During the last decades, there have been several attempts pursuing the limitation of plastic consumption and increasing waste and there is no doubt that any effort of this kind has its beneficial share. Nevertheless, what is really revolutionary about the platform that inspired this article, Loop, is that it does not try to change the ways in which consumers operate, but to make the existing processes and routines themselves become more environmentally friendly.
What happens? Loop is a circular shopping platform which, if signed up, provides the consumers with packaging of their everyday essentials that is not for single-use and disposable, but durable and sustainable.
Some of the strongest and most loved brands worldwide have joined the project launching packages which are being collected by designated UPS drivers, returned to Loop premises, cleaned, sterilized, and used again to new shipments.
The used packaging, after arriving to Loop, is being hygienically cleaned, sanitized, and re-filled with product, before it hits the road again to be reused, instead of pilling up to the long list of global daily waste.
As Tom Szaky, CEO and co-founder of TerraCycle, says ‘To us, the root cause of waste is not plastic, per se, it’s using things once, and that’s really what Loop tries to change as much as possible.’ Each package is designed for more than one hundred uses and this endeavor is being supported by colossal companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Nestle, PepsiCo, and Unilever.
The program’s pilot is ready to be launched and we should all give it a try!
