys and games to make innovative social spaces and items like play areas, flowerpots and park benches.   Yet another TerraCycle partner, Colgate-Palmolive, has been recycling used toothpaste tubes and toothbrushes into playground materials. The company also recently unveiled a recyclable toothpaste tube that will launch in 2020 via the Tom’s of Maine brand but extend to all brands by 2025. The tube uses the “number 2” plastic commonly found in soda bottles.

In the Loop

  With TerraCycle’s two-decade-long history of working with brands to eliminate waste, it’s no surprise the company was able to partner up with manufacturers such as P&G, Unilever, Bic, Mars and Danone to launch a strategy around reusable packaging. TerraCycle began as a solution to help brands recycle products that aren’t recycled at traditional facilities, such as cigarette butts, chip bags and various personal care products. That remains the company’s largest operation. Second to that effort is working with brands to integrate recycled content into its packaging, as it did through the aforementioned efforts with P&G’s Head & Shoulders on the ocean plastics and Colgate for playground materials.   TerraCycle’s newest business unit is Loop, which Rossi describes as “dusting off the idea of the milkman and bringing it to any product that’s single-use today.” Loop is, in fact, a way to completely eliminate packaging waste. “Recycling is a Band-Aid on a cut, and what we need to do is attack the problem at its core. And the problem is single use and disposability.”   Nestle became a founding partner of Loop because the concept presents an “innovative and disruptive approach to changing how products are packaged – and delivered – and how consumers enjoy them,” says Marquez.   The short of it: Shoppers buy a brand’s durable, reusable (and exclusive) Loop packaging, which gets delivered through Loop in a special tote bag. When the contents are up for a refill, the user puts the packaging back in the Loop bag for free pickup; Loop then sanitizes the packaging to be refilled by the brand and shipped back to the user.   Kroger and Walgreens in the U.S, as well as Carrefour and Tesco in Europe, are Loop’s current retail partners. They help sell and distribute the Loop platform, with consumers signing up for Loop through the retailers.   A key element to the model is the brand’s involvement with the packaging. While Loop helps brands develop containers that can be used hundreds of times, can be sanitized and are strong enough to withstand the frequent shipping, they remain the brand’s asset.   Nestle, for example, owns the sleek, steel Haagen-Dazs container it developed for Loop, which Marquez says is a way to show that sustainability can be delivered in upscale, premium wrapping. The stainless steel container is etched with the familiar Haagen-Dazs tapestry, carries double lining for extra cooling and has an easy twist-off top, she explains.   “Loop is encouraging participating brands to create durable and reusable packaging designs that are more visually appealing,” says Rudert at Clorox. “The hope is that consumers will keep products on their countertops because they are ‘show off’ worthy.”   Clorox teamed with Loop for its pilot launch, testing a container for Clorox disinfecting wipes and a bottle for Hidden Valley Original Ranch dressing. (Glad food protection products are in the works.) Other Loop packaging examples include a simple, white container for Mars pet food; a Nature’s Path granola jar; and P&G’s range of chic steel or glass bottles for Tide, Crest mouthwash and other products.   “A lot of times, innovation in sustainability is perceived to start with these smaller, grassroots brands, and we keep sustainability on the fringes and we target that eco-friendly person,” Loop’s Rossi says. “What’s exciting about Loop is we’re trying to make sustainability irresistible to everyone. We’re working with big national brands and big national retailers, because for us to have the positive environmental impact that we want to have, sustainability can’t be kept to the fringes of society. It needs to be in everyone’s house.”

Going Forward

  Rossi’s somewhat Utopian vision is to see Loop operating nationwide, in every ZIP code, within five years. In the meantime, he encourages brands to think about incorporating more recycling into the design process. For example, if a detergent brand has decided to use “number 2” plastic (one of the most recyclable materials) but designs it in black, that’s a color that recycling machines often don’t pick up.   The Rochester Institute of Technology has been studying sustainability in packaging since the 1980s, says Dan Johnson, professor and chair of the school’s department of packaging science. Its efforts take a full supply chain view, examining issues such as transportation energy and product damage, not just material use and formats.   “Brands need to remember that not all successes in sustainability need to be customer-focused,” Johnson says, adding that consumer behavior around sustainability can be a bit of a wild card. “A good deal of the wins are only detectable by packaging geeks like our faculty, but [those actions] may be the largest contributor to meeting corporate sustainability goals around packaging.”   Johnson is inspired by some of the brand activity out there today, but warns that “economic and technical challenges in the recycling process are creating a shortage of both quality recycled raw material and credible outlets for collected recyclables. Thankfully, this gap in technology is beginning to be addressed by advances in areas like chemical recycling and advanced mechanical sortation technology.”   Back on the consumer-facing front lines, Nielsen’s McKinley says brands must stay true to who they are when considering their sustainable packaging designs. “As you act on collective sustainability needs in an authentic way for your brand, leverage the tools you already have: everyday analytics, innovation testing, consumer resonance and more.”   Clorox’s Rudert adds that brands and retailers should continue to raise greater consumer awareness on the urgent need for more sustainable commerce models. “When consumers are willing to pay for these products, companies will be incentivized to invest in the innovations needed to create sustainable change.”

