Bausch + Lomb, the leading global eye health company of Bausch Health Companies Inc. (NYSE/TSX: BHC), announced today that it has partnered with international recycling company TerraCycle to launch the Bausch + Lomb Every Contact Counts recycling program in select eye care offices across Canada. Through the joint initiative, Canadians who wear contact lenses now have a way to responsibly recycle their traditionally non-recyclable disposable contact lenses and blister pack packaging.   “More than 290 million contact lenses end up in Canadian landfills or waterways yearly,” said Matt Nowak, director, Sales and Marketing, Bausch + Lomb Canada. “As more consumers switch to wearing daily disposable lenses, this number will increase significantly. Our customers and their patients are concerned about the environmental impact of the packaging going to landfills, and they want to act to protect the environment. With the launch of the Bausch + Lomb Every Contact Counts recycling program, they will finally be able to divert this waste away from landfills, lakes, rivers and oceans.”   Bausch + Lomb contact lenses help Canadians experience moments that matter. The Every Contact Counts recycling program means wearers can feel even better about those moments.   Contact lenses and blister packs are considered non-recyclable through municipal facilities because they are too small to be captured by standard sorting machinery. Through the Bausch + Lomb Every Contact Counts recycling program, consumers can search for their nearest participating eye care professional on the interactive map found at www.terracycle.com/en-CA/brigades/bausch-and-lomb-en-ca to recycle all brands of disposable contact lenses and blister pack packaging through that location.   “Contact lenses are one of the forgotten waste streams that are often overlooked due to their size and how commonplace they are in today’s society,” said Tom Szaky, founder and CEO, TerraCycle. “Initiatives like the Bausch + Lomb Every Contact Counts recycling program allow eye care professionals and patients to work within their communities and take an active role in preserving the environment, beyond what their local recycling programs are able to provide. By creating this recycling initiative, our aim is to provide an opportunity where whole communities are able to collect waste alongside a national network of public drop-off locations, all with the unified goal to increase the number of recycled contact lenses and their associated packaging, thereby reducing their overall impact on the environment.”   After being collected at an Every Contact Counts recycling location, the contact lenses and blister packs are shipped to a TerraCycle recycling facility where they are separated and cleaned. The metal layers of the blister packs are recycled separately, while the contact lenses and plastic blister pack components are melted into plastic, which can be remoulded to create new products.   In addition to Canada, Bausch + Lomb also has similar contact lens recycling programs in The Netherlands, the United States and Australia. To learn more about the Bausch + Lomb Every Contact Counts recycling program, and how to participate, visit www.everycontactcounts.ca.

It took a baby-shower invitation to make me realize just how far the resale economy has come. The invite steered me toward the registry of the parents-to-be, who opened their list with this line: “We always love and prefer used items over new ones.” Sure, I’ve written about Patagonia’s Worn Wear, Neiman Marcus’ pioneering partnership with Fashionphile, and the decision of retailers like Macy’s, JC Penney and H&M to sell used clothes in their stores. And I’ve been watching the steady flow of ThredUp and RealReal packages on my porch, all addressed to the resident millennial. (I’ve even scored a few items myself.) I’d always assumed the trend came from folks wanting to spend less dough, or as a good-scout choice for the planet. But the “love and prefer” line puts all this resale in a whole new light: This isn’t a trend anymore. It’s the way young consumers insist on shopping. Businesses are getting it. I wasn’t able to make it to the National Retail Federation’s Big Show this year, but attendees were buzzing about a session on circular supply chains. Speakers included execs from the Patagonia program; Yertle, the D2C company that sells used clothes from Patagonia, REI and others; and Terra Cycle’s Loop, a subscription service that lets consumers reuse packaging from major national brands, including Procter & Gamble and Unilever. And a new report from Ike Boruchow, an analyst who follows the apparel sector for Wells Fargo, says we ain’t seen nothing yet. “We continue to believe that the consumer’s willingness to transition to resale is in the very early innings,” he writes. He notes that the U.S. resale market is about $24 billion today and growing at about 15% a year. That compares to just 2% growth for the $400 billion apparel sector. While the RealReal, which specializes in used luxury items, is generating attention, other companies, like Poshmark, Rebag and StockX, are more compelling models, Boruchow writes. And he predicts used clothing will move from about 6% of total clothing sales to 10% of the pie by 2022. Boruchow writes that ThredUp, the world’s largest fashion resale marketplace, has a gross market value of about $250 million, and is growing between 40% and 50% a year. In addition to partnering with retailers, it also benefits from retail partnerships, online collaborations, a loyalty program, and its “secondhand clothes, firsthand fun” positioning. As ThredUp and other D2C brands continue to steal share from conventional retailers,  more stores will look for ways to get in on the action, Boruchow predicts. But given the digital demands of these younger shoppers, it won’t be easy. “Looking at the market demographics, the shift to wearing someone else’s clothes is dominated by the young consumer, as it seems more and more like their natural behavior,” he writes. “As millennials and Gen Z become the core customer, growth will be more exponential.”

