It’s the early 1960s. Girls are fainting over the Beatles, Sean Connery is James Bond and a revolutionary trend is sweeping the nation: Plastic. Plastic is about to have its breakthrough moment in the food industry. The plastic milk jug, specifically, is on the brink of taking off: the “market potential is huge,” the New York Times correctly notes. To American families, a third of which are still getting their milk from a milk man, plastic is a wonder package. It’s lighter than glass. It doesn’t break. Unlike paper cartons, it’s translucent. You can see how much liquid is left in the jug. With a plastic container, everybody wins. Except for the milk man. And, as it would turn out, the planet. Recycling is a failing industry.” TOM SZAKY, TERRACYCLE CEO Fast forward to now. Plastics are expected to outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050.  Marine life is choking on the debris: Microplastics are in our soil, our water, our air, getting into our bodies with potential consequences that we don't fully understand yet. Massive amounts of plastic have piled up in landfills, some emitting greenhouse gases and contributing to global warming over the seeming eternity they take to degrade. Plastics are threatening the health of the planet and its inhabitants, and they’re not going away. Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Danone, Mars Petcare, Mondelēz International and others — some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies — are partnering on a potential solution to limit future waste. They’re working together on a project known as Loop, to be announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday. It offers consumers an alternative to recycling — a system that isn't working well these days. At this point, the partners are testing the waters. It’s an experiment they’ll roll out to several thousand consumers in New York and Paris this May, with plans to expand to London later in 2019 and Toronto, Tokyo and San Francisco in 2020. The Loop tote bag (Mark Kauzlarich for CNN) Loop is a new way to shop, offering about 300 items — from Tide detergent to Pantene shampoo, Häagen-Dazs ice cream to Crest mouthwash — all in reusable packaging. After using the products, customers put the empty containers in a Loop tote on their doorstep. The containers are then picked up by a delivery service, cleaned and refilled, and shipped out to consumers again. In other words, it’s the 21st century milk man — here to save the world from single-use plastics. Maybe. From trash in Trenton to a global stage Two years ago, Tom Szaky traveled from Trenton, New Jersey to Davos with a half-baked idea and a loose plan to pitch it to the leaders of the world’s biggest brands. Szaky, now 37, is the CEO of TerraCycle, a modest waste management company. TerraCycle expects its global 2018 sales to amount to $32 million and is currently trying to raise $25 million from small investors. A Princeton dropout with big ideas and a casual demeanor, Szaky spent the first years of his career talking about “worm poop,” a phrase he used to market his fertilizer business in a way that got him a ton of media attention. By the time he was 24, he had landed contracts with Walmart and Home Depot. His mission — to eliminate waste first and make a profit second — is so seductive, some employees have taken major pay cuts to work for TerraCycle. The company’s Trenton headquarters is decorated with garbage; Szaky’s office walls are hanging curtains made from empty plastic bottles. Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle and the brains behind Loop. (Mark Kauzlarich for CNN) At Davos, he said, a certain vibe made top business leaders amenable to his idea. “Have you ever been to Burning Man?” Szaky asked during an interview with CNN Business. “The closest comparison —and it’s a weird comparison to me — is going to Burning Man.” At Burning Man, the annual week-long event where participants build a temporary community in the Nevada desert, people inherently trust each other, he said. At Davos, he was able to approach any business leader and, because of a similar type of openness, be granted an audience.

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Szaky was at Davos in 2017 because TerraCycle had helped Procter & Gamble launch a line of Head & Shoulders shampoo that came in bottles made with plastic collected from beaches. While he was there, Szaky — a slick, charismatic pitchman — landed a spot on stage with the CEOs of Walmart, Alibaba and Heineken. He also secured short meetings with the leaders of consumer packaged goods companies and pitched them on his big idea. Szaky asked companies to think differently about who owns their packaging. Today, companies sell consumers both the product and the package it comes in. Ultimately, it’s up to the customer — and also the municipality where they live — whether an empty bottle gets recycled or tossed in a landfill. Under the current system, the fate of the bottle is out of the manufacturer’s hands, so companies aim to produce the cheapest possible packages, Szaky said. But what if, instead, the manufacturer retained ownership of the bottle by collecting and reusing it? The company could count it as a longer-term asset on its balance sheet and depreciate it over time. Under that system, the manufacturer would be incentivized to invest more resources in an elegant, durable design, Szaky argued. At Szaky’s pitch meetings, some important subtext went unsaid. The plastic waste that ends up in landfills and oceans has the logos of the world’s biggest brands all over it. He had specifically targeted companies that were featured on a Greenpeace list of worst plastics polluters, because he knew they had a potential public relations crisis on their hands. “I don’t have to rub this in their face,” Szaky said, because the companies are “painfully” aware of their reputations. The consumer goods giants got on board. And after that trip, Szaky got serious about making Loop a reality by Davos 2019. Now, eight of the 10 companies mentioned in the Greenpeace report are Loop partners. How it works Loop customers have to make an account and fill up a basket online. The prices for the items should be comparable to what they would be at a nearby store, Szaky said. In addition to the regular cost of the item, customers must put down a fully refundable deposit for each package. The deposit varies from about 25 cents for a bottle of Coca-Cola to $47 for a Pampers diaper bin (which TerraCycle said eliminates the need for a Diaper Genie). Shipping becomes free after the customer buys about five to seven items, depending on the size and bulk of the products.