TerraCycle Adds Loop To Its Circular Economy Repertoire

Older readers may remember the days when the milkman would take away your empty milk bottles and replace them with full ones. CocaCola and hundreds of other products came in reusable containers. Commerce operated on what was known as the circular economy principle — the packaging that protected consumer products got returned to the source, cleaned, and used again and again. Then came plastics, those space age wonders that allowed anything and everything to be packaged in single use containers that were simply discarded. Corporations loved them because they were cheap and relieved them of the burden of collecting all those glass bottles and reusing them. What used to be considered a necessary part of doing business now became somebody else’s problem. As usual when an economic model allows companies to privatize the profits but socialize the costs, profits soared. Society, unfortunately, has not been so lucky. Today, millions of tons of plastics are resting for all eternity in landfills or floating in the world’s oceans. Pictures of plastic waste have been circulating on the internet for the past few years, showing mounds of plastics washed up on beaches on some of the world’s most remote islands. Microplastics have been found in the deepest parts of the ocean an atop the highest mountains. The public is finally recognizing that plastic waste is a huge problem that is getting worse by the day. TerraCycle is a global company that sees a business opportunity in promoting a circular economy. “We have found that nearly everything we touch can be recycled and collect typically non-recyclable items through national, first-of-their-kind recycling platforms,” it says on its website. “Leading companies work with us to take hard-to-recycle materials from our programs, such as ocean plastic, and turn them into new products, and our new Loop platform aims to change the way the world shops with favorite brands in refillable packaging offered with convenience and style.”

Introducing Loop

Credit: Loop

Recently, TerraCycle created a wholly owned subsidiary called Loop. “We envision the future of how we consume as a place where we receive higher quality, better designed products, that we can “throw in a bin” when they are finished with no cleaning, no sorting, and no hassle. But instead of that bin being a trash or recycling bin, it’s a Loop reuse bin, where everything is cleaned and goes around again and again. The future is not just about sustainability, it’s about a better life, where we can access breakthrough sustainability unconsciously.” At the latest World Economic Forum meeting, Loop announced it had formed circular economy partnerships with Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Mars, Clorox, Coca-Cola, Mondelēz, and Danone. Customers can order products from a variety of companies that are shipped to them in returnable and reusable containers packed inside a reusable blue Loop container. When the products are consumed, the containers are placed inside a similar Loop container, picked up by UPS or other package delivery service, and returned to the point of origin for re-use. Customers pay a modest service fee of the use of the Loop container. CleanTechnica reader Jessica Feinleib uses the Loop service and can’t say enough good things about it. “This is a great clean tech idea,” she says. Taming the torrent of single use plastic containers is vital to reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. According to an article from EDF on Medium, the International Energy Agency claims in a recent study that the manufacture of plastics will be one of the biggest drivers of an increase in the use of petroleum between now and 2050. In other words, we can all start driving electric cars but oil production — and the carbon emissions from oil — will continue to rise unless we do something about our insatiable appetite for single use plastics. In the final analysis, destroying the world for the sake of convenience is a monumentally dumb idea.  

