Old car seats. Cigarette butts. Used contact lenses. Most people think of this kind of detritus as future landfill, but Tom Szaky sees all this and more as recyclable. He’s the CEO and founder of TerraCycle and its newest initiative, Loop. Both are circular economy solutions that bridge the gaps between consumers, corporations, and waste. TerraCycle, founded in 2001, is a private recycling company that focuses on capturing and repurposing hard-to-recycle items by partnering with corporations and governments. Loop, launched publicly in mid-2019, takes on the problem of waste even more aggressively by working with brands to provide reusable packaging for common consumer products — think Tide laundry detergent or Häagen-Dazs ice cream. HBR asked Szaky, a global leader on reducing waste, about what he’s learned about how consumers, companies, and the government are — or aren’t — helping to reduce the massive amounts of waste humans create on a daily basis. In this edited interview, he also offers advice for business leaders who are interested in pursuing circular models. You’re sitting in a unique position between brands and consumers. What conversations are you having on each side? And which side is more resistant to the argument for sustainability? In the past two years I’ve seen a big shift in how consumers view waste. They’ve woken up to all the negatives of garbage and have started to see it as more of a crisis. That said, consumers are still voting with their dollar for things that benefit them personally, like convenience, performance, and overall price. They’re very vocal, but they’re not necessarily shifting their actual purchasing. Now, the vocal nature of the consumer alone does create a really exciting thing: Brands are waking up to this trend. Even more so, lawmakers are waking up and passing legislation that is affecting consumer product companies, like banning plastic bags and straws. In France in a few years, takeaway food packaging — plastic plates, cups, and utensils — will not be used if you eat in restaurants. These laws are then creating ripples across the consumer product retail industry. Is your feeling that governments are filling gaps that businesses have left? Or are they nudging consumers along, encouraging them to take the action they profess to support? It’s more complicated than that. Plastic straws weren’t seen as a problem up until maybe two years ago; then they became the icon of what’s wrong with plastic and disposability. After a huge public outcry, lawmakers started passing legislation banning the straw. Then companies proactively banned straws before even more legislation actually took hold. So a push from consumers led lawmakers to take action and then corporations jumped in. Now the plastic straw is effectively dying. But it took all three nudging each other. Tell me about the kinds of conversations you’re having with investors and other stakeholders as part of starting and leading two companies. What’s it like to be in the sustainability sphere, especially as a new startup? We started developing the concept for Loop just two years ago, which absolutely makes it a startup. TerraCycle is 16 years old and more of a growth company. So I have two different perspectives. TerraCycle has grown every year since the beginning, but in the past two years it has exploded. Corporations that wouldn’t have signed with us before are now signing on. And corporations that are signed on are going deeper. We grew our revenue 30% organically in 2019, compared to 2018, and expect the same in 2020. This is driven primarily by everything moving faster and companies wanting to go deeper versus big new surprises or new industries that have been asleep now waking up. In parallel, we also raised about $20 million for Loop Global and about $20 million for TerraCycle US. The key change there is that investors are looking much more for authentic impact investments. This is entirely correlated to garbage becoming a crisis. I don’t think Loop could have existed even five years ago because of the ask. Essentially, we’re asking CPG [consumer packaged goods] companies and retailers to fundamentally redesign packaging and accept major changes to the economics of packaged goods delivery — in other words, to treat packaging as an asset instead of a cost. Because of changing views on garbage, they’re increasingly willing to say yes to that. So what is happening now in the startup world is that more audacious ideas that solve these issues — like Loop — are on the table. Do you think existing companies are going to be able to make this shift? Or is it going to have to be new companies that are entering the market? Both. I think that we’re going to see some organizations die because of this. Others will pivot. And new companies will fill out the balance, just as with any shift. Look at tech, for instance. How many retailers survived it? Some did a great job, right? And some, like specialty big-box retailers — Toys “R” Us, Linens ’n Things, Staples in Europe, et cetera — died in the process. The key in this instance is to pivot and reinvent the organization, noting that this is easier said than done, as it takes tremendous short-term sacrifice. I believe that it won’t be industries or sectors that pivot versus die, but individual companies. Some organizations, like Nestlé, Unilever, and P&G, are taking these issues seriously and making the difficult decisions that may negatively impact the short term but lay the foundation to be relevant in the long term. Inversely, organizations — like many big food companies in the U.S. — are blind to what’s coming and will likely be overtaken by startups that are building their business models around the new reality that is emerging. When you’re having conversations with investors for TerraCycle or Loop, what are they concerned about? What do they want to know? There’s suddenly a lot more interest in this topic in the investment community, and I think investors would tell you that they really think sustainability is almost a requirement for the future. Fifteen years ago, when we were raising capital for TerraCycle, people invested because of impact and purpose; it was like they were considering giving money to an NGO. Today, investors would tell you that they really think sustainability is a requirement for the future. They are looking at the sustainability index not just as “Oh, I am feeling good about where I’m putting my money” — now it’s moved to sustainability being critical for business longevity. A lot of what we’ve seen major corporations do is market sustainability in that “purpose” bucket, and not in the “business” bucket, with pledges and other high-profile commitments. Is this changing? Are large corporations able to move from the emotional bucket to the business bucket the same way investors are? The most famous of the pledges is the Ellen MacArthur Foundation pledge, which more than 400 businesses and organizations have signed, signaling their intent to eliminate their use of new plastic. It basically says that, by 2025, they will make their products compostable, recyclable, and reusable. And they will significantly increase their use of recycled content by this date. Now, let’s be candid about why they’re pledging. Since waste has become a crisis in the past two years, many companies have come to the position that they have to solve it or they will be legislated out of it. The best way to get ahead is to make future promises, partly because you don’t have to do anything between today and the promise day, right? If everyone promises that by 2025 all this great stuff will happen, they are not really responsible in the present. I’ve talked to chief sustainability officers of some of the world’s largest CPG companies who honestly have no idea how they’re going to pull it off. They have no f—cking idea what they’re going to do and are saying things like, “Well, the industry will figure it out.” That’s scary. Here’s what I think will happen come 2025 with this particular promise. There is a difference between the promises to be “recyclable” and made from “recycled content.” In other words, most companies, via the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, have pledged that by 2025 they will be 100% recyclable and independently made from a high percentage (typically 25%) of recycled content. I think that the majority of companies will say that they made their package “technically recyclable” but that the recycling industry is to blame for not then “practically recycling” them. I think maybe 90% of companies making these promises will fail and then point to the fine print, saying, “Oh, we made our packaging recyclable, but the recycling systems don’t have the capability to recycle it today.” That’s going to create a big reckoning that will piss off consumers even more, backfiring on brands. So those 10% that succeed, how do they do that? They’re just getting ahead of it. Here’s an example: Some companies are now buying futures on recycled plastic so they know they will have the volume, which is an unheard-of thing in procuring plastic. A good example is Nestlé. The key line in their recent press release is this: “To create a market, Nestlé is therefore committed to sourcing up to 2 million metric tons of food-grade recycled plastics and allocating more than CHF 1.5 billion to pay a premium for these materials between now and 2025.” One of the things that interest me about your company is how you collaborate with so many companies. How difficult is this? Could you go it alone? We absolutely need to collaborate. These are systemic problems, and to solve the system you need multi-stakeholder collaboration. Loop could only exist with massive multi-stakeholder collaboration. There would be no other way to pull it off. And I think we need more and more of that. What makes collaborations like this work? Trade groups and consortiums don’t work. The problem with an industry group, at least in my experience, is to get the group together so they can publicly say that there is a multi-stakeholder discussion. But the outcomes are usually nothing. So how do we create true multi-stakeholder system change? Because if you’re going to change the system, you need all the stakeholders to agree. With Loop, we consciously tried to create a multi-stakeholder collaboration. And look at what happened: It’s working. We’re adding a brand every two days since we launched, and most major multinational CPG companies have joined: Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, et cetera. We’ve also added a retailer every three weeks since our launch, including retailers around the world. Loop is live in France (via Carrefour) and the U.S. (via Kroger and Walgreens) via e-com, and is expanding in both countries to in-store later this year. It is also launching in Canada (via Loblaw), the UK (via Tesco), Germany (via a retailer we will announce in February), and Japan (via AEON), all this year. And finally, we have seen tremendously positive consumer insights — people want Loop, and they like the experience when they get access to it. I don’t see too many companies with similar models out there yet. Loop is a major systems change that requires a large coalition of multi-stakeholders. That is, no company can do it on their own — everyone has to act together. What I am seeing is a lot of groups calling us and saying, “How did you do the Loop thing, and how can we apply that type of system or process to whatever our topic may be?” They ask this because, typically, multi-stakeholder collaborations are slow and hard to drive results from. What do you tell them? I tell them that you cannot run such a platform by committee. There needs to be a “chair” that makes the decisions, even if the decisions are unpopular, and creates the urgency to make sure everything is moving forward quickly. You also set public deadlines that everyone can agree to. For example, it’s why we launched at the World Economic Forum last year — that was a deadline everyone could align on.