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In the United States, the items arrive via UPS in a Loop tote bag.  Frozen items, like ice cream, come in a cooler within the tote. As customers go through products — use all the shampoo, eat all the ice cream — they fill up the totes with the empties. Unlike traditional recyclables, the packages don’t need to be washed. At the end of the cycle, a UPS driver picks up the tote. Customers can keep repeating the cycle or opt out and recover their deposit. Even banged up packages earn back the deposit — customers only lose that money if they fail to make a return. When the packages are no longer suitable for use, TerraCycle recycles them. Loop may be convenient for users in some ways, but there are potential drawbacks. Szaky acknowledged that it’s a lot to ask people to use yet another retail website. He hopes that Loop will eventually be integrated into existing online shops, including Amazon. “We’re not trying to harm or cannibalize retailers,” Szaky said. “We’re trying to offer a plug-in that could make them better.” Already, two large retailers, Carrefour in France and Tesco in the United Kingdom, are Loop partners and more may join the project. Eventually, Loop packages may also be sold on store shelves. Shoppers who want to be a part of Loop’s soft launch in May have to apply. The first group of users will be selected based on location and overall interest in the platform, according to TerraCycle. The test will allow Loop to iron out any kinks before the program is open to the broader public, Szaky said.  

The engineering challenge

Partner companies have to pay to participate in Loop. Szaky didn’t disclose the buy-in amount, but said it’s in the low six figures. On top of that, many are redesigning their traditional packages — an expensive endeavor that could cost another seven figures, Szaky said. Szaky said TerraCycle asked the Loop partners to design packages that can survive at least 100 reuses. Rick Zultner, TerraCycle’s director of product and process development, is more measured; he called that figure a “nice goal to meet.” “Some things can definitely meet that,” Zultner said, adding that if the packages are reused at least 10 times, they’re probably still better for the environment than single-use plastics. TerraCycle needs to conduct its beta test to make sure that hypotheses like these are right. “There is a fundamental advantage of reuse versus recycle,” Virginie Helias, Procter & Gamble’s chief sustainability officer, said. But “we need to have certain conditions” to make it work, she added. Carbon emissions from trucking and other factors could outweigh the environmental benefits of Loop if packages are only reused a few times, or if the transportation system is too spread out. Loop has conducted life-cycle analyses to try to estimate the environmental impact in a variety of situations. To maximize the number of reuses, Loop packages are made out of durable materials like stainless steel, aluminum, glass and engineered plastic, which is stronger than disposable plastic.

Single-use vs. Loop’s reusable packages

         

Loop/CNN

Loop packages are sleek and innovative. Degree’s refillable deodorant in silver and white looks like something Apple would make. Ingredients and, when relevant, nutritional information for all products appear in an insert inside the Loop tote instead of on the packages. In Paris, Loop users can recycle soiled Pampers diapers and Always menstrual pads in this bin. (Procter & Gamble) One package — a bin launched by Procter & Gamble in the Paris test — is designed to hold soiled Pampers diapers and Always menstrual pads. It has a carbon filter to block odors. The hygiene items, which are traditionally thrown out, are instead recycled, while the bin is sanitized and sent out again. Nestlé’s new Häagen-Dazs container, part of the New York launch, is designed to keep ice cream cool in the Loop tote and cooler for 24 to 36 hours. Kim Peddle-Rguem, president of Nestlé’s US ice cream division, called the redesign a “torture test.” It took 15 tries to get the container, a double-walled stainless steel vessel, right. In one prototype, the ice cream wouldn’t harden at a critical stage. Another package was too difficult for customers to open. For now, Nestlé is making 20,000 containers for the Loop test. Five flavors will be available: Strawberry, vanilla, non-dairy chocolate salted fudge truffle, non-dairy coconut caramel and non-dairy mocha chocolate cookie. Häagen-Dazs Loop containers. (Brinson+Banks for CNN) Because the test is so small, Nestlé isn’t making Loop products in any other facility — which means it has to truck everything from California to the East Coast. If the project takes off, Nestlé will rethink that route to make sure it’s environmentally sound. “This process isn’t yet perfect and we know it will need to continue to be updated and refined,” said Peddle-Rguem. “We will be analyzing all parts of the process, including shipping and how many times consumers are reusing the container to find those areas for adjustment.” A plastics crisis Consumer goods companies say their customers are demanding more environmentally-friendly packaging. “We’re seeing that very clearly in our research,” said Procter & Gamble’s Helias, adding that wasteful packaging is “becoming a deterrent for purchase.” Mondelēz, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and others are aiming to make all or some of their packaging out of recycled materials by 2025. Szaky doesn’t think they’ll be able to pull it off. “Recycling is a failing industry,” he said. Roughly 30% of US recyclables are exported overseas. But in 2017, China — then the world’s largest importer of waste and scrap  — stopped accepting unsorted paper and some types of plastic from other countries, throwing the US recycling system into a tailspin. The Chinese ban left many communities scrambling for a new place to send their recyclable waste. Some municipalities halted curbside pickup for recycling, others recycled fewer items or raised prices. The operators of some recycling facilities reportedly stashed recyclable waste, looking for a new buyer, but ultimately dumped it in landfills. Unaware consumers may continue as usual, without realizing their recyclables aren’t being recycled at all. Last year, “we saw a global shift in how recycling works,” said Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit group that uses corporate funding to help develop recycling infrastructure. We want to put an end to the current ‘take-make-dispose’ culture and are committed to taking big steps towards designing our products for re-use.” ALAN JOPE, CEO OF UNILEVER China’s ban is not the only reason that recycling is struggling. Ironically, an effort to reduce packaging called lightweighting — making plastic packages, like water bottles, lighter as a way to use less plastic and reduce the amount of fuel needed to move packages by truck — poses recycling challenges because light packages fly off recycling conveyor belts and get lost. Plus, low oil prices make it cheaper for companies to just make plastic from scratch, Szaky noted. Overall, about 91% of all the plastic waste ever created has never been recycled — a statistic so “concerning,” the Royal Statistical Society named it the 2018 international statistic of the year. Recycling is not the best way to cut down on waste. “Preventing in the first place is always better than cleaning up after,” Harrison noted. If Loop works correctly, it would do just that. The question is: will it work?

When garbage was glamorous

Single-use packages were touted as convenient and elegant in mainstream media from the 1930s to 1960s.

