TerraCyle has launched a circular, durable packaging model for CPGs and their consumers interested in reducing single-use packaging waste streams.  Packaging and product manufacturers are well aware of the environmental impact of their companies, the negative press about single-use plastics in our oceans, consumer demand for more sustainable solutions, recycling rates with room for improvement and jam-packed landfills. TerraCycle, the globally known leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste, such as laminated snack pouches, toothbrushes and polyurethane earplugs, is blazing yet another trail, this time wholly changing the way we think about products and consumption to support our value stream in reducing its reliance on single-use packaging. This year TerraCycle has launched Loop, a circular packaging reuse solution that changes the existing model for fast moving consumer goods. Loop has created an infrastructure where the primary product containers are durable, designed for multiple uses. The containers are collected, cleaned, refilled and reused via e-commerce and retail, making reuse convenient and affordable to customers through virtual and physical shopping channels. Today a package is considered a COGS (cost of goods sold), and its cost is fully allocated per fill. The cheaper the package the lower the cost per fill. In the Loop model, the package is property of the CPG company rather than the consumer. In this way, the manufacturer’s allocation per fill is the cost divided by the number of uses it can bear. The more durable the package, the lower the cost per fill. By changing the concept around ownership, the demand for durability increases. Rick Zultner, vice president of research and development at Loop, says: ‘When the packaging is an asset to the brand, and made as durable as possible, the manufacturer can depreciate the cost over time. In the current model, single-use packaging is effectively hurting the bottom line, and there is more incentive to reduce the cost per unit as much as possible.’ The incentive to reduce the cost per unit is part of what makes hard-to-recycle laminated pouches so appealing, coupled with convenience and ease-of-use. Therefore, the underlying benefit to the Loop model is the economic structure with the ultimate incentive of eliminating single-use waste entirely. We have a long way to go before we start seeing a major shift, but there’s no doubt that global consumers are eager for a viable, sustainable consumption option such as Loop. Zultner continues: ‘There is a healthy amount of market development being done, and we know that this model makes sense to better align the total life-cycle cost of a product with the finance objectives of the company manufacturing the products.’ The circular Loop  Loop offers its reuse packaging system using two models. For e-commerce convenience, brands can integrate their product onto the Loop website. Loop executes all receiving, outbound distribution, inbound distribution and cleaning. The second option is to purchase products at Loop retail partners’ brick and mortar locations. Once the consumer is finished with the product, they can return it to the retail store. The consumer will receive their deposit back, and the empties will be transported through the grocery store distribution network back to Loop for cleaning and refilling. For initial launch, only the e-commerce option is available. In the US, UPS is Loop’s logistics partner, handling delivery and reverse logistics. Together the partners custom-designed the foldable Loop tote to handle liquids, dry goods and personal care products with protective dividers inside, using materials that offer easy cleaning. The UPS Package Design and Test Lab identified ways to mitigate material breakdown, product leaks and exterior packaging materials that display dilapidation quickly. The tote eliminates the need for the ubiquitous corrugated boxes we have become so familiar with as e-commerce users. The tote comes with a shipping label to place on the top of the tote when the containers are empty and ready to be returned. Users trigger return pick up and shipment through their account on the website. Throwback ‘milkman’ designs  Loop assists product manufacturers with the selection of their primary container materials including aluminum, stainless steel, glass and engineered plastic. Zultner explains: ‘We want to make sure the containers can be cleaned and effectively reused.’ Material selection is based on the product type and where in the household the product is used. For example, Love Beauty and Planet’s shampoo bottles are aluminum because of the hazard associated with breaking. However, REN Clean Skincare’s bottles are glass. Designs from the 1950s have made a comeback with this paradigm shift, harking back to a time where there was no concept around single-use and disposal. For example, Mondelez’s Milka brand is going back to a design more like a cookie tin from the post-war era. Manufacturers are starting small and incubating their most prominent brands using the Loop circular opportunity. Most of the Loop participants have R&D lines to do the filling in-house, or the ability to contract with a specialty filler. The objective is to design a primary container that can withstand 100 uses at a minimum. Explains Zultner: ‘In a life-cycle analysis, depending on the type of package – if it can achieve five uses, it’s considered better than single-use packaging, and any uses beyond that deliver both environmental and cost savings.’ Branding durable containers  Much of the growth in the label industry through the 1970s and 1980s can be attributed to the increasing demand for foods, beverages and beauty products in convenient, single-use packaging. According to Forbes, humans buy a million plastic bottles every minute; and it’s estimated that over half a trillion plastic bottles will be sold in 2020. Loop has officially launched in the greater Paris area, and New York state, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania – all locations within a one-day shipping zone. Should these regional consumers shift their buying power even a small percentage to Loop’s reusable containers, the label industry will feel the contraction. The Loop teams are actively researching the best decoration technologies to suit the purpose of reuse on these durable containers. Zultner says: ‘We’ll need labels that remain appealing through multiple washing stages, but can be peeled off and removed without damaging the packaging and without leaving residue behind.’ Loop is looking to build a materials guide for its CPG partners, informing users on adhesive and material selection to meet their branding objectives. For instance, the adhesive and overall durability of a label on the front of the container might require more permanence than the back label, to accommodate more frequent ingredient changes during a reuse phase. Alternatively, the front of the container could incorporate direct print while only the ingredient label is pressure-sensitive and can be effectively removed frequently for updates. ‘It’s still important for brands to differentiate their products through the Loop platform,’ Zultner says. ‘And we’ll be using our resources to help uncover the best ways of branding and labeling the primary containers used in the Loop infrastructure.’ Brand participation  The Clorox Company’s Hidden Valley Ranch dressing, Unilever’s Hellman’s mayonnaise and Nestlé’s Haagen-Dazs ice cream are among the participating food brands. Terracycle has targeted the largest food conglomerates to get involved. Says Zultner: ‘It adds momentum to the initiative and can help change the entire market direction.’ With the right brand participation, Loop can more rapidly gain authority and relevance in the marketplace.   Moreover, Unilever’s power brands Dove, Axe, Love Beauty and Planet, REN Clean Skincare, and Seventh Generation are available through Loop. Procter & Gamble’s influential brands Pantene, Tide, Cascade and Crest can be purchased with reusable packaging via Loop. The opportunity TerraCycle’s Loop offers is exciting and telling in many ways about the pivotal way packaging sustainability will evolve over the next 10-15 years, or sooner. So many consumers are already heavily entrenched in today’s e-commerce infrastructure. It’s only a matter of time before leading brands participating in Loop gain user traction, achieve growth and find renewed cost models that make their businesses more profitable. In turn CPG shareholders will be more confident, and CPG customers happier about the economic and environmental decisions they’re able to make when purchasing their favorite products. Wise label converters will pay attention to the moves their customers are making in the packaging reuse space, so they can continue servicing their needs in a 21st century milkman’s world.  

