A shining beacon of automotive environmental responsibility, Subaru, is continuing their "Subaru Loves the Earth" initiative by making picnic tables and park benches out of recycled plastics. Working in partnership with recycling firm Terracycle, the benches are made by taking discarded plastics—like candy wrappers and coffee pods—and turning them into pellets. These pellets then can be "molded" into just about any piece of outdoor furniture that one can imagine (even playground equipment). No word yet on a WRX version, though.   Learn more about the process here.

From: inquirer.com Move over, Outbacks, Foresters, and Imprezas. Subaru of America has gotten into the outdoor furniture business.   Two years ago, the Camden-headquartered automotive corporation teamed up with TerraCycle, a Trenton-based recycling company, to create tables, chairs, and benches out of discarded, hard-to-recycle items: snack wrappers, disposable cups, lids, plastic straws, and coffee, tea, and creamer cups.   Some of the furniture is now permanently installed outside Camden City Hall. Other pieces have graced the Philadelphia Auto Show and the Philadelphia Flower Show. The items are among more than 100 the company has donated as part of its Subaru Loves the Earth program. The initiative aims to reduce waste, safeguard resources for future generations, and preserve natural spaces.

Rodan + Fields, a leading skincare brand in North America, announced the launch of a new recycling initiative for its customers, Consultants and employees across the U.S with TerraCycle. The program aims to engage consumers and Independent Consultants in their efforts to reduce plastic waste, and is part of the Company’s commitment to make 75% of all packaging refillable, reusable or recyclable by 2025. This collaboration builds on Rodan + Field’s recent packaging achievement of 100% of its global product cartons are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Rodan + Fields aims to reduce the number of beauty products that end up in landfills by encouraging a closed loop system, where its empty product containers are cleaned, separated and turned into new materials. To participate, customers and Consultants can download a free shipping label and mail in empty containers, and U.S. employees and Consultants can drop off empties in-office or at corporate-sponsored events using the Zero Waste Collection Boxes. “There’s an unquestionable need to reduce waste and ensure our products are designed for a sustainable future,” said Kari Hayden Pendoley, Senior Director of Social Impact and Environmental Social Governance (ESG). “We are thrilled to partner with TerraCycle to empower our Consultants, customers and employees to be a part of the solution and take the guesswork out of recycling.” Rodan + Fields’ new partnership with TerraCycle reinforces the Company’s larger ESG commitments to Philanthropy, People and the Planet. As a leading skincare brand in North America, Rodan + Fields takes its responsibility to support its community and protect the planet seriously and continues to work to advance the sustainability of its products and supply chain.

FREDERICKSBURG, VA — The City of Fredericksburg installed 30 new cigarette disposal units called Sidewalk Buttlers in the downtown area to help prevent cigarette litter. The city's Clean and Green Commission partnered with the Rappahannock Regional Solid Waste Management Board to acquire the cigarette buttlers from Keep Virginia Beautiful free of charge.   The new buttlers were installed in the downtown area a year after 30 units were donated in 2019 by Keep Virginia Beautiful for the City's Parks, Recreation and Events Department to use in Fredericksburg's parks. These new units are replacing the downtown "butt buckets" that the Clean and Green Commission maintained as part of its "Butts Are Litter Too" campaign.   "The downtown butt buckets served their purpose to help reduce cigarette litter, but they were labor intensive and needed to be replaced regularly," Robert Courtnage, chairman of the Fredericksburg Clean and Green Commission, said Tuesday in a statement. "Our new Sidewalk Buttlers are a more attractive and more permanent solution to help curb cigarette litter."   The Fredericksburg Public Works Department installed the cigarette buttlers. They will be emptied by Clean and Green Commission interns. The containers are mounted on sidewalk trash receptacles and are primarily located along Caroline and William Streets. All cigarette butts collected will be weighed and then recycled via TerraCycle.   Cigarette butts are the most frequently littered item. Because their filters are made mostly of plastic, they do not biodegrade. When dropped on the street or sidewalk, they may be washed into storm drains and end up in the Rappahannock River and beyond where they harm aquatic life.   Throwing cigarette butts on the ground, sidewalk, or street also is a criminal offense in Fredericksburg, which could cost the offender up to $2,500, a conviction of a Class 1 misdemeanor, lost wages and court costs, the city warned.