Issues such as plastic containers inside boxes remain a talking point when customers go to purchase a product, and some managers say it sometimes turns customers away.   Cannabis suppliers across the country are required by law to present the correct labels and warnings on their products, which takes up space and creates excess packaging.   However, an initiative by a cannabis supplier in Canada has allowed shops across Canada to go green.   Since before shops started to open in the Okanagan, Terracycle, a private U.S. recycling business, partnered with Tweed, a cannabis supplier based out of Ontario, to recycle any and all cannabis packaging purchased from a licensed retailer. Aside from some vape-related products, the program accepts many forms of packaging including outer plastic packaging, inner plastic packaging, tins, joint tubes, plastic bottles, plastic caps, and flexible plastic bags.   The program accepts products from both individuals and retail partners in every province except the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut.   Locally, cardboard Terracycle bins can be seen near the front counter of licensed retail shops. Once a bin is full, retailers package the waste into a box and send it to Terracycle via UPS, where the packaging and plastic is broken down and refurbished into new products.   The four licensed stores in Penticton are among approximately 450 other cannabis stores in partnership with Terracycle.   Spiritleaf owner Matt Bolton said so far, they have shipped approximately 18-20 bins worth of recycled products since they opened in August.   “Packaging has been… one of the biggest complaints that we hear here in the legal market,” he said. “The fact that we do offer that program, we’ve offered it pretty much since the first week of opening; that has been great.”   The Terracycle program accepts most things except for some vaping products such as the batteries and cartridges, however Spiritleaf has taken it upon themselves to offer recycling of this product.   “We’ve basically taken it on ourselves where we said, we’ll hold onto it all, until it’s figured out where they are going to go, and then we will dispose of it properly,” said Bolton.   Cannabis Cottage supervisor Corey Young said the reactions from customers when they find out about the recycling program are very positive. He stated one of the main complaints they receive is also about packaging.   “There is a lot of excess packaging,” he said. “And unfortunately a lot of the companies are slow to come out with new versions. So in the meantime, I believe it’s (Terracycle) essential.”   Although he couldn’t confirm an exact amount, Young estimated they have collected about 800 packages from customers in the past month.   “I think other companies should follow Tweed’s lead in creating their own recycling programs as well,” he said.   In October, the Tweed/TerraCycle program announced the collection of over one million pieces of used cannabis packaging from across the nation, recycling over 22,000 pounds of plastic containers, tubes, and bottles.   Bud-tender at Greenery Cannabis Boutique, Geoffrey Small, said customers seem relieved when they find out what Tweed and Terracycle are doing to help mitigate the issue of excess packaging.   Although some companies package less than other, Green Gaia Cannabis Co. manager Katerina Bakalos said the recycling program is a great service to have, and well-received by customers. So far, Green Gaia has collected thousands of product packages.   In conversations with some licenced producers, Bakalos understands that changes are coming with regards to packaging. This, she explained, is the focus for several producers, now that the 2.0 products, or edibles and concentrates, are on the shelves. In late December, retailers around Canada, including Penticton, started to receive 2.0 cannabis products.   “I’m sure once a few of the producers do it (repackaging), it’s going to start a domino effect,” said Bakalos. “Because I do believe, some of the packaging, people won’t buy it (because) it’s too thick of plastic or too big a box, that kind of thing.”   “Plastic containers within a box, it’s almost like double-packaging.”   Looking forward, all shops expressed their excitement as their first full summer season approaches.

Growing up is a tough thing to do, even if we all have to do it. Us adults often forget the growing pains, both physical and emotional, of learning to find our way in a world where at one point we all felt too small to matter. Kids care about things other than toys and games, and that’s probably why teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg has become such a hero to today’s youth. When Greta started to speak about climate and social change, everyone listened.   Parents and educators can help empower kids – they have a voice in this world too! Learning how to exercise that voice is just another part of growing up. Here are 5 simple ways that we can guide them in learning how to become an active part of social change, at home and at school:  

Teach them that they do make choices that matter to the environment

  We make thousands of choices every day, but many are so mundane we don’t think about them consciously. Simple choices that kids already have some control over—like what to eat, what to read, and what to wear—can have some big impact. For example, kids can choose to conserve energy in small ways like turning off the light when leaving a room or turning off the TV when they are finished watching. Every little action helps!  

Commit to zero-waste

  How can we throw away as little as possible? It’s easy to start small, with something like your child’s lunch. Juice boxes and sandwich bags can be replaced with a reusable drink bottle and container. Lunch bags and totes can be used to transport them. From there, it’s easy to practice a litterless lunch and find more ways to reduce waste.  

Take recycling to the next level

  Companies are recognizing the importance of working with students to make a difference to the environment. At school, there are recycling initiatives to take advantage of from Staples Canada that will help divert items from landfills including: School Ink Recycling, which collects ink cartridges; Battery Recycling done in partnership with Call2Recycle; Writing Instruments done in partnership with TerraCycle® to collect used pens, pencils, highlighters and more; and Electronics Recycling with partner eCycle Solutions take back end-of-life electronics. Is your school participating in recycling these items? If not, let them know about these green programs.  

Fundraise

  Learning to fundraise for a good cause will motivate students. From tree planting to adopting one of the local zoo animals, kids can make actual, tangible transactions that do small bits of good everywhere they go. And they might just learn a lesson in handling money, too!  

Superpower your school to encourage others to change, too

  Staples Canada has teamed up with EcoKids and Earth Day Canada for the 10th annual Superpower Your School Contest. Elementary and Secondary schools across Canada are invited to enter the contest for a chance to win one of 10 prizes of $20,000 in new technology from Staples Canada. There’s a huge opportunity to both commit your school to change and get some powerful new tech too! From now until January 31, 2020, schools can share their eco clubs and initiatives, everything from planting edible gardens, creating monarch waystations to support monarch butterflies, to hosting boomerang lunch programs where uneaten food and waste is returned home at the end of the day.   Entries can be submitted on the contest website, staples.ca/PowerEco.You can find the step-by-step entry guide here and more information about eligibility and entry criteria here.   Will your school be participating in this amazing contest? We can’t wait to read about some of the creative changes your kids have introduced to help their school and community build awareness about what it means to be green!  

