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Designers need to consider how products are made, not just where they end up, according to designer Sophie Thomas.

To kick of the Design Council's Design for Planet festival, designer Sophie Thomas took delegates on a very different kind of tour. The Binn Ecopark, located some 45 minutes from the festival's hub at V&A Dundee, is not for the faint-hearted, or those with a weak stomach.

The 62-acre site is billed as one of Scotland's most progressive recycling and waste management operations. According to its owners it is "an established and growing" circular economy, focused on renewable energy, resource management and eco-innovation. It sits on the site of the former Binn landfill, which was closed in 2014.

The scale of the problem

The trip to the ecopark was designed as a learning experience, Thomas says. No stranger to recycling plants, waste management centres and the like in her work as a founding member of Urge Collective, she says excursions like these help designers understand the scale of the problem at hand. Because, Thomas says, "waste is a design flaw".

No better is the scale of this flaw exemplified than at Binn Ecopark, where 200,000 tonnes of material are processed each year. This number itself is staggering, but the experience - and smell - more so. Alongside an anaerobic digestion facility which processes 30,000 tonnes of local food waste a year, the site is a stopping point for mountains of other discarded materials - from plastics, to glass, metal and wood.

While Binn's recycling rate is around 90%, Thomas says the mountainous piles of material that are processed by the site are indicative of a problem: not enough thought goes into how products are made. "I've never come across a brief that asked designers to consider the third or fourth life of their product," she says.

"We don't think about products as a sum of their materials"

If this were a more common consideration or briefing point, Thomas says many of the holes currently plaguing the UK's recycling system could be plugged. "You'd have to think about how you'd get the material of a product back, about reuse first and foremost and about how pure your materials are," she says.

Designers of today are very product-focused, Thomas says. It's hardly a surprise though, when aesthetics drive sales, and many briefs are devised by marketing departments. "We don't think about products as a sum of their materials, but as their end-goal," she says. Thomas refers to it as the "eco-rucksack" of a product.

A good example, she says, is a cheap toothbrush. Such a product can contain multiple different kinds of plastics, other fibres for the bristles and sometimes even metal pins to hold everything together. Even a recycling plant as proficient as Binn's would not be able to break down a toothbrush like that into its constituent parts, meaning the only place it could live out its "second life" is in landfill.

A lack of prototyping

As well as the external pressure of aesthetics, Thomas lies part of the blame in product designers not prototyping enough now. "I find that if they do prototype a lot of designers will maybe do a small plan in somewhere like China, where they're not physically able to do it themselves," she says.

Hopefully, she continues, legislation coming into effect with the new Environment Bill, which aims to put pressure on makers and manufacturers to produce more environmentally friendly products, will stem this problem. But Thomas says it's going to be slow progress - not least because said manufacturers will likely find it easier to work in their own siloes rather than addressing materiality as a whole.

Thomas is hoping to crowd source ideas at Design for Planet to see how the situation can be improved and moved forward. Short of sending all prospective product designers on a tour of Binn or other similar sites, she says a design solution to this design problem is necessary and achievable.
Keep up with our coverage of Design for Planet on Design Week and follow us on Twitter.

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Design for Planet: why waste is a "design flaw" | Design Week

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Designers need to consider how products are made, not just where they end up, according to designer Sophie Thomas. To kick of the Design Council's Design for Planet festival, designer Sophie Thomas took delegates on a very different kind of tour.

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Insightful video of the recycling system in the US

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Insightful video of the recycling system in the US

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Should I Stop Recycling? | One Small Step

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Examples of partnership content include Dezeen's recent Out of the Box Competition with Samsung

Innovative storage solutions, children's toys and a music amplifier are among the designs made from repurposed cardboard that have been shortlisted in Dezeen and Samsung's Out of the Box Competition.

The contest sought innovative designs for the home that can be made by repurposing corrugated-cardboard packaging, to encourage users to creatively reuse the box their television is shipped in rather than throwing it away.

With many countries in lockdown, the competition provided people with a creative challenge they could undertake at home. Interest in the competition was extremely high and we received over 1,500 entries from more than 80 different countries around the world.