At work, I go through a lot of disposable pens from companies like Bic and Paper Mate. Can these be recycled? How much waste do they produce? Is there a case to make for bringing back the fountain pen as an alternative? What exactly does an ecofriendly pen look like?   —Jonathan in Oakland, California    Bic sells an average of 57 pens per second. It’s hard to recycle pens because they’re too small for machines to sort and they’re made of hard-to-separate materials. You can pay Terracycle to downcycle pens, pencils, and markers (and almost anything) into things like benches. It'd be greener if they would recycle pens into pens.     I scoured the internet for a week for better solutions and called pen and ink creators. The Greenest Pen award (drumroll please) goes to Bonnie’s Bits and Things. She collects bamboo (a weed) from people who don’t want them. She teaches kids to dip 100-percent bamboo pens in soy sauce because it doesn’t stain. The greenest My Boss Might Let Me Use This Ink award goes to The Constant Forager who uses walnuts she forages, lists all ingredients (which sound edible), and packs inkwells with lichen instead of plastic padding. I asked if both would ship in reused (even ugly) packaging. She said yes!   The next greenest pens are Pilot’s B2P refillable pens made with 89-percent post-consumer recycled waste from plastic bottles (the highest percent I found). But each nonrecyclable refill comes in plastic packaging. If you have the budget, you can try piston-fill fountain pens with a window showing the ink level. Avoid ones with single-use ink cartridges, which are nonrecyclable. According to economist Jonathan Deans, it’s hard to say if they're greener than Bic nonrefillable pens. Also, pens in general might be made with metals from polluting mines with human rights violations.   So yes, you can borrow my weed pen.