Virginie Helias remembers the 2017 World Economic Forum well. At that time, the American consumer goods group Procter & Gamble (P&G), together with the disposal specialist Terracycle, presented a new bottle for its Head & Shoulders shampoo. The special thing about it: It was largely made from recycled plastic bottles that had been collected on ocean beaches. The internal reactions from management were extremely positive, says the top sustainability manager in the group. “Many thought the idea was great, because no one initially asked whether it would pay off.” The bottles were then initially sold in supermarkets of the French Carrefour chain and later expanded to a total of 20 countries. To date, around a million bottles have been sold. Another project is currently being implemented: When the winners of the Olympic Games in Tokyo receive their medals this summer, they will stand on pedestals that are also made of ocean plastic. P&G is collecting the material.

Such successes are lighthouses, which also get a lot of attention thanks to skilful marketing. Virginie Helias knows that the real problem of plastic waste in the world’s oceans cannot be solved. But a new dynamic has developed in recent years. “The question today is no longer whether something needs to be done, but what.” In the meantime, the companies no longer tried to do it alone, but rather, competitors increasingly worked together. This is the only way to ultimately come up with market-oriented solutions that the consumer also accepts. Because only around 15 percent of consumers are willing to accept noticeable price increases for environmental protection without complaint. The rest are very sensitive to higher expenses. Procter & Gamble has joined an alliance against the waste of plastic. The London-based organization includes Henkel and BASF from Germany. The aim is to get meaningful and coordinated projects on the way. “Because it is not the money that is lacking, but the projects,” says Helias. The fight against plastic waste is one of the major sustainability issues in Davos. For example, the beverage company Coca-Cola and the Chinese online retailer JD.com launched a joint initiative in the Middle Kingdom to recycle single-use bottles. A pilot project for 50,000 households is already underway in Shanghai: When JD employees deliver the ordered goods, they also collect old plastic bottles for reprocessing. An expansion to other cities is planned. Coca-Cola announced two years ago that it wanted to recycle all of its packaging by 2030. The World Economic Forum also provided a large stage for the 19-year-old Indonesian Melati Wijsen, who founded the “Bye bye plastic bags” initiative with her sister in Bali in 2013. Thanks not least to the commitment of the two sisters, plastic bags have been banned on the island since last year. In Davos she belongs to a group of young people who have achieved a lot through their commitment.

600,000 tons of plastic on the Ganges

The plastic problem of the oceans has to be tackled at the root, says P&G manager Helias. And that is mainly in Asia, since most of the sea sculpture comes from the five countries of China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. 93 percent of this waste is flushed into the oceans from ten rivers, almost all of which are in Asia. That is why the Plastic Alliance started its first project in 2019 on the Ganges, the third longest river in the world, in which an additional 600,000 tons of plastic end up every year. The river residents are to be informed about the consequences of the littering by means of targeted campaigns. In addition, municipalities along the river will be helped to fish the plastic from the river and recycle it thanks to modern technology. This can be worthwhile because it is a coveted resource.    

Across the board, one of the biggest complaints that licensed cannabis shops in Penticton receive is that the packaging of products is excessive and unnecessary. Issues such as plastic containers inside boxes remain a talking point when customers go to purchase a product, and some managers say it sometimes turns customers away. Cannabis suppliers across the country are required by law to present the correct labels and warnings on their products, which takes up space and creates excess packaging. However, an initiative by a cannabis supplier in Canada has allowed shops across Canada to go green. Since before shops started to open in the Okanagan, Terracycle, a private U.S. recycling business, partnered with Tweed, a cannabis supplier based out of Ontario, to recycle any and all cannabis packaging purchased from a licensed retailer. Aside from some vape-related products, the program accepts many forms of packaging including outer plastic packaging, inner plastic packaging, tins, joint tubes, plastic bottles, plastic caps, and flexible plastic bags. READ MORE: Prices for recreational marijuana in B.C. down from a year ago The program accepts products from both individuals and retail partners in every province except the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut. Locally, cardboard Terracycle bins can be seen near the front counter of licensed retail shops. Once a bin is full, retailers package the waste into a box and send it to Terracycle via UPS, where the packaging and plastic is broken down and refurbished into new products. The four licensed stores in Penticton are among approximately 450 other cannabis stores in partnership with Terracycle. Spiritleaf owner Matt Bolton said so far, they have shipped approximately 18-20 bins worth of recycled products since they opened in August. “Packaging has been… one of the biggest complaints that we hear here in the legal market,” he said. “The fact that we do offer that program, we’ve offered it pretty much since the first week of opening; that has been great.” The Terracycle program accepts most things except for some vaping products such as the batteries and cartridges, however Spiritleaf has taken it upon themselves to offer recycling of this product. “We’ve basically taken it on ourselves where we said, we’ll hold onto it all, until it’s figured out where they are going to go, and then we will dispose of it properly,” said Bolton. Cannabis Cottage supervisor Corey Young said the reactions from customers when they find out about the recycling program are very positive. He stated one of the main complaints they receive is also about packaging. “There is a lot of excess packaging,” he said. “And unfortunately a lot of the companies are slow to come out with new versions. So in the meantime, I believe it’s (Terracycle) essential.” Although he couldn’t confirm an exact amount, Young estimated they have collected about 800 packages from customers in the past month. “I think other companies should follow Tweed’s lead in creating their own recycling programs as well,” he said. In October, the Tweed/TerraCycle program announced the collection of over one million pieces of used cannabis packaging from across the nation, recycling over 22,000 pounds of plastic containers, tubes, and bottles. Bud-tender at Greenery Cannabis Boutique, Geoffrey Small, said customers seem relieved when they find out what Tweed and Terracycle are doing to help mitigate the issue of excess packaging. Although some companies package less than other, Green Gaia Cannabis Co. manager Katerina Bakalos said the recycling program is a great service to have, and well-received by customers. So far, Green Gaia has collected thousands of product packages. In conversations with some licenced producers, Bakalos understands that changes are coming with regards to packaging. This, she explained, is the focus for several producers, now that the 2.0 products, or edibles and concentrates, are on the shelves. In late December, retailers around Canada, including Penticton, started to receive 2.0 cannabis products. “I’m sure once a few of the producers do it (repackaging), it’s going to start a domino effect,” said Bakalos. “Because I do believe, some of the packaging, people won’t buy it (because) it’s too thick of plastic or too big a box, that kind of thing.” “Plastic containers within a box, it’s almost like double-packaging.” Looking forward, all shops expressed their excitement as their first full summer season approaches.