The problem with plastics has reached a tipping point. And whether you're an environmental crusader or just a citizen of the world, the impact on your life is inevitable. As a social impact professional, the consumer behavior implications underlying this movement is one to watch, no matter your impact area of choice. Starbucks has designed, developed and manufactured a strawless lid, which will become the standard for all iced coffee, tea and espresso beverages CREDIT: STARBUCKS Whether it's California imposing a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at large retail stores, companies like Starbucks pledging to eliminate plastic straws or the commitment of leading companies to “lock up” ocean plastics, companies and consumers alike are starting to feel the pressure to change daily plastic use habits. We all know that consumer behavior change is notoriously tricky to achieve. Several brands are trialing a variety of 'refill and reuse' options around the globe to determine the most feasible ways to help customers become more conscious consumers. A few examples of note: PepsiCo Hydration Station Floor Model 2 CREDIT: PRNEWSFOTO/PEPSICO PepsiCo will roll out a new, mobile-enabled hydration platform in select workplaces, universities and hospitality partners as part of their 'Beyond the Bottle' initiative. The platform is made up of three components: a water dispenser, smartphone app and personalized QR code sticker for reusable bottles that allows consumers to set their own hydration goals, track their environmental impact and save preferences like flavors and carbonation levels. Unilever is partnering with Algramo in Chile to deliver home care products directly to consumer homes. CREDIT: UNILEVER Unilever is piloting an app-powered, intelligent dispensing system that uses electric tricycles to deliver homecare products to people’s homes in Chile. Shoppers buy reusable containers for laundry and dishwashing detergent, create an online account and then arrange a free visit of an electric tricycle to make a home visit to refill their product containers. When the tricycle arrives, consumers simply dispense the desired amount and pay per weight. Alaska Airlines asks flyers to #FillBeforeYouFly CREDIT: PRNEWSWIRE/ALASKA AIRLINES As part of their effort to reduce in-flight waste, Alaska Airlines is encouraging flyers to #FillBeforeYouFly by bringing their own water bottle and filling it before they board. As an incentive, the airline will plant a tree for every passenger who brings a pre-filled water bottle onto their flight and posts a photo to social media tagging @AlaskaAir with the hashtag #FillBeforeYouFly. Unilever's first deodorants to be circular by design are made from stainless steel and developed to last forever. UNILEVER Global recycling organization TerraCycle unveiled a new "circular shopping platform" called Loop that replaces single-use disposable packaging with durable, reusable packaging on products ranging from ice cream to deodorant. Companies piloting the platform include Procter & Gamble, Unilever, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Nestlé, Danone, and UPS. Consumers buy online and products are delivered in a reusable tote. Once finished, Loop picks the product container up from their home, replenishes the products and returns the refilled shipping tote back to the consumer’s doorstep. Whether you're involved in environmental issues such as the impact of plastics or not, the trend is clear: consumer behavior change can make a significant impact on a wide variety of causes. The companies and nonprofit organizations that will ultimately earn consumer attention are those that help make these behavior changes a bit easier to adapt by effectively leveraging innovative partnerships and available technologies.

Over the last few months, I and dozens (if not hundreds) of others have placed orders for common household items from Loop — a new e-commerce site that attempts to eliminate the immense amount of single-use packaging and filler that comes with shopping, online or in-store. The platform officially launched its e-commerce site in May with roughly 25 vendors and two major retail partners in Kroger and Walgreens. The platform is currently available to consumers in select zip codes in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington D.C. and Paris. At the launch event in May, participating vendors and retailers, along with CEO Tom Szaky of TerraCycle (the recycling company behind the concept), made it clear the early days are an experiment from which the various stakeholders will learn how consumers use the platform. These insights would inform future evolutions of the product. A good start but, by no means, the ultimate form Loop will take.

It feels like good old e-commerce but ...

The process feels very much like a traditional e-commerce transaction with a few exceptions. Shoppers choose their items, each with a base price and an additional container deposit to be refunded when the item is returned empty. Then the items are shipped via UPS in a reusable zippered box the size of medium-sized cooler. I placed my order Friday, May 31 and received it Tuesday, June 4.

