First announced earlier this year, Loop is a program from global recycling company TerraCycle, which has partnered with retailers and brands to create sustainable, reusable packaging for products in an effort to reduce waste. After placing an online order for grocery, household and personal care products, the products are delivered in a special, reusable tote. The packaging– which is designed to be specific to each brand and product – is placed back in the tote once it is used and returned to Loop for reuse. Products can be ordered for one-time use, or set to auto-refill once they are returned.

Several major manufacturers are onboard for the circular use pilot. The Clorox Company (NYSE: CLX) has added two of its popular products to the list of items available through the TerraCycle Loop circular sustainable shopping pilot program. First announced at the World Economic Forum in January, Loop enables consumers to purchase commonly-used products in customized, durable packaging that is delivered in a reusable shipping tote. The initiative aims to establish a new model that supports responsible consumption and ends society’s dependence on disposability. Once products are used, consumers place the packaging in a special tote for free pickup, then Loop hygienically cleans the packaging, replenishes the products and returns them to the consumer. TerraCycle partnered with UPS to design its reusable, easily-cleanable tote to handle both liquids and dry goods over multiple uses, Recycling Today reported. The pilot program is available in the mid-Atlantic region of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Clorox crisp lemon disinfecting wipes and Hidden Valley Original Ranch topping and dressing will be available through the program, and the company plans to add a Glad food protection product to the platform later this year. Other products available through the Loop program include Procter & Gamble brands including Tide detergent, Cascade dishwashing products, Pantene haircare items and Oral-B dental care. “We are building on more than 180 years of innovation and world-class consumer insight to enable responsible consumption at scale,” Carolyn Tastad, P&G’s(NYSE: PG) Group President - North America, said. “We’re proud to partner with TerraCycle as the first CPG company to be part of this program as we work to accelerate sustainable innovation and explore new circular solutions that consumers love.” Companies including Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Danone, Mars Petcare, Mondelēz International are also onboard, per CNN, for a total of about 300 products. The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) and Walgreens (NASDAQ: WBA) are founding retail partners with Loop, and consumers in the pilot region can shop for products through www.thekrogerco.com/loop orwww.walgreens.com/loop, and in the future, the retailers hope to enable consumers to purchase Loop products in stores in select locations.  

“Loop was designed from the ground up to reinvent the way we consume by leveraging the sustainable, circular milkman model of yesterday with the convenience of e-commerce,” Tom Szaky, founder and chief executive of Loop and TerraCycle, said in a news release.

That’s the goal of “Loop,” a durable packaging initiative run by New Jersey-based recycling company TerraCycle that debuted at the World Economic Forum earlier this year. This week, Loop began its U.S. trial, allowing consumers to use steel, glass and durable plastic reusable packaging for everyday items. Kroger Co. and Walgreens, along with such consumer brands as Procter & Gamble, Nestle, The Clorox Co. and Unilever, are taking part.

• Loop, the "circular shopping platform" developed by recycling company TerraCycle, launched its e-commerce site Wednesday and announced Kroger and Walgreens as its founding retail partners at a press conference in New York City Tuesday.

Loop was announced in January by recycling specialist TerraCycle, whose CEO Tom Szaky recently said: “Plastic is not the evil. The evil is using something once.” Pilots launched this week in the northeastern United States, with Kroger and Walgreens as new partners, and in Paris, with another planned later this year in the United Kingdom. With any luck, this new approach to product packaging will catch on and become a new normal for many of our everyday products.

Loop, a first-of-its-kind circular shopping system created by TerraCycle in partnership with major retailers and brands, on May 21 officially launched its pilot program in the Mid-Atlantic region of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington, D.C. To celebrate the launch, TerraCycle and Loop’s retail and brand partners held a press conference and reception at the World Economic Forum in New York City.

The system has undeniably proved popular with businesses and consumers alike. In recent months, TerraCycle has launched partnerships using this model with Mars Petcare, Colgate Palmolive, Kelloggand Acuvue targeting pet food packaging, oral healthcare products, Pringles cans and contact lenses respectively. Additionally, consumers sent more than 500,000 used crisp and snack packets to TerraCycle through its partnership with Walkers during its first three months of operation.