• 
• When it comes to packaging, aesthetics matter.
• With Loop, companies treat packaging like an asset.
• Brands are using Loop to learn about customer habits.

  When he founded TerraCycle in 2001, Tom Szaky was in the business of keeping tough-to-recycle products out of landfills. In 2019, he expanded that mandate with a service called Loop, which focuses on reusing packaging instead of merely recycling it. In partnership with several well-known brands, Loop offers household goods from olive oil to laundry detergent in reusable containers that are either delivered direct to consumers or available through two major retail outlets, then collects, cleans and refills them—much like a modern-day milkman. When Szaky sought to better understand why people were purchasing items through Loop, he was surprised by the results. Survey data revealed that two-thirds of Loop customers were mainly drawn to the program because of its packaging design; only one-third prioritized the sustainability aspect. Since Loop is all about saving the planet by eliminating waste, Szaky had expected the inverse. “A better experience with packaging is the primary driver,” Szaky told Adweek. “The secondary driver is sustainability.” Earlier this week, during a presentation at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference in New York, Szaky stressed the importance of aesthetics in consumer decision-making. While people often buy shampoo twice as often as they buy conditioner, Loop shoppers purchase an equal amount of Pantene shampoo and conditioner, according to Szaky. Why? Although he didn’t disclose exact figures, internal polling revealed that people thought the bottles—which come in a matching gold-and-white color scheme, and feature images of sea life—looked good together. But it’s not just about beauty. Szaky argued that tubs of Häagen-Dazs ice cream sold on Loop are simply better than the typical cardboard cartons found at grocery stores because they’re dual-layered, providing thermal insulation so that consumers’ hands remain warm while the ice cream stays frozen. The inside of the container is also concave, making the ice cream easier to scoop out. Szaky added that even the product itself can benefit from better packaging. The team at Coca-Cola apparently told him Coke tastes best in a glass bottle, then aluminum, then plastic. One key change that allows for better packaging design through the Loop system, as opposed to a convenience store or vending machine, is the transfer of package ownership from consumer to manufacturer, Szaky said. When a company is responsible for a durable container meant for multiple uses, it’s treated like an asset as opposed to the cost of goods sold. Since Loop requires a security deposit with each purchase, companies are given extra leeway to invest even more money into their packaging design, generating better functions and features. “Can you imagine what you could do with a package budget of $30 per unit?” he said. He noted that customers have shown little to no sensitivity to the deposit price, either. A can of Clorox disinfecting wipes, for instance, costs $5.49 to purchase, plus an additional $10 deposit. Despite this, Szaky said Clorox wipes are one of the top five best selling products on the site. Last week, another Clorox brand, Glad, began selling sandwich bags on Loop for $4.99 with a $10 deposit. Once ordered, consumers receive 100 plastic bags in a square metal tin, along with a yellow zippered pouch to put the used bags in for recycling later. According to Nick Higgins, Glad’s marketing director, the package took six weeks to design, and consumer feedback throughout the process was positive. “If you think about our traditional manufacturing system, it’s been engineered to deliver products in a way that people use them and then it’s their responsibility for how they ultimately want to dispose of them,” Higgins said. While it’s still too early to tell how Glad’s metal tin is performing on Loop, Higgins said the brand is excited to gain insights into how people might reuse its products. “As a brand, we want to continue to make progress in this area,” he said. “Using something like Loop as a learning partner to understand consumer habits and practices, and the business models associated with that, is what makes this really attractive to us.” Loop, which debuted in May 2019 in select cities in the U.S. and France, is scheduled to roll out in the U.K., Canada, Germany and Japan later this year. Presently, the platform works with retailers Walgreens and Kroger, and about 100 major CPG conglomerates, including Pepsi, Nestle, Unilever and Procter & Gamble. While Loop has yet to make an official announcement, Szaky said the company will soon reveal new partnerships with a fast-food company and high-end cosmetics brand.         Szaky added that since Loop began, it has, on average, added a new brand every two days and a new retailer every three weeks. While the program remains in test mode, he’s optimistic that Loop will continue to grow. “Disposability is our competition,” he said. “It’s an easy enemy to hate, thank God.”

