Coca-Cola, Nestle, Carrefour, Mondelez… on the assault of Zero Waste!

By Emmanuelle Bourge
— Jan 29, 2019


In the spring of 2019, a new online supermarket will open its doors in Paris and New York.

Coca-Cola, Nestle, Carrefour, Mondelez… on the assault of Zero Waste!

Loop will offer consumers products packaged in durable and returnable packaging. Objective: zero waste.

 

The idea comes from Terracycle founder Tom Szaky, who presented Loop at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 24th. The success of his company is based on the support of large multinationals in their recycling policy.

 

Yet recycling is today considered a short-term solution that offers our planet only a few years of reprieve. Indeed, globally, we consume on average 300 million tons of plastic a year. The vast majority of this plastic is not recycled.

 

With his Loop project, Tom Szaky wants to “eliminate the notion of waste”. He managed to bring the biggest multinationals with him in his journey: Procter & Gamble, Nestle, Carrefour, Unilever, Danone, Mondelez, PepsiCo etc.

It’s a total of 25 multinationals that have redesigned their production chain in order to offer their products in sustainable and returnable packaging. After use, a carrier will retrieve the containers. They will then be cleaned and reused up to a hundred times before being recycled.

 

In addition to the positive environmental impact a solution like Loop can have, it also proposes to rethink some of the consumer experience. Packaging has always been considered as a good that the consumer gets with the product itself.

 

But Loop offers to separate the contents of its packages. Thus, packages become assets that the brand can use to offer a better experience to its customers (a design in line with the decor, stronger containers that offers a better taste experience etc.).

 

There are two kinds of revolutionaries: those who leave the system and denounce it, and those who stay there and do everything to change it. Tom Szaky is one of those. He managed to find a way to take 25 multinationals, some of which are among the most polluting, with him in the hunt for waste.


The founders