Virginie Helias remembers the 2017 World Economic Forum well. At that time, the American consumer goods group Procter & Gamble (P&G), together with the disposal specialist Terracycle, presented a new bottle for its Head & Shoulders shampoo. The special thing about it: It was largely made from recycled plastic bottles that had been collected on ocean beaches. The internal reactions from management were extremely positive, says the top sustainability manager in the group. “Many thought the idea was great, because no one initially asked whether it would pay off.” The bottles were then initially sold in supermarkets of the French Carrefour chain and later expanded to a total of 20 countries. To date, around a million bottles have been sold. Another project is currently being implemented: When the winners of the Olympic Games in Tokyo receive their medals this summer, they will stand on pedestals that are also made of ocean plastic. P&G is collecting the material. Such successes are lighthouses, which also get a lot of attention thanks to skilful marketing. Virginie Helias knows that the real problem of plastic waste in the world’s oceans cannot be solved. But a new dynamic has developed in recent years. “The question today is no longer whether something needs to be done, but what.” In the meantime, the companies no longer tried to do it alone, but rather, competitors increasingly worked together. This is the only way to ultimately come up with market-oriented solutions that the consumer also accepts. Because only around 15 percent of consumers are willing to accept noticeable price increases for environmental protection without complaint. The rest are very sensitive to higher expenses. Procter & Gamble has joined an alliance against the waste of plastic. The London-based organization includes Henkel and BASF from Germany. The aim is to get meaningful and coordinated projects on the way. “Because it is not the money that is lacking, but the projects,” says Helias. The fight against plastic waste is one of the major sustainability issues in Davos. For example, the beverage company Coca-Cola and the Chinese online retailer JD.com launched a joint initiative in the Middle Kingdom to recycle single-use bottles. A pilot project for 50,000 households is already underway in Shanghai: When JD employees deliver the ordered goods, they also collect old plastic bottles for reprocessing. An expansion to other cities is planned. Coca-Cola announced two years ago that it wanted to recycle all of its packaging by 2030. The World Economic Forum also provided a large stage for the 19-year-old Indonesian Melati Wijsen, who founded the “Bye bye plastic bags” initiative with her sister in Bali in 2013. Thanks not least to the commitment of the two sisters, plastic bags have been banned on the island since last year. In Davos she belongs to a group of young people who have achieved a lot through their commitment.

600,000 tons of plastic on the Ganges

The plastic problem of the oceans has to be tackled at the root, says P&G manager Helias. And that is mainly in Asia, since most of the sea sculpture comes from the five countries of China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. 93 percent of this waste is flushed into the oceans from ten rivers, almost all of which are in Asia. That is why the Plastic Alliance started its first project in 2019 on the Ganges, the third longest river in the world, in which an additional 600,000 tons of plastic end up every year. The river residents are to be informed about the consequences of the littering by means of targeted campaigns. In addition, municipalities along the river will be helped to fish the plastic from the river and recycle it thanks to modern technology. This can be worthwhile because it is a coveted resource.