Thirty new downtown “Sidewalk Buttlers” are standing ready to help prevent cigarette butt litter in downtown Fredericksburg.   Fredericksburg’s Clean and Green Commission and the Rappahannock Regional Solid Waste Management Board have partnered to acquire the free cigarette buttlers from Keep Virginia Beautiful to provide the public an easy way to dispose of their cigarette butts.   Cigarette butts are the most frequently littered item, and their filters don’t biodegrade because they’re made mostly of plastic. If dropped on the street or sidewalk, they can be washed into storm drains and end up in the Rappahannock River and beyond where they can harm aquatic life.   Fredericksburg’s Parks, Recreation and Events Department received 30 buttlers last year from KVB, which were placed in the city’s parks. The city’s Public Works Department staff has installed this next round on sidewalk trash receptacles primarily along Caroline and William Streets. They replace the old “butt buckets” the Commission sourced and maintained as part of their ongoing “Butts Are Litter Too” campaign.   “The downtown butt buckets served their purpose to help reduce cigarette litter, but they were labor intensive and needed to be replaced regularly,” said Robert Courtnage, Commission chairman. “Our new Sidewalk Buttlers are a more attractive and more permanent solution to help curb cigarette litter.”   Clean and Green Commission interns will empty the buttlers, and the butts will be weighed and recycled via TerraCycle.   Littering is also a criminal offense in the city, and is strictly enforced by the Fredericksburg Police Department.   “A cigarette butt that is tossed on the sidewalk could cost you up to $2,500, a conviction of a Class 1 misdemeanor, lost wages, and court costs,” said Joe Young, Fredericksburg’s watershed manager. “That’s a pretty expensive cigarette.”

Move over, Outbacks, Foresters, and Imprezas. Subaru of America has gotten into the outdoor furniture business.   Two years ago, the Camden-headquartered automotive corporation teamed up with TerraCycle, a Trenton-based recycling company, to create tables, chairs, and benches out of discarded, hard-to-recycle items: snack wrappers, disposable cups, lids, plastic straws, and coffee, tea, and creamer cups.   Some of the furniture is now permanently installed outside Camden City Hall. Other pieces have graced the Philadelphia Auto Show and the Philadelphia Flower Show. The items are among more than 100 the company has donated as part of its Subaru Loves the Earth program. The initiative aims to reduce waste, safeguard resources for future generations, and preserve natural spaces.   “We’ve collected over 3 million pounds of waste,” said Amy Strawbridge, Subaru’s brand partnership and experiential marketing manager.     The recyclable materials are collected in Zero Waste Boxes supplied by TerraCycle that are pre-labeled and shipped to Subaru’s 589 U.S. dealerships for use by Subaru employees and the community.   “We’re collecting items that traditional recyclers don’t want,” said Rhandi Goodman, global vice president of zero waste at TerraCycle. “We have good success in making sure we are getting the proper [materials]," which stay in the United States and are not shipped abroad. When a full box is returned to TerraCycle, an empty one is automatically sent out to the dealer. Subaru’s Strawbridge estimates that the car company has filled about 3,500 boxes.   While some customers drop off items when they’re shopping for cars, others make a special trip to the dealerships. Subaru dealers in Seattle, San Francisco, and New England have returned the most waste, while Philadelphia-area dealers fall in the middle of the pack.   At TerraCycle, the recyclable materials are separated out, cleaned, and turned into pellets. Paper-based and organic waste are composted. Metals are melted down.     The pellets are used to mold the parts for park benches, picnic tables, and playground equipment, which can then be ordered from a catalog by individual Subaru dealerships and donated to their local communities.   “All of the pieces are molded like a typical manufacturer," would mold them, said TerraCycle’s Goodman. “We work with a couple of vendors to produce the benches.”   “They’re super sturdy," added Dominick Infante, director of communications for the automaker.   Subaru hopes to expand the program into other locations, Infante said. For example, the company is now in a year-long pilot program with outdoor retailer REI to collect snack wrappers in 148 REI store locations. And plans are in the works to collect additional tough-to-recycle materials like pet-food bags and coffee bags.   “We don’t see an end in sight,” said Infante. “We just see this growing.”