     

   

Sourced from Life Magazine

Can the milk man make a comeback? For the largest players, Loop is a relatively small experiment. The partners are among the largest advertisers in the world. If they wanted to, they could throw their full weight behind promoting reusable packaging. But at this point, the companies are moving forward with caution and pointing to Loop as one part of their broader sustainability efforts. Nestlé will decide after about 12 weeks whether or not to expand its participation with Loop. Other partners are giving Loop more time. Unilever will evaluate the project over the course of about 12 months. “We want to put an end to the current ‘take-make-dispose’ culture and are committed to taking big steps towards designing our products for re-use,” Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever, said in a statement. Unilever is testing nine brands in the Loop launch, including Axe, Dove and Degree deodorants, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Seventh Generation soaps. Like Nestlé, the company will evaluate the project’s success by tracking the number of repeat customers. We’re “not yet worried about the financial side of this,” said David Blanchard, Unilever’s chief research and development officer, noting the company is more interested in evaluating whether Loop triggers a “behavior change” among some consumers. It’s easy to see how Loop could fail. It asks customers to completely rethink how they shop. It asks them to dole out deposit money upfront, something many people can’t afford to do. It assumes that, all things being equal, people prefer their detergent in a spiffy container and their deodorant in a sleek pod. In reality, people may not care. Loop could be a dreamy, idealistic house of cards. But it also could work. Small dairies throughout the country are already reviving the milk man by offering delivery services. And it’s not just milk. Refillable beer growlers are staging a comeback, with Whole Foods and Kroger offering in-store beer taps. Startups are trying to help people refill reusable soap containers at home, and millions of consumers are already refilling SodaStream bottles in their kitchens, a sign that there’s a market for reusable bottles. If there’s ever a time that these new models can succeed, it’s now, said Bridget Croke, who leads external affairs for Closed Loop Partners, which invests in recycling technologies and sustainable consumer goods. (Despite the similar name, Closed Loop Partners has no formal relationship with TerraCycle’s Loop project.) To make Loop work, she added, TerraCycle will “need the right investments, the right consumer goods partners.” And “they’re going to really need to understand how to make the consumer experience better than what they have today.” And with so many big companies on board, they have a “solid shot,” she said. Photo Illustration: Getty Images / Loop / CNN If TerraCycle manages to find a solution to plastics pollution — to dust off the milk man, spruce him up, give him a website and get people to shop — things will start to change. “Once these trends start to shift,” Croke noted, “then it starts to catch fire.” Szaky hopes that by the 2060s — a century after plastics came on the food scene —  things will have come full circle. “Hopefully 50 years from now,” Szaky said, “we look at waste as a strange anomaly and we’re happy it’s over.”

Major brands are testing out reusable packaging in an attempt to cut down on plastic waste. By Gaby Del Valle@gabydvjgaby.delvalle@voxmedia.com  Jan 24, 2019, 5:10pm EST SHARE Häagen-Dazs ice cream in a reusable metal container. Loop Some of the world’s biggest companies, including Unilever, Nestlé, and PepsiCo, are rolling out reusable packaging for certain products in an attempt to phase out single-use plastics — and to alleviate their own reputations as polluters. This move, still in the planning stages, is a necessary step in shifting the conversation on reducing carbon emissions from a consumer focus to one that holds companies responsible. Starting in May, Unilever’s Axe and Dove deodorants will come in refillable steel containers that are expected to last eight years. PepsiCo will start selling Tropicana orange juice in glass bottles and certain flavors of Quaker cereal in steel containers. Häagen-Dazs, owned by Nestlé, will come in refillable stainless steel tins. Procter & Gamble’s Pantene shampoo will come in aluminum bottles, and its Tide brand detergent will come in stainless steel containers. The idea is to get consumers to cut back on the single-use plastics that have become an indispensable part of everyday life. Businesses and consumers have long concentrated on the third “R” in “reduce, reuse, recycle,” but with this initiative, companies are renewing focus on the first two. (By the way, an estimated 25 percent of all recyclable products end up in landfills anyway.) And instead of encouraging changes on the supply side — i.e., putting the onus for sustainable living on the consumer, which was a common theme in arguments about whether plastic straws should be banned — this move indicates that companies are starting to accept their outsize contribution to global carbon emissions. This initiative, which is part of a partnership with the recycling company TerraCycle, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, suggests that businesses are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the suggestion that their practices contribute to global pollution. “I sometimes wonder if it’s a fair accusation that we’re in the branded litter business,” Unilever CEO Alan Jope reportedly said at a conference this week. Helping people cut down on plastics is certainly a good way of challenging that accusation, but there’s a catch. For now, the TerraCycle program is in a pilot phase. It will be available to 5,000 shoppers in Paris and New York City in May, according to the Journal’s report, and will expand to London later this year and to 10 additional cities, including Toronto and Tokyo, in 2020. Here’s how it works: Consumers who get selected for the trial get the chance to order hundreds of products online. Those products arrive in a reusable tote bag with no extra packaging. Once the containers are empty, TerraCycle picks them up, cleans them, and delivers refilled containers back to customers. “People talk about recyclability and reuse and say they’d like to be involved in helping the environment, so let’s see if it’s true,” Simon Lowden, the president of PepsiCo’s global snacks group, told the Journal. “You simply have to start somewhere to test it and see what the barriers are and who actually buys into the model,” David Blanchard, chief of research and development at Unilever, told the paper. It’s not surprising that these companies would want to test out costly new initiatives before offering them to the general public. But given the urgency of climate change — an October 2018 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said we have just 12 years to make unprecedented changes if we want to stave off the worst effects of global warming — it’s worth asking whether a lack of consumer interest or a perceived lack of sufficient profits will prevent reusable products from being offered to a wider consumer base. Nestlé, one of the companies participating in the TerraCycle initiative, is also planning to phase out many of its single-use plastic products and make all of its packaging recyclable by 2025. The company plans to completely eliminate certain “hard to recycle” plastics — like films, ice cream cone wrappers, and laminated paper cups — from its packaging. As Fast Company’s Mark Wilson pointed out, this isn’t going to come cheap — there’s “no immediate financial gain” to be made from going green. Companies can either absorb those costs, as Nestlé appears to be doing here, or pass them on to shoppers, which seems to be the case with the TerraCycle program. According to the Journal’s report, the reusable versions will cost “roughly the same” as their single-use counterparts, but users will have to pay deposits of $1 to $10 per container. Shipping starts at approximately $20. Given a choice between cheaper single-use products and more expensive reusable ones, why wouldn’t a cash-strapped shopper go with the cheaper option? (The answer, of course, is existential guilt and fear of watching a climate catastrophe play out in their lifetime, but not everyone can afford to go green.) Megacorporations aren’t the only ones redesigning products to make them more eco-friendly. The period underwear company Thinx recently designed a reusable tampon applicator that retails for $60, and other startups are making reusable versions of common household products like plastic wrap and Ziploc bags. In a world where consumers are often blamed for not being green enough — remember all the debates about whether banning plastic straws is actually good for the environment? — the TerraCycle program, despite being in its initial stages, suggests a future where the onus for changing consumption habits is placed on corporations rather than individuals.  