In total 15 designs have been selected for the shortlist, which are set out below in the order in which the entries were received. From this shortlist, the jury will select five finalists, which will be announced in August, before the overall winner is announced in September.

The winner will receive a top prize of $10,000, the runner up will receive $5,000 and third place will receive $3,000. The fourth- and fifth-placed entrants will receive $1,000 each.

The competition was inspired by Samsung's Eco-Package concept, which aims to reduce waste by providing customers with a way to repurpose its television packaging into new household items.

Each design has been built using Eco-Packages for Samsung's The Sero, The Serif and The Frame televisions. We have published photographs of each of these builds alongside a lifestyle image featuring a prototype of the design made by the entrant at their home.

Studio photography is by Benjamin Swanson with set design by Jam Studios and retouching by The Wizard Retouch.

Here are the shortlisted designs:

Gio container by Francesco Pierazzi Architects
London, UK

Gio is a faceted, multi-functional container comprising two tapered cylindrical volumes of different sizes. It can be used as a plant pot, a small side table or a storage container.

Each volume is assembled from 12 corrugated-cardboard panels, which the user can bind together with string or ribbon to provide subtle decoration.

"Multiple elements can connect the pieces depending on what may be available," said Francesco Pierazzi Architects. "String, ribbon, cable ties, or any combination of those will ensure an outcome that is unique to one's household."

The design has been built using The Sero Eco-Package.

Toolbox by Joseph I'Anson
London, UK

Joseph I'Anson has designed a simple toolbox, which could also be used to store tools, stationery, plants or food. The design comprises a series of flat corrugated-cardboard panels, which lock together without the need for any glue or tape.

"With use, the structure becomes stronger," I'Anson explained. "The upwards force of the object being lifted, and the downwards force of the contents, push the grooves further into each other.

The design has been built using an Eco-Package for The Frame television.

Alex sofa table by Nina Nechaeva and Aleksey Stelmakh
Moscow, Russia

Nina Nechaeva and Aleksey Stelmakh have designed a small side table that can be hooked over the armrest of a sofa, providing a convenient surface to place mugs or cups, plus a storage area for magazines or remote controls.

"The table is designed for people who like to spend time on the couch, watch TV and have everything you need by your side," said Nechaeva. "It's a miniature table - perfect for holding your beverages, food, remote, or whatever your heart desires."

This design has been built using The Serif Eco-Package.

Sneaker Rack by Loong Jin Yoong of Convoy
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

This shoe rack by Loong Jin Yoong of design studio Convoy is constructed using a system of corrugated-cardboard mortices, tenons and dowels, which holds the structure together without the need for any adhesive.

It features large openings, designed for people that want to show off their collection of sneakers, which are stacked vertically to ensure they take up the minimum amount of floor space.

"The sneaker rack is inspired by sneaker culture where collectors appreciate sneakers as a form of art," said Jin Yoong. "Being made of cardboard, it replicates the feeling of unboxing a new pair of sneakers."

The design has been repurposed from The Frame Eco-Package.

Kibe storage unit by Revaz Berdzenishvili
Stockholm, Sweden

Kibe by Revaz Berdzenishvili is a simple storage unit with five pull-out drawers. It features a distinctive stepped design, which allows the user to arrange plants or other decorative objects on top of it according to their interior space.

"Kibe" means "stairs" in Georgian, which is Berdzenishvili's native language.

"The shape of Kibe is, as the name reveals, formed as stairs," said Berdzenishvili. "The aim was to recreate the functional features of stairs and bring it into interior space, as an independent sculptural object."

It has been built using The Serif Eco-Package.

Twist basket by Akhil Kumar
Mumbai, India

Twist by Akhil Kumar is a basket that can be used to store a variety of different objects. It is constructed from just two sheets of corrugated cardboard - one for the base and one for the sides - to minimise the amount of cutting and glueing required.

Although it is very simple, by folding along diagonal lines, users are able to create an interesting and visually appealing faceted shape.