An alarm sounds, the blockage is cleared, and the line at Green Recycling in Maldon, Essex, rumbles back into life. A momentous river of garbage rolls down the conveyor: cardboard boxes, splintered skirting board, plastic bottles, crisp packets, DVD cases, printer cartridges, countless newspapers, including this one. Odd bits of junk catch the eye, conjuring little vignettes: a single discarded glove. A crushed Tupperware container, the meal inside uneaten. A photograph of a smiling child on an adult’s shoulders. But they are gone in a moment. The line at Green Recycling handles up to 12 tonnes of waste an hour. “We produce 200 to 300 tonnes a day,” says Jamie Smith, Green Recycling’s general manager, above the din. We are standing three storeys up on the green health-and-safety gangway, looking down the line. On the tipping floor, an excavator is grabbing clawfuls of trash from heaps and piling it into a spinning drum, which spreads it evenly across the conveyor. Along the belt, human workers pick and channel what is valuable (bottles, cardboard, aluminium cans) into sorting chutes. “Our main products are paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, mixed plastics, and wood,” says Smith, 40. “We’re seeing a significant rise in boxes, thanks to Amazon.” By the end of the line, the torrent has become a trickle. The waste stands stacked neatly in bales, ready to be loaded on to trucks. From there, it will go – well, that is when it gets complicated. You drink a Coca-Cola, throw the bottle into the recycling, put the bins out on collection day and forget about it. But it doesn’t disappear. Everything you own will one day become the property of this, the waste industry, a £250bn global enterprise determined to extract every last penny of value from what remains. It starts with materials recovery facilities (MRFs) such as this one, which sort waste into its constituent parts. From there, the materials enter a labyrinthine network of brokers and traders. Some of that happens in the UK, but much of it – about half of all paper and cardboard, and two-thirds of plastics – will be loaded on to container ships to be sent to Europe or Asia for recycling. Paper and cardboard goes to mills; glass is washed and re-used or smashed and melted, like metal and plastic. Food, and anything else, is burned or sent to landfill. Or, at least, that’s how it used to work. Then, on the first day of 2018, China, the world’s largest market for recycled waste, essentially shut its doors. Under its National Sword policy, China prohibited 24 types of waste from entering the country, arguing that what was coming in was too contaminated. The policy shift was partly attributed to the impact of a documentary, Plastic China, which went viral before censors erased it from China’s internet. The film follows a family working in the country’s recycling industry, where humans pick through vast dunes of western waste, shredding and melting salvageable plastic into pellets that can be sold to manufacturers. It is filthy, polluting work – and badly paid. The remainder is often burned in the open air. The family lives alongside the sorting machine, their 11-year-old daughter playing with a Barbie pulled from the rubbish. Westminster council sent 82% of all household waste – including that put in recycling bins – for incineration in 2017/18 For recyclers such as Smith, National Sword was a huge blow. “The price of cardboard has probably halved in the last 12 months,” he says. “The price of plastics has plummeted to the extent that it isn’t worth recycling. If China doesn’t take plastic, we can’t sell it.” Still, that waste has to go somewhere. The UK, like most developed nations, produces more waste than it can process at home: 230m tonnes a year – about 1.1kg per person per day. (The US, the world’s most wasteful nation, produces 2kg per person per day.) Quickly, the market began flooding any country that would take the trash: Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, countries with some of the world’s highest rates of what researchers call “waste mismanagement” – rubbish left or burned in open landfills, illegal sites or facilities with inadequate reporting, making its final fate difficult to trace. The present dumping ground of choice is Malaysia. In October last year, a Greenpeace Unearthed investigation found mountains of British and European waste in illegal dumps there: Tesco crisp packets, Flora tubs and recycling collection bags from three London councils. As in China, the waste is often burned or abandoned, eventually finding its way into rivers and oceans. In May, the Malaysian government began turning back container ships, citing public health concerns. Thailand and India have announced bans on the import of foreign plastic waste. But still the rubbish flows.