Detergent brands Cascade and Tide have joined circular shopping system Loop, with customers in the U.S. now able to buy the products in reusable packaging. Recycling specialists TerraCycle run the program, which enables customers to buy everyday products in durable packaging that can be cleaned, collected, refilled and reused.

Earlier this year, recycling company TerraCycle made a splash with its new Loop program—which promises to deliver common household items from companies like Unilever, Procter & Gamble Company, Coca-Cola, and Haagen-Dazs in reusable packaging. It's a subscription program that delivers items to participating households and picks up the empties (to be cleaned and reused) once they're done.

The scheme, run by recycling specialists TerraCycle, enables customers to buy everyday products in durable packaging that can be cleaned, collected, refilled, and reused. Cascade and Tide are both owned by Procter & Gamble, which is one of the major consumer goods companies backing Loop alongside Nestle, PepsiCo, Unilever, Mars Petcare, The Body Shop, Coca-Cola European Partners, and Mondelēz International.

Unilever plastic packaging used in products like shampoo and conditioner bottles contributes to ocean pollution.

• The consumer giant has cut down on plastic use by 15% and is using bioplastics and refillable metal bottles for items like deodorant.
• The global plastic packaging market is on pace to reach $300 billion, but many of Unilever’s newest top-selling brands are the ones aligned with its Sustainable Living Plan.

On any given day, 2.5 billion people use Unilever products that span 400 brands. That success has created a huge target on the company’s back as the sustainability movement gains more traction with consumers shunning plastic pollution. Sajjad Hussain | AFP | Getty Images From the farthest reaches of the Arctic to the deepest depths of the ocean, plastic pollution really is everywhere. Plastic pollution in the ocean is a particularly big problem: an estimated 100 million ocean animals are killed each year because of plastic in the ocean, and we currently have no reliable way to extract those plastics. But plastic is also a huge part of our everyday lives, in often invisible ways. Now, one of the world’s biggest plastic polluters is racing to reinvent its business–and the way we think about this ubiquitous material–one package at a time. The sea change is top priority for Unilever to ensure customers remain loyal to the 90-year-old global brand. On any given day, 2.5 billion people use Unilever products that span 400 brands to feel good, look good and get more out of life. But the multinational with a market cap of over $158 billion recognizes that its growth has come at the expense of the environment. The company invests over $1 billion annually on research and development, of which new plastics innovation is a component, but declined to tell CNBC how much its plastics initiatives specifically are costing. It is benefiting the company: In 2018, the 26 Unilever brands that are aligned with its sustainability initiatives grew 46% faster than the rest of the business and also outperformed in turnover growth, according to the company. In November 2010 under the guidance of now-former CEO Paul Polman, the company launched its industry-leading sustainable living plan, which has guided the company’s approach to product design and redesign ever since. Oversight of this global initiative starts at the top: reporting directly to the company’s CEO and executive leadership, a steering team meets five times per year and is accountable to the executive for the sustainable living plan’s goals. They rely on a series of internal groups devoted to everything from sustainable packaging to water use. Unilever also runs its own Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre (SEAC) that takes a science-focused look at the environmental impacts of products throughout their life cycle, including when they go down the drain.

Transforming plastic

Since 2017, one of the plan’s main focuses has been plastic. That’s when Unilever signed on to an Ellen MacArthur Foundation initiative called The New Plastics Economy, committed to making all of its plastic packaging either reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025. Doing so will ensure that plastic packaging stays within a “circular economy” where it can be produced and reused, rather than becoming waste. That means not only developing the technology to make plastics that can be effectively recycled, but also transforming its global supply chain. Both are major challenges. “I’m convinced that we are going to move more as a society into some of those spaces around reduce and reuse, and [Unilever] will be at the forefront of doing that,” says Richard Slater, chief research and development officer for Unilever. Slater, who took over the role in April 2019, says Unilever’s commitment to sustainability was a big reason he was drawn to the company. Inside the company, this attitude toward plastic shows up in a framework used throughout the business, referred to as “less/better/no.” It’s visible in their finished products: shampoo bottles that contain around 15% less plasticthanks to the introduction of bubbles into the material; replacing traditional plastics with bioplastics made of materials like cornstarch; and goods that use no plastic in their packaging, like refillable deodorants that come in a metal tube. Addressing the issue of packaging is a great way to start changing the way plastic is used, says Shelie Miller, a University of Michigan professor who studies packaging and sustainability. “Packaging is produced to become waste,” she says. “That makes it unique among manufactured goods.” It’s hard to know exactly how much of the plastic problem is due to plastic packaging, says Melanie Bergmann, a marine biologist and plastic pollution expert at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute. However, packaging on consumer products is a significant problem, she says, and unlike many other sources of plastic, “something we can tackle relatively easily.”