Move over, Outbacks, Foresters, and Imprezas. Subaru of America has gotten into the outdoor furniture business.   Two years ago, the Camden-headquartered automotive corporation teamed up with TerraCycle, a Trenton-based recycling company, to create tables, chairs, and benches out of discarded, hard-to-recycle items: snack wrappers, disposable cups, lids, plastic straws, and coffee, tea, and creamer cups.   Some of the furniture is now permanently installed outside Camden City Hall. Other pieces have graced the Philadelphia Auto Show and the Philadelphia Flower Show. The items are among more than 100 the company has donated as part of its Subaru Loves the Earth program. The initiative aims to reduce waste, safeguard resources for future generations, and preserve natural spaces.   “We’ve collected over 3 million pounds of waste,” said Amy Strawbridge, Subaru’s brand partnership and experiential marketing manager.     The recyclable materials are collected in Zero Waste Boxes supplied by TerraCycle that are pre-labeled and shipped to Subaru’s 589 U.S. dealerships for use by Subaru employees and the community.   “We’re collecting items that traditional recyclers don’t want,” said Rhandi Goodman, global vice president of zero waste at TerraCycle. “We have good success in making sure we are getting the proper [materials]," which stay in the United States and are not shipped abroad. When a full box is returned to TerraCycle, an empty one is automatically sent out to the dealer. Subaru’s Strawbridge estimates that the car company has filled about 3,500 boxes.   While some customers drop off items when they’re shopping for cars, others make a special trip to the dealerships. Subaru dealers in Seattle, San Francisco, and New England have returned the most waste, while Philadelphia-area dealers fall in the middle of the pack.   At TerraCycle, the recyclable materials are separated out, cleaned, and turned into pellets. Paper-based and organic waste are composted. Metals are melted down.     The pellets are used to mold the parts for park benches, picnic tables, and playground equipment, which can then be ordered from a catalog by individual Subaru dealerships and donated to their local communities.   “All of the pieces are molded like a typical manufacturer," would mold them, said TerraCycle’s Goodman. “We work with a couple of vendors to produce the benches.”   “They’re super sturdy," added Dominick Infante, director of communications for the automaker.   Subaru hopes to expand the program into other locations, Infante said. For example, the company is now in a year-long pilot program with outdoor retailer REI to collect snack wrappers in 148 REI store locations. And plans are in the works to collect additional tough-to-recycle materials like pet-food bags and coffee bags.   “We don’t see an end in sight,” said Infante. “We just see this growing.”

Você importador está buscando diversificar seus mercados? Ou já atua no seu setor de embalagens e quer ampliar seu leque de opções? Hoje vamos te passar algumas dicas de embalagens para importar e como você pode desenvolver seu negócio.

Há tento tempo falamos que pequenas mudanças mudam o mundo, imagine quando realizamos “juntos” todos esses feitos?

There’s never been a better time for beauty brands trying to save the planet. Retail interest is growing in sustainable packaging and eco-conscious ingredient sourcing, and brands that appear to be ignoring their environmental footprints are met with swift disapproval. But the movement to green goods hasn’t yet translated into many consumers going out of their ways to make purchases prioritizing the fight against climate change.

Loop, a retail platform with a closed-loop (get it?) distribution system, is a high-profile test of people’s willingness to factor sustainability into their shopping habits. It’s the brainchild of Tom Szaky, co-founder and CEO of recycling company TerraCycle, whose dream of zero-waste consumption caused him to look into the past to inform the future. Szaky compares Loop to mid-20th century milkmen regularly dropping off glass milk bottles and picking up finished ones. Its distribution system is based on refillable packaging and doorstep delivery. Can Loop alter practices in a consumer packaged goods space in which disposability has been paramount? Heather Crawford, VP of marketing and e-commerce for Loop Global, argues its convenience is transformative. “This platform is actually designed for consumers to be able to easily adhere to,” she says. “Loop takes into consideration the fact that changing behavior is difficult. So, in the Loop model, people simply put their empties in the tote and send it back. It is no different for a consumer than putting empties in a recyclable bin or garbage can.” About a third of waste generated in this country is recycled, and I’m judicious about doing my part to keep the virtuous cycle going. Loop’s promise to further cut down on the waste stream I generate is incredibly appealing. As a realist, however, I know there’s only so much I will sacrifice to protect the environment. With its shippable totes and simple e-commerce interface, Loop seemed like a sustainability endeavor I could get behind and, distinct from in-store refillable programs, perhaps stick with. So, I decided to trial the service to see just how practical it is for the average consumer. Loop’s pilot program launched last spring in Paris and New York City. At the time, it was limited to 5,000 households in each city. Since then, Crawford points out, it’s added six new states of coverage as well as struck retail partnerships with Walgreens and Kroger. Currently, Loop is offered through the retailers’ websites, but its goal is to establish a presence in their stores this year. I’m located in New York City, and opted to try Loop’s online store, and stick to beauty and personal care orders. Loop’s assortment contains 31 beauty and personal care products from nine brands: Pantene, Ren, Soapply, Love Beauty and Planet, The Body Shop, Gillette, Venus, Crest and Puretto, an in-house line. Some brands and categories such as bath and body have more robust selections than others. A lonely mouthwash constitutes the entire oral care category. The majority of products carried by Loop are in the grocery and household categories, but Crawford says beauty is a key growth category, and the number of brands within it are excepted to rise this year. She declined to name brands that are coming to Loop. Loop customers order products packaged in refillable containers on its website, and the products arrive at their doorsteps in eco-friendly totes. After consumers are finished with them, Loop picks up the empty products and cleans the packaging to be used again. While browsing the grocery category, I noticed several items were out of stock. Beauty didn’t have that problem. The items were ready for purchase, and I bought two. Specifically, I purchased a 300-ml. bottle of Ren’s Atlantic Kelp and Magnesium Anti-Fatigue Body Wash, and an 8-oz. bottle of Soapply’s Liquid Hand Wash. Loop’s customers pay deposit fees. The deposit fees I paid ranged from $1.25 for Soapply’s Liquid Hand Wash to $5 for Ren products. On top of the deposit fees, there’s a $15 fee for the tote that products are delivered in. The deposits are 100% refundable once products are returned to Loop. Still, for me, the fees tacked on $21 to a $48 order. The price for my order of hand soap and body wash totaled $88.56, with tax. Thankfully, Loop comped the amount for the purposes of this piece because sustainability sure doesn’t come cheap. Product pricing on Loop can vary from product pricing elsewhere. Soapply’s Liquid Hand Wash cost $22.50 on the brand’s website. On Loop, without the bottle deposit, it was $23.75. Surprisingly, Ren’s Atlantic Kelp and Magnesium Anti-Fatigue Body Wash was significantly less expensive on Loop. It rang in at $24.30 versus $28 on its own site. After I placed my order, it was delivered via UPS the following evening. My two small beauty products arrived in a large tote. Apparently, there are no small totes at the moment. The delivery is fully eco-friendly, from the materials the tote is made of to the packing materials keeping the products safe and secure. I live and work in a very small one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment with minimal closet space (read: none). Holding on to the bulky tote while I enjoyed my products wasn’t practical or appealing to me. To declutter, I promptly decanted the bottles into empties I already had, and returned them along with the tote to my local UPS store to be shipped back with the included free shipping label. Loop allowed me to retain the deposit amounts in my online account for future orders or have them refunded to my card. I chose the refund, and the money was credited back to me in seven days.