Like many environmentalists, Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, believes reuse must play a large role in solving eco-challenges, but he doesn’t think sustainability guilt will be enough to change behaviors. Aesthetics, however, might. At a session at the NRF Big Show, Mr. Szaky provided some early learnings on Loop, a service the waste recycling company developed that allows shoppers to purchase orange juice, laundry detergent and other CPG items in reusable containers. Users put down a refundable deposit via the Loop website when ordering. Loop delivers the items in reusable glass or metal bottles to shoppers’ doors and then retrieves the empties for cleaning and reuse. Participating retailers, including Carrefour, Kroger and Walgreens, act as pickup and drop-off points.   Mr. Szaky assumed consumers would embrace Loop due to sustainability concerns. He admits, however, that it’s hard to overcome the “unparalleled convenience and affordability” that came when the “disposable lifestyle” was commercialized in the 1950s. “Even with all that awareness, even the enlightened folks are constantly voting over and over again for a disposable world with their money,” he said. Encouragingly, many consumers are embracing Loop because of the aesthetic appeal from upgraded packaging that includes stainless steel. “Most people come into it because of beautiful design, then love that it is sustainable,” said Mr. Szaky. In some cases, upgraded packaging adds features. A Häagen-Dazs stainless-steel reusable in the Loop program is thermally insulated to not only keep the ice cream frozen longer but to keep the surface warm to the touch. The concave vessel also makes the ice cream easier to scoop. Said Mr. Szaky, “It’s just a way better overall experience.” Some containers may even help improve flavors. Coca Cola, which is bringing back its original iconic package, said Coke tastes best in a glass, followed by aluminum and finally PET plastic. Convenience may also play a role in converting shoppers. With hand or dish soap, many households already pour store-bought bottles into different containers. Mr. Szaky stresses that the ease of returning reusables has to match the ease of disposables. “Our overall mission here is to give consumers a disposable experience where they throw out the packaging, don’t clean it, don’t sort it — a completely disposable experience. But act reusable behind the scenes,” he said.

• Kroger and Loop Announce Exclusive Grocery Retail Partnership – Loop
• Can Loop make packaging reusability a reality at scale? – RetailWire

