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 — yesterday debuted at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Led by New Jersey-based recycling company TerraCycle, Loop is to offer popular products from about 25 companies including Nestle SA, Unilever PLC, Procter & Gamble Co and PepsiCo Inc in reusable containers that customers return to the company when finished.
The effort evokes the milkman of the 1940s and the glass bottle deposits still collected today.
In many ways, that presents a better model, TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky said.
“In the milkman model, the packaging was owned by the dairy and this kind of garbage didn’t exist,” Szaky said.
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 are to initially be available online to customers in Paris through Carrefour and, in the US, in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
TerraCycle is finalizing grocery partnerships in the US and Toronto, adding distribution through London’s Tesco later this year and targeting Tokyo next year.
Loop is to collect a refundable deposit that customers would get back when they return their containers. United Parcel Service Inc is to pick up the empties for no additional charge in the US.
Even allowing for the energy required to transport and prepare the products for reuse, the program would reduce waste, TerraCycle said.
It would not stop the stream of plastic waste entering the ocean, but the containers do recover their environmental cost of production after three to four uses.
The brands developed the durable containers with their own product designers. Clorox wipes are to come in a shiny aluminum tube, Tropicana orange juice and Hellman’s mayonnaise in durable glass. For Haagen-Dazs, Nestle designed a double-walled aluminum jar that keeps ice cream colder than the cardboard disposable packaging.
“Reusability does bring an additional element of complexity,” PepsiCo Global Snacks Group president Simon Lowden said.
The company’s designers wanted to keep the packaging looking “fresh and untampered,” and make sure that it could be cleaned multiple times, he said.
The beverage company is also betting on reusable packaging in other parts of its business, most notably its US$3.2 billion acquisition of SodaStream last year.
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 US$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.’”
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