Less Global Waste With Circular Product Packaging

Tom Szaky, the CEO and Founder of TerraCycle is featured in a recent article on The New Business of Garbage in the Harvard Business Review.  In response to a question about what he has learned about persuading governments, companies, and consumers to reduce waste, Szaky responds that consumer awareness of Zero Waste options isn’t yet transforming mass consumption:

In the past two years I’ve seen a big shift in how consumers view waste. They’ve woken up to all the negatives of garbage and have started to see it as more of a crisis. That said, consumers are still voting with their dollar for things that benefit them personally, like convenience, performance, and overall price.

Szaky is seeing more proactive regulation in the public sector to ban plastics in retail, setting in motion a ripple effect that is starting to push companies to change their production and distribution processes. The combined pressure from consumer advocates and government regulations has motivated more enterprise efforts – including partnerships with TerraCycle and similar programs to get ahead of pending government requirements.

TerraCycle is currently operating in 20 countries, as a social enterprise aiming to radically reduce waste by recycling and re-using typically non-recyclable items through national, first-of-their-kind recycling platforms.  TerraCycle then partners with corporations to help them turn these recycled streams into new products.

The New Business of Garbage Read more here: https://hbr.org/2020/01/the-new-business-of-garbage