Today, global recycling giant TerraCycle is announcing its plan to make single-use plastic a thing of the past. The company unveiled its new initiative, Loop, at the World Economic Forum in Davos alongside massive brand partners such as Unilever, Procter & Gamble Company, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo. They have all agreed to veer away from disposable packaging and distribute more food, beauty, and personal care products in reusable packaging. The kicker? TerraCycle will activate postal services around the world to pick up people's empties right from their home. It's similar to a curbside recycling service, except the "trash" collected won't have to be broken down and reassembled. In fact, it won't really be trash at all—just a container that can be used again and again. "When consumers purchase virtually any product, they don't want the packaging. Loop solves for that." Eric Rosen, a publicist for TerraCycle tells mindbodygreen. Beyond being convenient for consumers, this more circular supply chain is better for the planet. And the fact that some of the biggest companies in the world are already signing on to it means that the day of reckoning for single-use plastic could (finally!!!) be upon us. Why reusable is the way of the future. "The garbage problem just keeps getting worse and worse," TerraCycle founder and CEO Tom Szaky told mbg last spring. China's decision to stop accepting foreign recyclables has left many countries with a backlog of trash, a reminder that to really get our waste under control, we all need to look beyond the blue bin. "Recycling is like Tylenol: You take it when you have a headache, but there are better ways to never get the headache to begin with," Szaky said. In an ideal world, we'd all buy a lot less—and the things we do buy wouldn't result in any trash. Loop is the first program of its kind to get so many manufacturers on board with shifting from a disposable mindset to a more durable one. "With this program, the idea of waste is eliminated," beams Rosen. Article continues below How Loop will make your recycling bin way lighter. In March, Loop will launch its first pilot program in Paris, followed by one in the New York City area. Consumers who sign on will be able to go online and order products from the Loop website (think: Häagen-Dazs ice cream that comes in a reusable can and Clorox disinfecting wipes in a sturdy metal dispenser), which will be delivered to their door in a special tote that Rosen likens to a big cooler. "When the tote gets filled back up with empties, it's sent back to Loop. All of the packaging is then cleaned in a state-of-the-art cleaning system that is also new and has been developed for each of the products," he explains. From there, each container is cleaned, sanitized, refilled, and sent back out. The idea is that when your tote is en route back to Loop, a new one will already be on its way back to you. Needless to say, this system will make shopping for household staples a whole lot easier. "Part of the allure of Loop is the convenience that comes with it," says Rosen. The convenience factor is key; it busts the myth that living more sustainably has to be a sacrifice. If you're eager to try out this program, keep an eye on Loop's website for instructions on how to sign up. In the meantime, check out other companies looking to disrupt the retail model and push for a more circular economy, such as For Days, a subscription apparel company that lets you send in old shirts to be broken down and spun into new garments, and Harper Wilde, a bra company that offers a similar service.