A grocery order where products are delivered undamaged – yet spawn no disposable packaging destined for  the trash or recycling bin after use – is the future envisioned by TerraCycle. The waste management expert launched the embodiment of this vision last year in a project called Loop. The platform is a home-delivery service that offers consumers the option of avoiding single-use models when doing groceries by delivering products in durable, reusable packaging.

• What if consumers didn't have to dispose their empty plastic containers but could return them and get them refilled?
• That's the idea behind Loop, a subscription delivery service from waste management company TerraCycle.
• Loop has signed up several giant consumer-goods makers to have their products delivered via the service.
• It's a new spin on the milkman deliveries of yore, except with consumer goods from shampoos to sodas.

One year after China banned plastic waste from the U.S. and other developed countries, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Unilever and other consumer giants are collaborating with a new service that gives consumers a way to shop and achieve zero waste. It's called Loop — a subscription delivery project directed by waste management company TerraCycle that launches in May with the blessing of the World Economic Forum. It was announced in January at Davos, where TerraCycle CEO Tom Szachy pitched his idea to the world's biggest consumer companies — some of the most notorious repeat offenders on climate change. "We wondered is recycling the answer to waste? And we realized it's good at solving the symptom of garbage, but not the root cause, which is disposability," Szachy told CBS MoneyWatch. "And that got us to thinking of disposability and what could be the solution." Instead of throwing away packaging after it's been used once, Loop delivers over 300 consumer goods in reusable packaging. Shoppers can purchase Tide detergent, Dove deodorant, Coca-Cola soda or Häagen-Dazs ice cream that will be delivered to their doorsteps in tote bags. It's a new spin on the milkman deliveries of yore, except with just about any consumer good. Buyers can eat the ice cream, drink the soda, launder their clothes and then put the empty containers back into the tote bags for pickup. Loop retrieves the bags, sterilizes the containers in its warehouses and refills them before shipping them out to consumers again. Users wouldn't even have to clean the containers, like they would for recycling. "We don't want you to change your consumer behavior," Szaky said. Loop plans to roll out mid-May in Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, and London in September. Loop plans to launch in Canada, Japan, Germany and more U.S. regions in 2020.

Solving a recycling crisis

The program is launching more than one year after China's ban on accepting plastic waste in January 2018 put the whole U.S. recycling system in a tailspin. The U.S. had shipped its recyclable plastic and cardboard overseas for more than 25 years. In 2016 alone, China took 760 million tons of plastic off U.S. hands. While Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have picked up where China left off, those countries don't have waste management systems sophisticated enough to handle U.S. plastic scrap. Now, the U.S. is facing a wake-up call, having to develop new ways to manage its waste. Many cities and towns across the nation are even forgoing recycling or scaling back on programs as a response. All that has added pressure on consumer-goods giants, especially because environmentalists never saw the recycling industry as an ideal solution. While items like glass bottles can be recycled back into new glass bottles, products made with plastic are often recycled into lower quality plastic goods or they aren't accepted by waste management programs. That means recycling can barely make a dent in the sheer weight of plastic waste. "When they say, 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,' 'Recycle' is in the last place for a reason," said Michelle Stevens, owner of the Refill Shoppe in Los Angeles, California, which refills products for customers.   Nestlé spent one year developing the new stainless steel packaging for Häagen-Dazs ice cream. LOOP

The design challenge for reusability

Whether the consumer-goods companies keep participating in Loop will depend on how subscription users use the service. While the products' prices are expected to remain the same, shoppers will have to pay a deposit for the packaging that will be refunded once the package is returned. The deposit can change depending on the price of packaging. For example, Nestlé will charge $6.49 for its Häagen-Dazs ice cream, with a $5 deposit for the container. "We're assessing the willingness to pay to cover the cost," said Kim Peddle Rguem, president of the ice cream division of Nestlé USA. But Nestlé is hoping that a new stainless-steel ice cream container it has designed will give customers an experience that brings them back. The dual-canister container is supposed to keep the ice cream cold and let it melt from the top once opened, as opposed to the sides. The container itself should be warm to the touch. Rguem declined to say how much Nestlé has invested in Loop or how much it's paying TerraCycle to clean and refill the product. But she did say the company has already dedicated one year of time and resources to develop the new packaging. It will have about 20,000 containers ready to go when Loop launches. "The fact that it's available in this way, which also reduces waste, is exciting for us," Rguem said. "We know consumers are interested in this."