Três pioneiros em sustentabilidade levaram os participantes do NRF Retail’s Big Show, em uma jornada por alguns impressionantes modelos de negócios da cadeia de suprimentos.

Do you know about Staples Canada’s Superpower your School contest? Participating Canadian elementary and secondary schools have a chance to win one of 10 prizes of $20,000 in new technology. Can you imagine what your school would do with $20,000 of tech?! This contest is an inspiration for students, educators, and parents to kick-start positive eco-initiatives in their schools.

ABOUT THE STAPLES CANADA SUPERPOWER YOUR SCHOOL CONTEST

  This is the 10th anniversary of Staples Canada’s Superpower your School contest. Partnering with EcoKids and Earth Day Canada, Staples Canada invites entries from now to January 31, 2020 on the contest website, staples.ca/PowerEco. So don’t wait…surf over now and enter!  

WHY IS THIS CONTEST IMPORTANT FOR OUR KIDS?

  Environmental leadership and responsibility is all around our children right now. From recycling plastics in their lunches to reusing paper for crafts.   Students are eco-leaders every time they put something in the recycling bin. The school community is a prime setting to further encourage kids (and their adults) to grow environmental knowledge and create a sustainable, long term, promise to create a healthier world.  

HOW CAN SCHOOLS HELP THE ENVIRONMENT?

 

• Writing Instrument Recycling. (drop off at store locations) Did you know you can recycle used writing instruments, like pens, pencils, markers and highlighters? I put them in the recycling at home but it didn’t occur to me that this can be done at schools. Your school can create a drop-box for used writing instruments and then deliver them to any Staples Canada store for them to be shipped to TerraCycle for recycling.
• Battery Recycling. (drop off at store locations) I know our school has a battery recycling box for rechargeable and alkaline batteries. I’ve sent used batteries to school myself; making this a school and home eco-friendly solution. Staples Canada has partnered with Call2Recycle for recycling of batteries.
• Electronics Recycling. (drop off at store locations) E-waste can be a big problem for landfills. Staples Canada and partner eCycle Solutions accept recyclable items accepted including cell phones, computers, computer parts and more at stores (excluding locations in Calgary, Alberta).
• School Ink Recycling. Another landfill problem…used ink cartridges. Yuck! Your school can sign up for a free ink bin at canadaschoolrecycling.ca.

$20,000 IN NEW TECHNOLOGY!

  We know that Staples Canada is The Working and Learning Company and an inspiring partner to teachers, students and parents. Heck, I am there often to pick up school supplies as well as shopping for my home office gear. They are certainly my partner. And they are partners to your students as well. $20,000 in new technology could be a game-changer to your school. New computers? Printers? Tablets? Gosh, I know our school would certainly make use of new tech in all their classes. Our schools benefit from this contest and encouraging community-based, eco-friendly, programs benefit our kids’ futures. I think we should spread the word!