Venetia La Manna isn't afraid to tell you she’s a hypocrite. To be more specific, she’s a “recovering hypocrite,” a label she proudly puts in her bio on Instagram, where she boasts 72,600 followers and counting.   La Manna wasn’t always an influencer. The London-based 30-year-old started her career working in television as a producer, and later as a host on Tastemade, a video network and YouTube channel that focuses on travel and food-based content. It’s not an unfamiliar start for a content creator; Instagram is filled with attractive men and women who built an audience through their 9-to-5 and then branched out on their own when the iron was hot and their brand was strong. But for La Manna, there was more of a perceptible shift. The self-described activist has been using her platform to highlight issues around the global climate crisis, including calling out fast fashion companies and teaching her followers how she pulled off a low-waste, sustainable wedding this past fall to her climate activist husband Max La Manna. In a series of Instagram posts and YouTube videos, she explained how the two served vegan, locally-sourced food (with leftovers composted in her parents' garden) and requested a “something old, nothing new” dress code.   “I describe what I do now as kind of activism,” La Manna tells me over the phone. “I share as many actionable tips as I can for people to live in a more eco-friendly way. And then I encourage people to be their own activists. I’m aware that I’m not really qualified in anything, so I use my podcast as a way to chat to experts.” La Manna also started her own Facebook community group called the Slow Fashion Exchange to encourage her followers to host clothing swaps and create a larger conversation about the benefits of avoiding fast fashion.       The move toward sustainability is an increasingly common one, even if influencers choose to participate in varying degrees. VSCO girls implore you to avoid plastic straws and save the turtles; some women simply show off an Everlane puffer made out of recycled materials, while simultaneously sharing when their LBD was a Topshop purchase. Others, like La Manna, are dedicated to promoting sustainable brands and secondhand clothing in an effort to reduce landfill waste and avoid supporting unfair labor practices. (As it stands, the fashion industry produces 10 percent of global carbon emissions and 20 percent of global wastewater, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. That's more than both international flights and maritime shipping.) Last December, the site Fashionista asked whether it’s possible to even be a “sustainable influencer,” reporting that the #sustainablefashion hashtag had quintupled on Instagram since 2016. For La Manna, and a number of others, it’s a question worth considering.   Instagram intrinsically thrives off consumer culture. The platform's own shopping feature—and its overflowing crop of influencers—sends a clear message: Instagram wants you to buy things, and it doesn’t really care whether they’re eco-friendly or not. While an influencer in 2020 could be interpreted as someone who hawks products or a particular lifestyle, when the two are combined, there’s a contradiction for those who want to make money but also want to create a brand around informing the public about climate change, which is partially caused by household consumption. As Fashionista reports, “The tension between conscience and commerce is nothing new. Neither is the idea that conscious consumption, as a concept, is fundamentally flawed.”   “Every single thing we do has an environmental impact,” La Manna says. “Although I try and live with the lowest impact that I possibly can, there's no way that I'm not creating some kind of negative impact on the planet, and I have to be aware of that.” As a full-time influencer, she chooses to work with brands that align with her own values. (For example, she refuses to fly for any sort of paid deal.) Her perspective has led to partnerships with brands like The Body Shop, which—while not zero waste—have started using recycled plastics and allows customers to return empty bottles to be recycled into new items. Not everyone has access to a zero waste store, La Manna points out, but they can probably get themselves to The Body Shop. “It's the hardest thing about what I do. How can I do things in such a way that I'm not adding to needless consumption?” Still, La Manna admits, in a dream world, she wouldn’t do any brand partnerships at all.         For Tolmeia Gregory, 19, a call from a fast fashion brand was not only once welcomed, it was celebrated. The now-activist, known as Tolly Dolly Posh online, started a blog back in 2012. At the time, it was fun to have brands she loved offering to send her free clothes. But after a few years of blogging she watched the The True Cost. The 2015documentary details the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse, which killed more than 1,100 people, making it the deadliest garment factory disaster in modern history. “That was my lightbulb moment," Gregory says. "I knew that I needed to use this platform I’d created to educate other people about the issues within the fashion industry.”   Now, she says she’s reached a “climate emergency mindset....I can’t really share or do anything without it relating to that in some way or another.” Since she began focusing on ethical fashion, and subsequently calling out brands that were harming the planet, she’s received less and less opportunities for sponsored posts. At the moment, she doesn’t do any branded deals, though she’d be open to it for the right company. She currently supports herself as a freelance graphic designer.       Gregory knows that some people don’t have the luxury of being as selective, that there are those who have chosen to make a livelihood off their slew of sponsored posts. But she's bothered by users who post about the devastating fires in Australia and then turn around and post a sponsored deal with a fast fashion brand soon after. “It’s kind of like, OK, it’s your job, but think about what that really means. Are you truly committed to this message that you’re spreading?”   The same goes for when influencers and media fall for “greenwashing,” a term coined in the 1980s to describe “the corporate practice of making diverting sustainability claims to cover a questionable environmental record,” according to The Guardian. Much like people on Instagram, companies are harnessing the climate crisis as a marketing tool. Brands like H&M and Zara have been called out in the past for misleading “conscious collections” and vague sustainability targets, which can misinform consumers—and influencers who then go on to misinform consumers—into making what they think are more responsible, eco-friendly purchasing decisions. “As consumers of content, we have to be very woke to what is legitimate and what isn’t,” La Manna says. “We have to just keep asking ourselves, ‘Hey, even if this is sustainable, do I actually need it?”     Lauren Singer, the 28-year-old owner of the zero-waste lifestyle store Package Free, agrees that influencer culture can push people to make decisions that aren’t necessarily rooted in fact. Singer first started the blog Trash is for Tossers in 2012 to document her experience of going zero waste, a decision she made in her senior year of college as an environmental science major. She currently has over 376,000 Instagram followers.   “I feel like what I'm doing is a little bit different because I have a degree in what I'm talking about,” she says. “But a lot of influencers you see pushing product, even in the sustainability space, are people that are just not qualified to talk about what they're talking about.” One example she sees? Any textile made out of recycled plastic water bottles, like that aforementioned Everlane puffer, is often not actually sustainable. “You’re taking something, a water bottle, which could be recycled into other rigid plastic items, and you’re turning it into something that’s very, very, very hard to recycle again.” These textiles, when washed, will also release microplastics back into the ocean.   Still, she agrees that a more mainstream discussion is a net positive: “Climate change and sustainability being at the front of media dialogue and individual dialogue is hugely important. Even if brands are making less bad products, the effort toward sustainability is still good.”   As influencers-turned-activists (or vice versa) wrestle with how to make use of a platform that can go against their own ethos, some are also trying to use social media to expand the modern sustainability space. When Dominique Drakeford thinks about her own feed, she says overall it's about redefining sustainability. “There’s a very monolithic understanding of what it means to be sustainable,” she says. “A lot of times, especially coming into the space, it was very white women-driven. It was monochromatic colors only. It was just this one singular paradigm of what sustainability looks like.”   Originally from Oakland, Drakeford now lives in Brooklyn and created a site called Melanin and Sustainable Style, where she highlights sustainable companies and initiatives founded by women of color. She also co-founded Sustainable Brooklyn, which works to “bridge gaps between the sustainability movement and targeted communities.” On her Instagram, she avoids providing affiliate links to her 16,000 followers, thus forgoing any potential commission on purchases she’s influenced. But she does participate in brand sponsorships and will travel by plane for work.       Her hope is to encourage her audience to take a step backwards and discuss indigenous culture and race relations as they pertain to sustainability. An example, she points out, can be found in Flint, Michigan, where residents have been reliant on plastic water bottles due to the toxic water crisis in the city. A government-appointed civil rights commission published a report stating that "historical, structural and systemic racism combined with implicit bias" helped cause the crisis. Drakeford says, "Plastic pollution is freaking insane, but then when you say no more plastic water bottles…[you’re] not getting to the root of the issue. We need to say no more plastic water bottles, but let's also look at the infrastructure in communities that rely on them, and let's mitigate that so that we actually don't need plastic bottles.”   Mikaela Loach, a 21-year-old based in Scotland, agrees that it’s this narrow vision that will continue to keep us from a truly sustainable world. As a medical student, Loach treats her Instagram as more of a hobby, meaning she can easily turn down sponsorships she doesn’t agree with. In the past, she’s worked with a company that promotes buying secondhand tech products.       On the internet, she says, you often find a privileged bubble of people who have resources and money talking about sustainability like it’s a new, trendy thing. “A lot of people I know who grew up with not much money would be bullied because they wore secondhand clothing—and now secondhand clothing is trendy. A lot of the things that have been appropriated by very wealthy, privileged, and usually white individuals are things that people of color and marginalized communities have been doing for a long time. I do think that's problematic because I know a lot of people who feel they can't get involved in climate activism, or they can't live sustainably, because they aren't a middle class white woman and that's the image they're seeing constantly online.”   In a world full of trash, both literal and not, it’s difficult not to commend these women and their efforts. Blurring the line between activism and influencing can be a scary prospect, if not a good branding opportunity, but might there be an inherent good in people learning about the climate crisis during their daily scroll? Perhaps. However, only if those captions and curated images result in real world action. Liking an Instagram post won't save the planet.