A new shopping platform announced Thursday at the World Economic Forum aims to change the way we buy many brand-name products. Loop, as the platform is called, would do away with disposable containers for things like shampoo and laundry detergent from some of the world’s biggest manufacturers. Instead, those goods will be delivered in sleek, reusable containers that will be picked up at your door, washed and refilled. “Loop is about the future of consumption. And one of the tenets is that garbage shouldn’t exist,” says Tom Szaky, CEO of the Trenton, New Jersey-based international recycling company TerraCycle, which is behind Loop. “Removing plastics from the ocean is not enough. We need to get at the whole idea of disposability and single-use items,” says Szaky. “We’re going back to the milkman model of the 1950s. You buy the milk but the milk company owns the bottle, which you leave in the milk box to be picked up when you’re done with it.” Companies partnering with Loop include Nestle, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and other top brands. “Our goal is that by 2030, all of our packaging will be reusable or recyclable,” says Virginie Helias, vice president and chief sustainability officer at Procter & Gamble. Loop, she said, “is a very new idea and somewhat risky because no one has tried it. But the response has been very positive, and we’ve selected 10 of our brands to be a part of the pilot project, with a plan to add more later pending positive results.” Pantene shampoo, for instance, “will come in a beautifully decorated, lightweight-aluminum pump container,” Helias says. “Tide in the U.S. will come in a stainless-steel bottle with a durable twist cap. Cascade will come in ultra-durable packaging. Crest mouthwash will come in a glass bottle. The idea is ultra-durability, convenience and also ultra-luxurious packaging.” Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream, a Nestle product, will be delivered in a posh, double-walled, stainless-steel tub designed to keep ice cream cold longer. And instead of adding dirty disposable diapers to landfills, soiled diapers can, starting only in the Paris area, be placed in sleek, durable diaper containers. When a container is filled, Loop will pick it up and deliver a clean, empty one. New technology allows Loop to process and recycle the dirty diapers, something TerraCycle has already started doing in Amsterdam. “We have only one planet, and we have to take care of it for the long term,” says Laurent Freixe, CEO of the Americas Region of Nestle, which hopes to do away with all its non-recyclable packaging by 2025. “We want to strive for Zero Waste at both the production and consumption level. Loop is so innovative that we felt we had to be a part of it and learn from it.” The rise of the “Zero Waste” movement and concern about the environment has led many businesses to try to reduce packaging and single-use containers. Loop is unusual in its international scope and the size of the companies participating. Initially, Loop will offer about 300 products, with plans to add to the list later. According to TerraCycle, partners include Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Nestle, Unilever, Mars Petcare, The Clorox Company, The Body Shop, Coca-Cola, Mondelez International, Danone, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, BIC, Nature’s Path, Thousand Fell, Greenhouse, Grilliance, Preserve, Carrefour, UPS and the sustainable-resource management company Suez. Greenpeace, which has criticized many big manufacturers for creating much of the plastic waste polluting the world’s oceans, joined in a panel about sustainable consumption at which Loop was announced in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. Jennifer Morgan, international executive director of Greenpeace, said beforehand, “While Greenpeace welcomes the aim of the Loop Alliance to move away from throwaway culture and disposability ... what the platform will mean for the environment depends on whether corporations worldwide are actually ready to change their business models, or if this effort just becomes a distracting side project to generate positive PR.” She warned that most businesses behind the initiative are still expanding production of single-use plastic, although company representatives focused on the progress they have vowed to make in adopting more sustainable packaging. Loop is slated to launch this spring in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and also in Paris and some of its suburbs. Shoppers will be able to buy Zero-Waste products from the Loop website to be delivered to their homes in specially designed shipping totes, and, eventually, at participating retailers, such as Carrefour grocery stores in Paris. Loop intends to expand to the U.S. West Coast, Toronto and the United Kingdom by the end of this year or early 2020, followed by Japan — ideally in time for the 2020 Olympics, Szaky says. “It means more delivery trucks, but far fewer garbage trucks,” he says.  

(Reuters) - Major packaged goods sellers and retailers, under pressure to cut the flow of single-use plastic bottles and containers clogging the world’s waterways, have teamed with recycling and shipping firms on an e-commerce service that puts a twist on the old-fashioned milkman. Called Loop and announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, it delivers products such as orange juice, shampoo and laundry detergent in reusable glass and metal bottles to shopper doorsteps and retrieves the empties for cleaning and reuse. Launch partners include recycling firm and Loop parent TerraCycle; shipper United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N); consumer packaged goods sellers Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N), Unilever Plc (ULVR.L), PepsiCo Inc (PEP.O) and Coca-Cola European Partners Plc CCEP.N; and retailers Carrefour (CARR.PA) and Tesco Plc (TSCO.L). Loop’s unveiling comes just months after China’s decision to stop collecting and processing plastic waste escalated alarm over environmental damage to the world’s oceans. The service launches in May with projects in Paris and the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania area. A UK program is slated for later in 2019, with Toronto, Tokyo and California to follow next year.   Users order products online and put down fully refundable deposits for the reusable packaging. They can wipe out shipping fees of $15-$20 by including about seven items in their order, said Tom Szaky, chief executive of recycling firm and Loop parent company TerraCycle. Plastic production has surged over the last 50 years, leading to widespread use of inexpensive, disposable bottles, cups, takeaway containers and other products. Government bans on products like single-use plastic water bottles, shopping bags and polystyrene cups have sent retailers and consumer goods companies searching for solutions. Loop’s Paris retail partner Carrefour will test and tweak the program ahead of the official launch. “It will surprise me if it works on day one,” said Carrefour Secretary General Laurent Vallee, who added that Loop challenges industry and consumers “to act, to think and to buy differently.” PepsiCo will start a 5,000-household Paris project with Tropicana orange juice in glass bottles and Quaker Chocolate Cruesli cereal in steel containers, said Simon Lowden, president and chief marketing officer of global snacks and insights. Lowden and other executives vowed to use their companies’ scale and marketing muscle to support the project, but declined to quantify financial investments. P&G’s Loop contributions include Tide purclean laundry detergent in stainless steel bottles and Pampers diaper recycling. Loop’s refundable deposits in Europe range from 0.25 euros for a Coca-Cola 200 ml bottle to 47 euros ($53.50) for Pampers recycling, TerraCycle said. Virginie Helias, P&G’s chief sustainability officer, said the company will monitor Loop demand before investing in comprehensive package redesign projects. Likewise at Nestle, which designed a stainless-steel Haagen-Dazs ice cream container designed for Loop’s New York-area project, Kim Peddle Rguem, Nestle USA’s ice cream president.

