Some Major Food Brands Are Joining A New Service That Recycles Used Containers Effectively

As the food industry looks for more and more ways to reduce its waste, a new service called Loop is making it easier on both the industry and consumer end to recycle re-usable containers.

Photo courtesy of Nestle

The service is a mashup of Amazon Fresh and your old-school milkman. When you order products through Loop, you’ll receive them in new, reusable containers inside a special renewable tote. Once the contents are used up, you can schedule a delivery of new products as well as a pickup of the old containers. You just place them back into the tote, and they’re taken back to their respective companies to be thoroughly sanitized and reused.

Loop encompasses multiple industries and product types, including food. Several major food brands have signed on already, including Nestle (under Häagen-Dazs), Hidden Valley Ranch, Nature’s Path, Hellman’s Mayonnaise, and vegan producer Teva Deli. Other recognizable products on board include Tide, Axe, Dove, Degree, Clorox, and Gillette.

The service is powered by global recycling organization TerraCycle, who already has the capability to help recycle these packages on an international scale. As a result, the implications for waste reduction are numerous, since producers no longer need to utilize as much plastic and raw materials for packaging, and consumers will send less of it to landfills as a result.

Other services also exist that are helping to combat packaging waste through recycling. In Southern California, for example, startup BottleRocket will give you money for all of the recyclables you save. You can schedule a pickup through their site, and each time they collect, the resulting sum from the refund values can be converted into cash, gift cards, or a charity of your choice.

Loop is scheduled to launch its service in the spring of 2019 in the United States and France. You can register on the company’s site to join a waitlist and be notified when it’s ready to go.