"My idea of Twist emerged from the desire to create a product anyone could use in their home in multiple ways," said Kumar. "I believe minimising the effort required to build it is a way to encourage people to recreate and repurpose the cardboard boxes."

It has been built using a The Sero Eco-Package.

Kinoko Table by Georgia Kasmin and Frank Lin
London, UK

This simple side table provides a surface to place objects on, as well as space to store them in its base.

The design, which comprises two faceted cylindrical volumes - a taller, narrower one for the base and a wider, shallower one for the lid and tabletop - which gives the table a form reminiscent of a toadstool. "Kinoko" means "mushroom" in Japanese.

The Kinoko table is designed thoughtfully for the home, working as a side table in the living room, as a bedside table in a bedroom, and also in a playroom for children with its useful storage," said the designers.

It has been rebuilt using The Serif Eco-Package.

Blast Off Club House by Olga Tesler
Los Angeles, USA

Olga Tesler has created a toy spaceship that kids can crawl inside and use as a fort.

Star- and moon-shaped cutouts in the roof let light inside during the day. At night, the user can place a light inside to cast patterns onto the ceiling.

"The Blast Off Club House has been designed to look like a spaceship and feel like a little personal hideaway," said Tesler. "The design is geared towards kids of various ages. It's stable and is equipped with numerous openings that can be used as windows and as access for light."

This design has been repurposed from The Frame Eco-Package.

Amplephone amplifier by Pushan Panda
San Francisco, USA

Pushan Panda has created a cardboard horn that amplifies music from a mobile phone. The design is constructed from a series of flat corrugated-cardboard panels, which are scored and opened out to create a horn shape reminiscent of the amplifiers found on gramophones.

"When the first gramophone was invented in 1898, its horn amplified the mechanical oscillations of a pin running along a disc to produce sounds that could be heard by the human ear," said Panda.

"My proposal matches this history with modern technology. With a single sheet of cardboard, I created an amplifier that turns sounds from a phone into music that can fill a room."

The amplifier has been built using The Sero Eco-Package.

The Rider rocking horse by André Cardoso
Braga, Portugal

André Cardoso has created a rocking horse for kids made from the box of a Samsung The Serif television.

It is assembled from a series of folded corrugated-cardboard panels, which are orientated so that the graphic representation of The Serif TV printed on the outside of the box forms a saddle.

"The main idea comes from the central graphic element on the packaging: a TV icon that resembles a horse saddle," said Cardoso. "It becomes so the starting point to design a simple and archetypal horse silhouette, carefully placed around the saddle."

The Soban tables by Kiyong Lee and Yejin Kim of beFormative
Seoul, South Korea

Kiyong Lee and Yejin Kim of design studio beFormative have created a pair of Soban tables - low, tray-like tables that are used in South Korea for dining and carrying food - in two different sizes.

The tabletop and legs of the tables are made from a single sheet of corrugated cardboard, which is folded and held in place by supportive bracing, giving the tables a clean and elegant appearance.

"It is designed so that anyone can easily build it by folding and assembling the connecting structures," said beFormative.

The tables have been built from The Frame and The Sero Eco-Packages.

Endangered Animals by Sarah Willemart and Matthieu Muller of Studio Fantasio
Waterloo, Belgium

Sarah Willemart and Matthieu Muller, who run a design studio together called Studio Fantasio, have created a series of cardboard toys for children, which are in the shape of animals that are threatened with extinction - a polar bear, a black rhinoceros and a sea turtle - each of which is designed to be constructed from a different Samsung Eco-Package.

"Biodiversity is one of the world's most precious treasures," said the designers. "Unfortunately due to climate change and increasing human activity, some species are on the edge of extinction. Endangered Animals is a family of three multifunctional companions for children aiming to raise awareness of animals' conditions."

Each animal is designed to be built from a different Eco-Package.

Magnuss by Dan White and James Allerton of The Cube Concept
Teddington, UK

Magnuss, which is an anagram of "Samsung", is a multifunctional table and storage unit, which gives the user space to store books, magazines and remote controls. It is constructed from a series of corrugated-cardboard panels, which slot together to create the form of a monster-like face.