(Bloomberg) -- In the environmentalist mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle,” almost all of the attention has been paid to recycling. Now some of the world’s biggest consumer brands are trying to shift the focus to the second R, with a program that provides products in reusable containers that can be returned for a refund. The durable packaging program, called “Loop” -- a reference to a theoretical circular economy where nothing is wasted -- debuted at the World Economic Forum in Davos Thursday. Led by New Jersey-based recycling company TerraCycle, Loop will offer popular products from about 25 companies including Nestle, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo in reusable containers that customers order online or purchase in stores and return to the company when finished. The effort evokes the milkman of the 1940s, or even the glass bottle deposits still collected today. In many ways, that’s a better model, said TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky. “In the milkman model, the packaging was owned by the dairy and this kind of garbage didn’t exist.” About 80 percent of all plastic ends up in landfills or the ocean, and grocery packaging creates more waste than the popular scapegoats of plastic bags and straws. “We can’t recycle or clean our way out of this. We have to stop the waste from entering the system to begin with,” Skazy said. By mid-May, products from Loop will initially be available online to customers in Paris through Carrefour and, in the U.S., in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. TerraCycle is finalizing grocery partnerships in the U.S. and Toronto, adding distribution through London’s Tesco later this year, and targeting Tokyo in 2020. Loop will collect a refundable deposit that customers will get back when they return their containers. UPS will pick up the empties for no additional charge. Even allowing for the energy required to transport and prepare the products for reuse, the program reduces waste, TerraCycle says. It won’t stop the stream of plastic waste entering the ocean, but the containers do recover their environmental cost of production after three or four uses. The brands developed the durable containers with their own product designers. Clorox wipes will come in a shiny aluminum tube, Tropicana orange juice and Hellman’s mayonnaise will ship in durable glass. For Haagen-Dazs, Nestle designed a double-walled aluminum jar that actually keeps ice cream colder than the waxed-cardboard disposable packaging. “Reusability does bring an additional element of complexity,” said Simon Lowden, president of PepsiCo’s Global Snacks Group. The company’s designers wanted to keep the packaging looking “fresh and untampered” and make sure it can be cleaned multiple times. The beverage company is also betting on reusable packaging in other parts of its business, most notably its $3.2 billion acquisition of SodaStream last year. “We are looking to help build a world where plastics need never become waste,” Lowden said. “Trials like this help us evaluate the future potential for reusable models and our ability to scale initiatives.”  The packaging is about twice as expensive for manufacturers to produce, but the cost is offset through accounting rules that allow companies to depreciate the expense for wear and tear. TerraCycle has invested about $10 million in the project, using its free cash and raising capital. “It’s a very big bet, but why not?” Szaky said. “Baby boomers look at this nostalgically and say this is how we used to do it, while millennials say, ‘I’m sick of all this plastic waste.’”

New schemes to rid the world of plastic waste are popping up faster than spring dandelions. The latest one involves a coalition of the largest consumer product companies and international recycling leader TerraCycle, which unveiled a global, first-of-its-kind shopping system called Loop (not to be confused with Montreal-based Loop Industries Inc.). The initiative was designed to change the world’s reliance on single-use packaging and offer consumers a convenient circular solution while securing meaningful environmental benefits. Announced at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Loop is designed to enable responsible consumption of a variety of products in customized, brand-specific durable packaging that is collected, cleaned, refilled and reused. The content, if recoverable, will be either recycled or reused. A who's who of consumer product companies, including Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Mars Petcare, The Clorox Company, The Body Shop and Coca-Cola European Partners, along with Carrefour, UPS and Suez are on board. The founding partners want to demonstrate their commitment to developing more circular supply chains from package design and manufacturing to consumer use. The aim is to offer a zero-waste option for the world’s most popular consumer products while maintaining affordability, improving convenience and returning used disposable or durable items to a circular life cycle, either through reuse or recycling. The environmental benefits of Loop durable packaging versus single-use packaging have been proven and verified in Life Cycle Assessments under use pattern assumptions that will be further validated in pilot trials that will launch in the spring in Paris and New York City (covering New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey). Additional markets are expected to launch throughout 2019 and 2020. TerraCycle founder and CEO Tom Szaky told PlasticsToday in a telephone interview that this system shifts packaging from disposable and owned by the consumer to durable and borrowed by the consumer. “The brand owners own the packaging but you use the contents,” Szaky explained. “When you buy a bottle of shampoo you want the shampoo, not the bottle, but you have to deal with the bottle when the shampoo is gone. Plastic is okay but it has to be Eastman’s Tritan or PC and other high-value plastics, instead of low-value plastics.” The consumer goes online and orders a variety of products with different fulfillment options. The products are then put into a tote—a large camera-case type of luggage with an exterior made of PE fabric. The inside is lined with a PP “corrugated” board to impart rigidity. The tote is divided into sections separated by HDPE foam padding to hold and protect the different items, including a cooler insert for ice cream, which can keep it frozen for up to 30 hours. Nestlé said that it will ship its Haagen Dazs ice cream in these totes. When consumers are finished using the products, they put the empty containers in the tote and arrange for shipping through UPS. The consumer also pays for shipping the totes. The empty containers and bottles are then cleaned at TerraCycle and shipped to the various CPGs for refilling. Depending on what the consumers have chosen from fulfillment, the products they return triggers reshipment of those products. People order and consume, and the products come in containers that the manufacturer owns, not the consumer. When the tote is returned, it will be washed and reused. Ideally, Loop hopes to not have to wash the totes every time they are returned. In case of spills or if the tote gets messy it can be disassembled, with the fabric being laundered and the rigid components going through a dishwasher. When the tote has reached the end of its useful life, the various components will be disassembled and recycled. Only certain products will be available by the launch date, consisting of the most popular products from each of the brand partners. For example, P&G will have its Pantene and Tide products ready for the Loop platform and Nestlé will provide five or six flavors of Haagen Dazs ice cream, Szaky explained. “We’re trying to make it easy and convenient for the consumer,” said Szaky. “It can’t be too inconvenient for the consumer.” Szaky notes some 200 products have been foundationally redesigned by the world’s largest CPGs to accommodate this platform. “That means designing packaging to be reusable rather than recyclable,” he said. Haagen Dazs’ paper containers cannot be recycled so the containers had to be redesigned to be reusable, for example, and Unilever deodorant containers were not locally recyclable by the way they were constructed and also had to undergo a redesign. David Blanchard, Unilever’s Chief R&D Officer, said, “We’re acutely aware of the causes and consequences of the linear ‘take-make-dispose’ model of consumption. And we want to change it. That’s why we’re proud to be a founding partner of the Loop Alliance with nine Unilever brands. These brands have all embraced the challenge to redefine how consumers access the products they love, whilst eliminating waste. We believe this collaboration will complement our existing efforts to help create a packaging system that is truly circular by design.” With the redesign some labeling had to be changed to accommodate the reuse of containers which must undergo washing in hot soapy water to ensure sterilization. In some cases the labels remain on the containers. Szkay said that “it’s up to the supplier to do the design and labeling, which would be adhesive or glue-on, or etching or printing directly on the package.” When asked about a cost comparison between Loop’s platform and traditional plastic production, given the resources and energy used in two-way shipping, cleaning, potential relabeling and so forth, Szaky said that “if you add together the cost of the bottle depreciation and cost of washing at scale, it gets to about the same price. The packaging is an asset that amortizes over the number of uses.” Szaky concuded that “Loop will not just eliminate the idea of packaging waste, but greatly improve the product experience and the convenience in how we shop. Through Loop, consumers can now responsibly consume products in specially designed durable, reusable or fully recyclable packaging made from materials like alloys, glass and engineered plastics. When a consumer returns the packaging, it is refilled, or the content is reused or recycled through groundbreaking technology.”