Looking at the contents of the average grocery cart, it is no surprise that the World Economic Forum warns that there will be more plastic than fish by weight in oceans by 2050. From coffee bags to cheese wrappers—food and beverage packaging is a major contributor to plastic pollution. Scientists warn that the proliferation of plastics in the environment is creating a variety of health and ecological problems. Some companies are starting to recognize the need to act. Nestlé estimates that it produced about 1.5 million tons of plastic in 2018. In April 2018, Nestlé committed to make 100 percent of their packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025. Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider said in the announcement, “Plastic waste is one of the biggest sustainability issues the world is facing today. Tackling it requires a collective approach. We are committed to finding improved solutions to reduce, re-use, and recycle.” From 2020–2025, Nestlé will phase-out all plastics that are not recyclable or are hard to recycle. And Nestlé will significantly raise the percentage of recycled plastics used in its water bottle lines by 2025. Starting in 2019, the company will begin to eliminate all plastic straws in their products. The newly created Nestlé Institute of Packaging Sciences will lead the development and evaluation of new sustainable packaging. Nestlé also joined Loop, a subscription home delivery service for foods and household goods with reusable packaging. Spearheaded by TerraCycle, the project will deliver items to the consumer’s front door in customized, durable packaging that is then collected, cleaned, refilled, and re-used. Nestlé will participate in the project through its brand Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream in New York City, thereby joining other consumer goods producers like Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, and Mondelēz International. Mondelēz International joins the platform with its Milka brand of biscuits, cakes, and sweet snacks as part of its commitment to making all packaging recyclable by 2025. The commitment also includes eliminating 65 million kilograms of packaging material worldwide and sustainably sourcing all paper-based packaging by 2020. Acknowledging the role consumers play in a complete recycling system, Mondelēz also aims to provide better recycling information to consumers by 2025 with clear instructions for their packaging. “Plastic waste and its impact on the planet is a broad, systemic issue that our consumers care deeply about, and which requires a holistic response. Together with partners from across the industry, as well as public and private entities, we can help to develop practical solutions that result in a positive environmental impact,” says Rob Hargrove, Executive Vice President, Research, Development, Quality, and Innovation at Mondelēz. Unilever—the owner of brands such as Ben & Jerry’s, Lipton, and Dove—purchases over 2 million tons of plastic a year. The company committed to meeting various packaging goals by 2025: making all their packaging recyclable, compostable, or reusable; using 25 percent recycled plastic in their plastic packing, and halving the waste associated with the disposal of their products. Unilever plans to achieve their goals by developing new processes and technologies such as CreaSolv, which recycles high-value polymers from used tea sachets to make recyclable plastic packaging. The commitments from these companies come amid growing public outcry over the proliferation of plastics in the environment. After an exposition finding plastics from Nestlé, Unilever, and Colgate in a popular diving spot in the Coral Triangle, Abigail Aguilar, campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines, says, “If big companies such as Nestlé and Unilever don’t respond to our calls for reduction in single-use plastic production, these places of ‘paradise’ like Verde Island Passage, will be lost.” A 2018 report from the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives found Nestlé and Unilever were the brands most responsible for plastic pollution in the Philippines. Several public laws are taking steps to reduce plastic waste. Most notably, in October of 2018, the European Parliament voted for a ban of 10 different single-use plastics by 2020. By 2025, the proposition mandates a 25 percent reduction of plastics for which there is no current practical alternative and that 90 percent of beverage bottles will be recycled. One option companies have for reducing plastic moving forward is plant-based biodegradable packaging. NatureWorks uses corn to produce a biodegradable industrial resin or polymer in the form of polylactic acid (PLA). The polymer, called Ingeo, can be used to make products such as compostable coffee capsules and yogurt cups. However, waste administers and experts have found that products made with Ingeo are often not fully compostable or recyclable. It is important to note that biodegradable materials will not break down in landfills. An increase in the use of biodegradable packaging must be accompanied by more composting infrastructure. Another company, TIPA, has created a new packaging technology that is fully biodegradable in both industrial and home composting. They promote their technology as an alternative to conventional flexible packaging, such as candy bar wrappers and coffee bean bags. Flexible packaging is generally not recyclable. TIPA asserts their packaging is as good as conventional flexible packaging in terms of shelf life, durability, sealing strength, printability, and flexibility. Some smaller food and beverage companies have already paved the way for sustainable packaging. For example, Alter Eco’s quinoa packaging is compostable and made by Gone4Good. B.O.S.S. Food’s snack bars use compostable wrappers made by TIPA. It may be possible to avoid packaging altogether. Zero-waste stores popping up in places from Brooklyn to Malaysia allow customers to take home bulk products in reusable containers. While fruits and vegetables often come in bulk, many companies also package these foods to extend shelf life. Apeel Sciences has found another solution. Their product is a thin edible and tasteless coating made from plant material that can be applied to fruits and veggies to significantly improve shelf-life. Founder and CEO James Rogers says, “our [mission] at its core is looking at natural ecosystems to determine and identify what materials it’s using to solve problems and how we might be able to extract and isolate those materials to solve other problems for humanity.” People are also reducing their use of food packaging at home. Homemade or purchased bees wrap wax is a sustainable alternative to plastic wraps and plastic snack or sandwich bags. Not only is beeswax reusable, but it is also compostable, and it requires a lot less energy and greenhouse gasses to produce than aluminum foil. The homemade wraps are made from nothing but beeswax and cotton. Pre-made beeswax wraps are available for purchase from companies like Bee’s Wrap, who also uses tree resin and jojoba oil, a natural antibacterial.