“Loop takes into consideration the fact that changing behavior is difficult.”

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Loop’s process wasn’t onerous, and lived up to the promise of not forcing me to change my conduct in a manner that would stop me from shopping at it. The company plans to reduce consumers’ efforts even more by teaming up with retail partners to set up Loop at stores to enable consumers to shop dedicated Loop aisles and return refillable products to the stores they’re frequenting. Loop didn’t specify when it will arrive inside stores or which physical stores will take part in its program. Despite people meticulously separating out waste materials into recycling bins, 91% of plastics wind up in landfills. That statistic emphasizes to me the importance of Loop’s system, and makes the endeavor a definite plus in my estimation. I’m heartened knowing the Soapply and Ren bottles I received aren’t destined for the ocean. The benefit for the planet is evident, but I wondered what the brands, specifically Soapply, the sole indie beauty brand currently on Loop’s site, gain by joining its selection. Asked about Soapply’s involvement, founder Mera McGrew responds, “Being selected to launch with Loop alongside all the major players in the consumer goods space was an exciting recognition of the leadership role Soapply is playing in the market. The immediate success we had on the platform, the continued growth we’ve seen, and the positive consumer response to Soapply have not only helped our bottom line, but continued to solidify our role as an emerging leader within the consumer goods space.” Prior to Loop, Soapply had a refill system with bottles made from recycled glass that replenish its 8-oz. bottles three times at a discounted price of $31.50 for 25.4 ounces. For the brand, the value of Loop is to amplify education and impact. “Startups and indie brands have resource limitations that require a constant reassessment of costs and a clear understanding of potential benefits connected with any decision or investment,” says McGrew. “Soapply is a public benefit corporation, so working collaboratively with Loop gives Soapply an opportunity to reiterate some of our core values and be a part of a larger system that is looking to empower individual consumers to help tackle the world’s waste problem.” Soapply is the only indie personal care brand available in Loop’s selection. Other brands are Pantene, Ren, Love Beauty and Planet, The Body Shop, Gillette, Venus, Crest and Puretto, an in-house line. Brands can’t partake in Loop unless they have sustainable packaging. Loop’s requirements are exacting. All containers have to withstand sanitization and survive over 100 uses. “Any business, regardless of how big or small, knows that any changes to packaging can represent a lot of dollar signs—sourcing, designing, changing production lines, etc.,” says McGrew. “If a product’s packaging isn’t already reusable and refillable, updating packaging for Loop would certainly represent a cost to any brand.” Crawford says, “We want to partner with companies large and small that want to redesign packaging to be durable and reusable. We have indie beauty brands which are in the process of on-boarding, and we’ve had very strong response to those we’ve launched thus far, with initial penetration rates [or percentages of the target market they’ve reached] of 35%-plus on new beauty product launches.” My experience with Loop demonstrates it makes eco-oriented beauty and personal care consumption pretty painless, but not universally affordable. A huge feat will be a program that’s attainable for low- to middle-income families. As Loop expands and scales, it will be fascinating to watch how it overcomes that large hurdle. In its current iteration, though, it’s undoubtedly a step in the right direction.