The U.S. used to send a lot of its plastic waste to China to get recycled. But last year, China put the kibosh on imports of the world's waste. The policy, called National Sword, freaked out people in the U.S. — a huge market for plastic waste had just dried up.   Where was it all going to go now?   In March, executives from big companies that make or package everything from water to toothpaste in plastic met in Washington, D.C. Recyclers and the people who collect and sort trash were there too. It was the whole chain that makes up the plastic pipeline. It was a time of reckoning.   John Caturano of Nestlé Waters North America, which makes bottled water, said plastic is getting a bad reputation. "The water bottle has in some ways become the mink coat or the pack of cigarettes. It's socially not very acceptable to the young folks, and that scares me," he said during a panel called Life After National Sword.   Sunil Bagaria, who runs recycling company GDB International, took his colleagues to task. "Forever, we have depended on shipping our scrap overseas," he bemoaned. "Let's stop that." European countries, he added, "are recycling 35% to 40% [of their plastic waste]. The U.S. only recycles 10%. How tragic is that?"   After a couple of days of this, a woman named Kara Pochiro from the Association of Plastic Recyclers stood up and said not to panic. "Plastic recycling isn't dead, and it works, and it's important to protecting our environment, and it's essential to the circular economy," she reassured.   "Circular economy" is now a catchphrase that some say is a way out of the plastic mess. The idea is essentially this: Society needs plastic, but people need to recycle a lot more of it and use it again and again and again. That will eliminate a lot of waste and cut down on the avalanche of new plastic made every year.   So how does circularity actually work? A good place to find out is at a recycling company called TerraCycle in Trenton, N.J. The company's global vice president for research and development is Ernie Simpson. A cheerful man with a Jamaican accent, he works out of a small lab at TerraCycle's headquarters.     He's also a physicist who's part of a collaboration with Procter & Gamble to turn plastic trash into new products. In his lab, Simpson has an array of very sophisticated and expensive equipment — a Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer and a calorimeter, which use light or heat, respectively, to determine the chemistry of plastic. What goes into those devices is junk.   Simpson holds up a clear plastic bag. Inside, he says, "is the famous beach plastic from the ocean": wrappers, caps, bottles. To recycle any of it, he has to know what kind of plastic each piece is made of.   How many kinds of plastic are there? "Ohhhh," he sighs. "Indefinite, just about. There are about 20 different categories of material, but there are blends and there are hybrids." Almost all possess their own characteristics, some easily recyclable, many not. Some can be melted down; others shredded mechanically or chemically broken down. They end up as pellets the size of small marbles. These go to fabricators that turn the material back into products.   "And so that's how the famous Head & Shoulders shampoo bottle was created," Simpson says, referring to what P&G calls the "world's first recyclable shampoo bottle made from beach plastic." That's a form of circularity — pouring old plastic into new bottles.   There's a catch though. "This particular one," Simpson says of the beach plastic, "is probably three times as expensive as virgin" — virgin being brand-new plastic made straight from oil and gas out of the ground. This is one of the obstacles to circularity: It costs a lot. There's not a lot of money to be made from recycling to begin with, and it's tough for recycled plastic to compete with virgin plastic made cheap by the boom in U.S. oil and gas production. And there aren't nearly enough recyclers in the U.S. to handle the tsunami of new plastic pouring out of the petrochemical industry.     "Recycling is the underdog," says Keefe Harrison, CEO of the Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit that seeks to boost the industry. "We're fighting an uphill battle to make it cost competitive from day one." One problem, she says, is the U.S. outsourced so much of its recycling to Asia that the domestic industry languished. And there's the fact that plastic manufacturers keep making more and more of it, and consumer brands like Procter & Gamble, Nestlé and Walmart keep wrapping more consumer goods in it.   Harrison explains: "So we've got these companies producing this new packaging and new materials and new plastics in such a scientific- and business-driven way, and then [they] rely on the disjointed network that is recycling to get it back. And [recycling] is not robust." That's an assessment shared by others, such as global financial analysis company IHS Markit.   Several petrochemical companies have joined big consumer brands in pledging to make most of their plastic recyclable, reusable or compostable within the next decade or two. Their group, Alliance to End Plastic Waste, has promised to spend $1.5 billion over five years to do that.   But as environmental groups like Greenpeace and Break Free From Plastic point out, just because something can technically be recycled doesn't mean it will be. There has to be an industry robust enough to do it — and a profit at the end of the day. And, they say, building up recycling allows plastic producers to keep making 300 million tons of new plastic every year (half of which is for single use) and to put the burden of cleaning up the waste on someone else.   Pochiro, of the Association of Plastic Recyclers, says recycling does need help — from consumers, for example. "We're trying to make consumers understand that recycling isn't just about putting your container in the bin," she says. "You also need to buy recycled," meaning products that contain recycled plastic.   There's a growing market for such products, stuff like bottles, clothing, packaging or bags, for example. But it's tough to compete against cheap virgin plastic. Recycling companies need huge investments, and to get that, they have to show they have a market for their products. And for that, Pochiro says, they need commitments — voluntary or mandated by law — by consumer goods companies to buy recycled plastic.   "If a recycler can't be confident enough that they have a market for at least maybe six months to a year," she says, "then they aren't going to want to make that investment in their own facilities" to make more recycled plastic.   But there's a disconnect underlying all this talk by the plastics industry to help recyclers and the circular economy of plastic.   