The Loop™ circular shopping system has officially launched its pilot program in the Mid-Atlantic region of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., and has announced Kroger Co and Walgreens, respectively the country’s largest grocery retailer and one of the largest pharmacy chains, as the founding retailers in the U.S. The news came at a media event held at the offices of The World Economic Forum in New York City May 21.

“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.

When consumers sign up for the pilot–either through a new platform called Loop or through Kroger or Walgreens (you can also add your name to the wait list if you live elsewhere)–the products will arrive at their house in a reusable shipping tote, , and then someone can schedule a pickup to send the packaging back to be sterilized and reused. In theory, it’s not much more difficult than throwing out single-use packaging. Despite the extra shipping, Terracycle, a recycling company that is one of the partners in the project, has calculated that the carbon footprint of the process will be far less than that of typical packages. Because the products involved in the pilot are large brands, the companies testing the idea are hoping to reach a larger audience than some niche refillable concepts already on the market.

美国的TerraCycle公司（https://www.terracycle.com/）把从卡夫、星巴克、沃尔格林等大公司回收的垃圾中的果汁盒变成铅笔盒子；将牙刷弯成手镯、钱包带或牙刷架；将糖纸制作成美丽的风筝。 TerraCycle收集人们邮寄给他们的废弃卷烟，通过它们的卷烟废弃团队，把过滤嘴加工为工业产品，如运输托盘和塑料木材（不同的产业链）。