Even if you’re diligent about cleaning your empty salad containers and rinsing out metal cans before you plunk them in a paper grocery bag (aka your recycling bin), chances are there are plenty of could-be recyclables that make it into your trash regardless. It’s not that you’re being thoughtless; it’s that, if we’re being honest, knowing what can be reused (and what can’t) is kind of confusing. But it turns out that you can recycle way more than just newspapers and bottles.   No, that doesn’t mean you can just leave your empty makeup bottles and old CDs curbside—that’s because recycling policies vary depending on where you live. Thankfully, there are a few nationwide organizations that will accept the things you can’t just leave in that blue bin, either via mail or at drop-off locations. Here are some of the surprising items that they’ll take:  

Plastic Bags

You try to always remember your reusable grocery bags, but sometimes, you still end up collecting a plastic bag here or there—it happens. The good news is that you can easily dispose of them (and other “plastic film” products like Bubble Wrap, shipping bubbles, and produce bags) in recycling receptacles around your neighborhood. Just search for your zip code at PlasticFilmRecycling.org to find a grocery store or major retailer that accepts them. (For example, Target and Whole Foods both participate). But no matter what, don’t put them in with your other recyclables because they can damage recycling equipment.  

Contact Lenses

Even it’s 1 a.m., resist tossing your contact lenses in the sink or toilet—when you do, they can end up polluting the ocean. The trash is okay, but it still brings them to the landfill. Luckily, there’s an even better solution: Send them over to TerraCycle, an organization that collects recyclable waste (all you have to do is bring it to a drop-off location or, for some items, pop it in the mail). Through its partnership with Bausch + Lomb, the company collects both contacts and blister cases from any brand to properly clean and recycle them.  

Makeup Packaging

Save your mascara wands, and you’ll be saving animals—amazing, right? You can send used, cleaned wands to Wands for Wildlife, an organization that uses them to remove fly eggs and larva from the fur and feathers of animals in wildlife rehabilitation. One thing, though: The group only collects wands during February and October. (Your remaining mascara tubes—and lipstick, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and pretty much any other beauty product packaging—can be recycled through TerraCycle.)  

Toothbrushes and Toothpaste

One billion toothbrushes are thrown away in the U.S. each year—that’s a whole lot of nonbiodegradable plastic. Making the switch to bamboo might be a good thing to consider, but for now, you can send worn-down toothbrushes (and empty toothpaste tubes and empty floss containers) to TerraCycle, which, thanks to a partnership with Colgate, ensures they’re recycled.  

All Kinds of Electronics

You probably already know to trade in or donate old phones and computers, but that’s not all the tech that can be repurposed. Google has its own recycling program for its devices, and Apple will also accept tools like printers, speakers, and keyboards. You can also save those scratched-up CDs and DVDs from the landfill through CD Recycling Center of America. And guess what? Those stacks of VHS tapes in your childhood bedroom can go to Green Disk, too.  

Snack Bags

Can’t knock that afternoon snack habit? Don’t beat yourself up about it. Instead, make a habit of collecting chip bags until you have a good amount to recycle through TerraCycle’s partnership with Sensible Portions, which accepts clean family-size and individual-size bags from any snack brand. See, your Flaming Hot Cheetos obsession can be turned into a good thing after all.

Depois de abrir os olhos, um dos primeiros movimentos da professora de educação física e empresária Ana Lucia Zattar Coelho, 46 anos, na manhã do dia 1º de janeiro deste ano,  ainda deitada, foi pegar o celular. Dali de sua cama, ao publicar um post no Facebook, iniciava inconscientemente uma daquelas “correntes do bem” que parecem viralizar do nada. Em cerca de dez dias, o número de seguidores do perfil Ana Catadora, criado pela empresária em 2018, passou de 1.015 para 3,5 mil no Facebook e de 697 para 9 mil no Instagram, sem nenhum patrocínio. O assunto da postagem? Suas resoluções sustentáveis para 2020.

Estamos lançando uma campanha para o descarte correto de materiais de escrita. A ideia é estimular a reciclagem e, ao mesmo tempo, ajudar o meio ambiente, escolas e ONGs. Essa ação é promovida pela Faber-Castell. Eles custeiam o envio e a reciclagem dos materiais através da TerraCycle (https://www.terracycle.com/pt-BR).Podem ser doados itens de quaisquer marcas e o que for arrecadado será convertido em produtos verdes que vão de bancos de jardim, lixeiras e até mochilas, além disso, a cada remessa de material