Rethinking supply chains

Transforming its plastics packaging market has required ongoing change in the company’s supply chain, both in working with existing suppliers to change their practices and with new partners like Terracycle’s consumer goods distribution system Loop, which will be testing consumer uptake on products like refillable aluminum deodorants for some of Unilever’s top brands. The Loop Initiativehas buy-in from some of the world’s biggest brands, including Unilever competitors Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Terracycle’s partners involved with the initiative include logistics company UPS, European retailer Carrefour and resource management company Suez. On the materials side, too, the drive to develop better plastics has seen Unilever partner with startups like Ioniqa, which bills itself as a “high tech chemical company”, and broader industry initiatives like the Bioplastic Feedstock Alliance, a World Wildlife Federation-led initiatives to develop biodegradable plastics that don’t compete with food security. The company is also “engaged with several bio-plastic suppliers,” according to a company spokesperson. Unilever also is pushing forward on in-house initiatives such as developing a new pigment for black plastic such as that used for the company’s TRESemmé line of shampoos and conditioners. Traditional black plastic is not detectable by the infrared sorters that recyclers use and must therefore be thrown out. Unilever’s solution is a new kind of pigment that can be detected by the sorters, allowing its black plastic bottles to be recycled at traditional recycling facilities. Within industry, “Unilever is really seen as a leader in sustainability,” says Miller. “They have a track record of being a leader in efforts to reduce overall environmental impacts, so it’s not surprising that they are ahead of the curve here.” From the investment perspective, this is one of the most lucrative markets to get into. However, creating a circular plastic economy for its many products isn’t a simple undertaking. “One of the challenges we face in many places around the world is availability of material, ” says Louis Lindenberg, Unilever’s Global Packaging Sustainability Director. “We’ve had to work with our supply chain partners to identify what material is required where, how much is available, what the gap is, and how we fill that gap.” One example is in Brazil, whereUnilever recently partnered with local recycler Wise to expand local recycling capacity in order to get the recycled materials it needs to meet its commitments, Lindenberg said. There’s no guarantee that the things they try will get consumer uptake. The company’s found high consumer acceptance for initiatives like moving towards things like 100 percent recycled or recyclable plastics, Slater says. But on the no-plastic side, with things like the Loop initiative and other refill and reuse systems, “we really are more in pilot mode there.” Initiatives like these are also what will keep Unilever competitive into the future, says Slater. In its 2018 annual report, the multinational named plastic packaging as a “principal risk” to its business. “Both consumer and customer responses to the environmental impact of plastic waste and emerging regulation by governments to tax or ban the use of certain plastics requires us to find solutions,” reads the message to shareholders. By 2025, the year when Unilever and other signatories to the New Plastics Economy agreement have pledged to transform their packaging, Grand View Research predicts that the global plastic packaging market will reach a market size of $269.6 billion USD, up from a 2017 valuation of $198 billion. Key drivers of this market are the convenience and low cost of plastic packaging, but according to numbers produced by Transparency Market Research, consumers are willing to pay nearly 10 percent more for sustainable packaging. “Consumers are looking for sustainable packaging, says TMR senior market analyst Ismail Sutaria. “At the same time, the packaging should be easy to use.” At the moment, the food and beverage sectors have the biggest market share for sustainable packaging, he says, with cosmetics and personal care not far behind, meaning that Unilever stands to benefit strongly from investment in this area. Increased focus on sustainable packaging will get the eye of investors on a company, Sutaria says. “From the investment perspective, this is one of the most lucrative markets to get into.” By working to change the plastics market, Unilever is paving the way for its own future.

Finding ways to make products last rather than dispose of them

In searching for an innovative method to provide consumers with sustainable yet convenient packaging options, companies including Tyme Fast Food and TerraCycle's Loop program, as well as retailers including PCC Community Markets have reimagined packaging as something reusable rather than disposable.

In searching for an innovative method to provide consumers with sustainable yet convenient packaging options, companies including Tyme Fast Food and TerraCycle's Loop program, as well as retailers including PCC Community Markets have reimagined packaging as something reusable rather than disposable.

In searching for an innovative method to provide consumers with sustainable yet convenient packaging options, companies including Tyme Fast Food and TerraCycle's Loop program, as well as retailers including PCC Community Markets have reimagined packaging as something reusable rather than disposable.

Alicia Forero is with TerraCycle, a company that specializes in hard-to-recycle things like cigarette butts and dirty diapers. She says one of the biggest drivers of recycling today is the desire to turn a profit.