A new initiative pushes the responsibility back to the manufacturer.

 

  Instead of a use-it-once ice cream pint, Haagen Daaz containers in the Loop program are made of double-walled stainless steel, which keeps ice cream colder and available for hundreds of uses down the road. (Photo: Courtesy TerraCycle) It's now well-known that the packaging for our food and personal products is an unsustainable, garbage-producing mess. Even stuff that's recyclable mostly isn't — especially plastics. In all the years we've been diligently recycling, the truth is we haven't gotten very far. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, just 9 percent of plastic was recycled, 16 percent of it was burned, and 75 percent was sent to landfills in 2015. Looking at these numbers, it's easy to see why our oceans, and the animals that live there, are choked with plastics, and our beaches strewn with the stuff. Clearly the "recycle more" mantra has failed and we need another solution to packaging. Even the experts agree: "While recycling is critically important, it's not going to solve the waste problem," according to Tom Szaky, the CEO of TerraCycle, a company that has worked on issues around packaging and recycling for over a decade. Enter Loop, a program with a mission to "eliminate the idea of waste," says Szaky. Loop takes up the first part of the mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle" by creating returnable, reusable packaging for common consumer items. The idea for Loop was founded at the World Economic Forum by TerraCycle and some big names in the consumer products business, including Procter & Gamble, Nestle, PepsiCo, Unilever, Mars Petcare, The Clorox Company, The Body Shop, Coca-Cola European Partners, Mondelēz International, Danone, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Lesieur, BIC, Beiersdorf, RB, People Against Dirty, Nature’s Path, Thousand Fell, Greenhouse, Grilliance, Burlap & Barrel Single Origin Spices, Reinberger Nut Butter, CoZie and Preserve.   A huge variety of products are already part of the Loop roll-out, from shelf-stable foods, to personal-care items. (Photo: Courtesy TerraCycle) How did TerraCycle come up with this large-scale reusable packaging concept? Szaky says he and his team dug deep and looked at some hard truths over several years: "If recyclability is not the foundational answer [to our waste problems], what's the root cause? The root cause of waste is disposability," says Szaky. And while it's easy to say "use fewer disposable items" — something many of us have dedicated serious time to, the truth is that all the rah-rah-reuse enthusiasm and personal changes it may have engendered hasn't been even close to enough. Our waste has increased over the past decade. It's time to get real: "Disposability is easy to vilify, but we also need to look at why disposability won — because it's cheap and convenient. That speaks to why consumers want it — they're willing to sacrifice the environmental negatives for the cheapness and convenience," said Szaky. It's not pretty to hear, but it's true. So, instead of trying to change the behavior of billions, TerraCycle looked at how to solve the root cause of waste, while still maintaining the virtues of disposables, like affordability and convenience. The birth of a circular system Loop works by creating a circular system — rather than a linear one — for packaging. (Photo: Courtesy TerraCycle) Loop takes some of its DNA from AirBnB and Uber, by understanding that consumers have no interest in owning a package, or having to deal with its disposal. Just like many people don't want to own a car, they just want to get from A to B, so Loop shifts the packaging responsibility back to the companies that make the products we want (the ice cream, olive oil or deodorant that's inside the packages). Szaky says some of the cues for this came from the past: "In the milkman model, the package wasn't owned by the consumer, but owned by manufacturer — so they were motivated to make it long-lasting. When packaging was shifted to become the property of consumer, it was all about making it as cheap as possible, to drive price down," says Szaky. How does Loop work exactly? You order from the Loop store, and your stuff will be shipped to you. On the first transaction, there's a deposit for the container — say 25 cents for a Coca-Cola. Once it's returned to the store, or sent back in the reusable shipping container, "no matter what state it's returned in (even if broken, because the container is the manufacturer's responsibility), you get your deposit back in full," says Szaky. Durability becomes a goal again Deodorant in reusable containers means you pay what you always did for the product, but it looks much higher-end in your bathroom vanity. (Photo: Courtesy TerraCycle) If you sign up for auto-refills timed to your schedule for personal care stuff (or, let's face it, ice cream!) the deposit stays in your account and you simply get your deodorant, toothpaste or razors refilled automatically — with literally no waste. You get what you want — the product inside — and the package is the company's to deal with. (Yep, you can even return dirty packages.) The huge boon to a new packaging model isn't just for the consumer or the planet we all share. It benefits the companies that make our stuff, too. When Pepsi owns the package, and the consumer owns the contents, the number of times the package can be reused becomes more important than its cheapness — and a durable package could even cost the company less in the long run if designed well — a win-win for the company and the environment. Durable, reusable packaging also allows companies to make containers that are more functional (like the Haagen Daaz container that keeps ice cream colder, longer). It also allows for way more fun, interesting and marketable design possibilities. Even Pampers gets a circular packaging upgrade in the Loop program. (Photo: Courtesy TerraCycle) Imagine: Instead of ugly, wasteful plastic bottles, what if we used high-design glass ones for our mouthwash? In the age of Instagram, it's actually a genius PR move for companies to make their product containers beautiful as well as functional. In France, Carrefour grocery stores have partnered with Loop, and a pilot program at Tesco in London will debut sometime later in 2019. About 125 products will be available for U.S. consumers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York via the Loop store, starting in March. Some of the biggest ocean-plastic polluters (see the Greenpeace list here) are the same companies that have invested in Loop. We've asked for a change, and they're giving it to us. This container sure looks a lot prettier than a disposable plastic one. (Photo: Courtesy TerraCycle)  