A report from ICIS, a plastics market research company, says the petrochemical industry will likely double its plastic manufacturing capacity from 2016 to 2024. And the American Chemistry Council, which represents, among others, plastics manufacturers, says it expects industry to spend nearly $25 billion to build new plastic manufacturing capacity by 2025. (That compares with the $1.5 billion that the industry plans to spend on cleaning up plastic waste.) The World Economic Forum has issued a report on plastic that predicts a doubling of production in the next two decades.   One thing driving that growth is the belief that demand for petroleum-based fuels will decline — the oil and gas industry is looking to produce more plastics from petrochemicals to take up the slack.   So if a new circular plastics economy recycles — that is, reuses — more old plastic, why is the petrochemical industry spending billions of dollars for a boom in new plastic? Where is all that new plastic going to go? It seems the industry isn't too worried. The American Chemistry Council's analysis includes this statement about new plastic: "In a virtuous cycle, as the manufacturing renaissance accelerates, demand for plastic products will be generated, reinforcing resin [raw plastic] demand."   Essentially, go ahead and make it, and people will find a way to use it.   Interview Transcript:   AILSA CHANG, HOST: Recycling is easy. Right? You put trash in your bin. It gets emptied once a week. It's taken care of - except when it's not. A lot of the plastic in those bins ends up in the ocean. It's in whales' stomachs, on beaches, in rivers. NPR's Christopher Joyce has a story on what recycling can and can't do with all that plastic waste.   CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: At best, about 10% of America's plastic waste gets recycled - and a lot of it in China. But last year, China said, we don't want all that waste anymore. They called their decision National Sword, and it freaked people out in the U.S. What, they asked, are we going to do with all that waste?   UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: So welcome to our session, Life After National Sword - great panelists here.   JOYCE: Last March, executives from companies that package their goods in plastic or who recycle plastic met in Washington, D.C. It was a time of reckoning. John Caturano is recycling manager for Nestle Waters. They sell water in plastic bottles.   JOHN CATURANO: The water bottle has, in some way, become the mink coat or the pack of cigarettes. It's socially not very acceptable to the young folks, and that scares me.   JOYCE: Sunil Bagaria runs a recycling company, GDB International.   SUNIL BAGARIA: For long - forever, we have depended upon shipping our scrap overseas. Let's stop that.   JOYCE: After a couple of days of this, a woman named Kara Pochiro stood up and said, OK. Don't panic.   KARA POCHIRO: Plastic recycling isn't dead. It works. And it's important to protecting our environment. And it's essential to the circular economy.   JOYCE: Pochiro is a vice president of the Association of Plastic Recyclers. The circular economy she refers to is, potentially, a way out of this plastic mess. The idea is essentially this. We need plastic, but we should try to recycle a lot more of it and use it again and again and again. That will eliminate a lot of waste and the need for more brand-new plastic. So why aren't we doing that? I visited the recycler that's trying - TerraCycle - in Trenton, N.J.   ERNIE SIMPSON: I'm Ernie Simpson. I'm the global vice president of R&D for TerraCycle.   JOYCE: Simpson turns plastic waste collected from beaches into new products. Inside his lab, he's got an array of sophisticated and expensive equipment. What goes into it is junk.   SIMPSON: This is the famous beach plastic from the ocean.   JOYCE: Wrappers, caps, bottles - Simpson must first figure out what kind of plastic each piece is made of. Some has to be melted, some shredded, some chemically treated. I ask him how many kinds there are.   SIMPSON: Oh - indefinite, just about. I mean, there are about 20 different categories of material. But there are blends, and there are hybrids.   JOYCE: The beach plastic project is a collaboration with Procter & Gamble, the big consumer brands company. TerraCycle turns the waste into plastic pellets. P&G turns the pellets into brand-new containers.   SIMPSON: And so that's how the famous Head & Shoulders shampoo bottle was created.   JOYCE: That bottle is being touted as an example of circularity. But there's a catch. Recycled beach plastic costs a heck of a lot.   SIMPSON: This particular one is probably about three times as expensive as virgin.   JOYCE: Virgin being new plastic made straight from oil and gas out of the ground. Another problem - there aren't enough recyclers in the U.S. to handle all the plastic waste out there. Even if there were, it's hard to compete with cheap virgin plastic pouring out of petrochemical plants.   KEEFE HARRISON: Recycling is the underdog.   JOYCE: Keefe Harrison runs The Recycling Partnership, a group trying to boost the industry.   HARRISON: We're fighting an uphill battle of making it cost competitive from day one.   JOYCE: Harrison says domestic recycling stalled because, for years, the U.S. outsourced so much of it to China. Meanwhile, plastic waste just keeps coming and coming.   HARRISON: So we've got these companies producing these new packagings (ph) and new materials or new plastics in such a scientifically and business-driven way. And then it relies on the disjointed network that is recycling to get it back, and it is not robust.   HARRISON: Petrochemical companies like Shell and consumer brands like Procter & Gamble have pledged to make more plastic recyclable. But it won't actually get recycled if recyclers can't make money doing that. Kara Pochiro of the Association of Plastic Recyclers, the woman at the Washington conference who said recycling is not dead, is more optimistic. She says the industry just needs some help.   POCHIRO: We're trying to make consumers understand that recycling isn't just about putting your container in the bin. You also need to buy recycled. And if the companies understand that they want recycled plastics, then hopefully that will happen.   JOYCE: But even if circularity catches on, there's a mismatch between recyclers and the petrochemical industry. If packagers really use more recycled plastic, they won't need so much new, virgin plastic. But the petrochemical industry says it will likely double its plastic manufacturing capacity from 2016 to 2024. According to industry documents, they'll spend $25 billion by 2025 to make more plastic. So where is all that new plastic going to go in a world that increasingly wants less of it?