Businesses across the globe are beginning to make a greater effort to reduce the amount of waste they produced that ends up in landfills. Now one man hopes to help them using his expertise.
Tom Szaky is the founder and CEO of TerraCylce, a New Jersey-based waste management company that specializes in recycling items that have traditionally been harder to recycle. As of May he is also one of the individuals invested in Loop, a service that sells brand-name products in reusable packaging, reports CNN Business.
Loop’s operation is pretty straightforward. Companies will put down a refundable deposit on each reusable package. After the product is used, the empty packaging is placed in one of Loop’s containers, which is then sent back to Loop. Once Loop receives the container, it cleans the empty packaging and refills it with product. It also returns the deposit to the consumer. Deposits can range from 25 cents to $10, depending on the packaging.
It’s unknown whether or not Loop will work. Consumers throughout the world have grown accustomed to convenient plastic packaging that’s simple to toss away, so they might shy away from participating. Either way, major retails including Walgreens and Kroger are taking a crack at the concept. And if Loop catches on, jan/san products could potentially be sold in its packaging in the future.