A first-of-its-kind, global shopping platform, Loop™ aims to offer zero-waste packaging options for the world’s most popular consumer products. Just a week after the launch of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste — a cadre of global companies from the plastics, chemicals and CPG value chain that has banded together to advance solutions to environmental plastic waste — a coalition of the largest consumer product companies, along with international recycling leader TerraCycle, today unveiled a first-of-its-kind, global shopping system called Loop™. The initiative is designed to change the world’s reliance on single-use packaging and offer a convenient and enhanced circular solution to consumers, while securing meaningful environmental benefits.   Launched at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Loop will enable consumers to responsibly consume a variety of products in customized, brand-specific, durable packaging that is collected, cleaned, refilled and reused. The content, if recoverable, will be either recycled or reused.   The idea for Loop was founded at the World Economic Forum by TerraCycle and consumer product companies Beiersdorf, BIC, The Body Shop, Burlap & Barrel Single Origin Spices, The Clorox Company, Coca-Cola European Partners, CoZie, Danone, Greenhouse, Grilliance, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Mars Petcare, Mondelēz International, Nature’s Path, Nestle, People Against Dirty, PepsiCo, Preserve, Procter & Gamble(P&G), RB, Reinberger Nut Butter, Teva Deli, Thousand Fell and Unilever. Additional partners are leading food retailer Carrefour as the founding retailer, with leading UK retailer Tesco to pilot Loop in the UK later in the year; along with primary transportation company UPS and sustainable resource management company Suez.   This approach to shopping was made possible as a result of innovation investments made by the founding partners, and their commitment to developing more circular supply chains from package design to manufacturing through consumer use. The aim was to offer a zero-waste option for the world’s most popular consumer products while maintaining affordability, improving convenience and returning used disposable or durable items to a circular life cycle either through reuse or recycling.   The environmental benefits of Loop durable packaging vs. single-use packaging have been proven and verified in Life Cycle Assessments under usage pattern assumptions that will be further validated in pilots scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2019 in France and the northeastern United States. Additional markets are expected to launch throughout 2019 and 2020. “As a response to the global challenge in managing waste and the opportunity to improve consumers’ experience, a group of committed global brands, retailers, infrastructure companies, along with the World Economic Forum have come together to create a new way to more responsibly consume products.” said TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky. “Loop will not just eliminate the idea of packaging waste, but greatly improve the product experience and the convenience in how we shop. Through Loop, consumers can now responsibly consume products in specially-designed durable, reusable or fully recyclable packaging made from materials like alloys, glass and engineered plastics. When a consumer returns the packaging, it is refilled, or the content is reused or recycled through groundbreaking technology.”   How Loop works:

• Shop: Consumers will go to the Loop website or Loop partner retailer’s websites and shop for trusted brands now redesigned to be packaging waste-free.
• Receive: Consumers receive their durable products in Loop’s exclusively designed shipping tote that eliminates the need for single-use shipping materials such as cardboard boxes.
• Enjoy: Consumers experience elegance and convenience all while eliminating the idea of throw-away packaging waste.
• Loop picks up: There is no need to clean and dispose of the package; as consumers finish their products, they place the empty package into one of their Loop totes, which Loop will pick up directly from their home.
• Loop cleans: Loop’s team of scientists has developed custom cleaning technologies so that each product packaging may be safely reused.
• Loop refills, recycles or reuses: Loop promptly replenishes products as needed and returns the refilled shipping totes to the consumer. If there is recoverable product, it will be reused or recycled.

  “At P&G, we are building on 180 years of innovation and world-class consumer insight to enable responsible consumption at scale,” said Virginie Helias, VP and Chief Sustainability Officer at P&G, also part of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. “Through leading brands such as Pantene, Tide and Cascade, we have developed new, durable and refillable packaging that is delivered in a waste-free and hassle-free way as part of the LOOP platform.”   Along with the P&G brands Helias mentioned as being included in the service, Crest, Ariel and Febreze are also available in durable, refillable packaging; and toothbrush heads by Oral-B, and razors and blades by Venus andGillette will be recycled by the service. And Pampers and Always will be test-collecting used hygiene products from consumer homes for further recycling, using groundbreaking, proprietary technology developed by Fater — a P&G and Angelini Group Joint Venture — that turns used absorbent hygiene products into secondary raw materials for higher-value applications.   Roberta Barbieri, Sustainability VP at PepsiCo, commented: “Taking action to design our packaging to be recyclable and reusable is a critical goal of ourPerformance with Purpose agenda; and as we look to build a PepsiCo where plastics need never become waste, we are also exploring a number of ideas to reinvent the ways consumers can enjoy our products. Our participation in Loop builds on this commitment as well as providing the added convenience of e-commerce and home delivery.   “Initially we will be launching Quaker and Tropicana offerings in Paris, and have created vessels which we hope will excite our consumers, combining durability with high aesthetic design. As we work towards our sustainable packaging goals, we will continue to explore our own in-house innovations as well as participate in collaborative efforts to reduce waste.” Brands are responsible for designing their own packaging; TerraCycle consults on the packaging development process and tests all packaging for cleanability and durability prior to approval in the platform. The lifespan of each package will vary, as variables including aesthetics can cause a package to be taken out of circulation and recycled.   “We want to put an end to the current 'take-make-dispose' culture and are committed to taking big steps towards designing our products for reuse," said Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever. "We’re proud to be a founding partner of Loop, which will deliver our much-loved brands in packaging which is truly circular by design.” Loop already offers hundreds of products across its two dozen partners; as partners are added, this number will constantly increase.