I think my kids are starting to find me very stiff, but it is true that I stayed with six types of litter boxes, sometimes seven in season, under daring observation.
Ti-Mé and I understand each other.
There is a compost bin, where I balance the organic matter – except for those intended for my animals – that the city will collect.
There is a box for returnable bottles and cans, which I bored brought to the grocery store, where they are picked up. And I can’t wait for bottles of wine, hello, SAQ, to be one of them.
There is the bag in which I put the papers that will be used to light the fires, which is more and more rare thing.
There is the box where the shampoo packages go, the big bottles of moisturizer, hand soap, washed out, which will be transported to the grocery store without waste, as I buy more and more cleaning products for me and for the home. (The idea of throwing away those stain repellants, surface cleansers, or makeup removers increasingly annoys me, as if Greta and her buddies have reprogrammed me.)
There is a container for the rest of the recoverable materials.
There is a trash can that takes whatever is wrong with all the other trash cans.
I manage this myself. I watch. When a roll of cardboard paper ends up in the traditional basket, it annoys me. I put things in their place.
But every time I use the boxes labeled “drligne dreligne” – sometimes in the car, I don’t encounter any contradictions – because so many bottles collide there, I tell myself that it should happen even when there’s a new, simpler, less energy-consuming way . One can find a smart, easy-to-use solution between transporting packages by glove and the smooth consumption of empty containers.
Here comes the topic of this column: Loop.
TerraCycle’s sister Loop, Loop The company just launched its service in Canada, in association with Loblaw and many other brands of supermarket products sold here.
Canadian Press Photo
Loop wants to allow brands to sell their consumer products in reusable packaging.
Loop as in “the company that fights single-use packaging” is not to be confused with Loop’s fruit juices, beer etc., Montreal company that fights food waste.
Loop disposable packaging was founded by Kennedy, but Tom Szaky of Torontonian, another garbage freak, decided differently to turn his passion – some might say obsessive – into business opportunities.
At Princeton University, where he studied in the early 2000s, he began Szaky TerraCycle, his main business. Initially, TerraCycle was dedicated to marketing vermicompost – earthworm tube, very rich compost – produced from kitchen waste and sold in packaging made from recycled plastic bottles.
But after having had strong success with this project, Szaky decided to broaden his approach and offer other solutions on the unlikely topic of recycling common waste, such as cigarette butts – which he turns into plastic – or dirty diapers.
Then, in 2017, he came up with another idea for another company, Loop: to create systems for brands to sell their consumer products in reusable packaging.
“At the moment, when we buy shampoo, for example, we buy the bottle and the shampoo, even if we don’t want the bottle, because we’ll end up throwing it away,” explains Eric Rosen, a spokesperson for the company. “With Loop, the brand only owns the bottle and sells the content.”
PHOTO GEOFF GEORGE, supplied by LOOP
Loop bag in which reusable empty bottles and containers are returned.
So we shop online at Loopstore.ca and the products are delivered by FedEx and when we empty out the bottle of ketchup, juice, or oatmeal, we put it back into a Loop bag, which FedEx will pick up. After that, everything will be returned to the warehouse, then artificially washed as it should be and returned to the brands for refilling.
Eric Rosen doesn’t know yet when Loop will be introduced across Canada and thus in Montreal, but he’s in the plans. Currently, the company is working on a pilot project in the greater Toronto area. However, Loop is not in its early stages and already knows the logistical challenges of this area: it has already been in place in France and the US since 2019 and in the UK since 2020. The plan is to settle in Australia. And Japan in a few months.
Does this waste control company have a holistic approach? Dealing only with manufacturers of organic products? Are their products connected to an electric charger?
We haven’t gotten there yet, Rosen says.
But it is clear, he notes, that consumers are demanding products that respect the environment.
Moreover, even if many of Loop’s partner brands are associated with “green” options, such as Nature’s Path pills or organic promoter milks, the major players are targeting all audiences, who are clearly seeing the demand. It comes from everywhere, and they’ve started the project from the beginning. We are talking about giants like Unilever, Pepsi, and Procter & Gamble. Besides ethical coffee and organic lemonade, there are also Heinz ketchup, chips, and frank sauce.
I admit that if Loop arrives in Montreal, I would be very tempted to order. The bag that is delivered and picked up by the delivery agent will become the eighth destination of litter, but with such a fun certainty of the mind to do the right thing for the environment.
Electrical conductivity and a selection of organic and fair trade products will add a lot to the arguments to convince me.
But hey, you have to start somewhere.
And while I love my trash cans, I especially love knowing that what I throw out won’t happen in the middle of the ocean or in backyards for people who don’t want it more than me.
I can’t wait to land here.