"This competition brief felt like the perfect opportunity to create a character that crossed the lines between function and play," said Dan White and James Allerton, who run a creative studio called The Cube Concept in London.

"It brings a smile to those that interact with it, whilst giving the user a genuine reason to reuse the packaging to create a purposeful and thoughtful design."

Magnuss has been built from The Serif Eco-Package.

Tessellate by Abigail Whitelow
London, UK

Tessellate by Abigail Whitelow is a modular display and storage system.

It comprises a series of triangular modules, which can be arranged in a number of different ways - either to show off the objects it contains, or to hide them away - to create a table, sideboard or shelving.

"It's perfect for houses of all shapes and sizes, and can be easily adapted giving endless possibilities to a cardboard box that would usually be discarded," said Whitelow.

The modular system is designed to be built from a The Frame Eco-Package.

Postcard Planter Series by Koji Yamaura
Mountainview, USA

Koji Yamaura's Postcard Planters are a series of interior objects that allow the user to "plant" photographs or postcards and display them in their home.

There are three different versions of the planters - one that's designed to be wall-mounted, one that's floor-standing and one for tabletops. Each one comprises strips of folded corrugated cardboard, which are arranged to create small gaps for photos or postcards to be inserted.

"Spending more time at home due to Covid-19, I came up with this idea whilst looking back at my collection of postcards from art museums and exhibitions," said Yamaura. "I wondered if there was a way to enjoy and beautifully display my favourite postcards and memorable photos."

The design has been built using The Serif Eco-Package.

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15 furniture designs made from repurposed cardboard revealed in the Dezeen x Samsung Out of the Box Competition shortlist

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Innovative storage solutions, children's toys and a music amplifier are among the designs made from repurposed cardboard that have been shortlisted in Dezeen and Samsung's Out of the Box Competition. The contest sought innovative designs for the home that can be made by repurposing corrugated-cardboard packaging, to encourage users to creatively reuse the box their television is shipped in rather than throwing it away.

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German startup offers a simpler way to recycle your coffee cup aim to replace disposable cups and bowl.

It wasn’t initially part of the plan, but part of their latest idea is to expand towards the to-go food products as well, and they seek to do this with the REBOWL. The REBOWL was introduced last year and is aimed at the market for take-away dishes.

How does it work?

Coffee shops have the reusable cups/ which you can get giving one euro deposit, that would return back when you bring the cup in one of the business joining the initiative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHoUqD7b5rg

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I’m worried that my recycling just isn’t worth it.

Is recycling just an excuse to carry on producing more plastic?

What about bio-plastics, biodegradable and compostable plastics?

Why can’t we replace plastic
with other materials such as glass or paper?

Why can’t we just ban all plastic packaging?

What can I do to reduce plastic pollution?

What are the types of plastic and what are they used for?

Why reuse and refill plastics?

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Is an organisation that aims to reduce the impact on our planet of plastic waste.

"Plastic packaging plays an important role in protecting goods as they move through the economy and importantly in reducing food waste and its climate impact. However, the current plastics system is failing. Our throwaway culture has led to increasing levels of plastic waste in our natural environment."

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The UK Plastics Pact | Together We Can Create A Sustainable System for Plastics

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The designer created a sustainable alternative to plastic food packaging using washed-up seagrass.

The dried seagrass fibre is bound together using a cellulose-based extract from the plant. Once mixed, the seagrass is pressed into a metal mould and baked until completely dry.

POC packaging as part of his Design Products masters, claims the material is not only completely biodegradable but has antibacterial properties that help keep dry food fresh.

"It's a natural waste material, and past research showed that it is highly resistant against mould," the designer told Dezeen. "I'm only using the dead seagrass fibres that appear on the beaches of the Mediterranean coast, so there is no industrial harvesting process to harm the population of the seagrass or any living being."

He continues testing it to ensure the material can meet EU food packaging regulations.

Source:
https://www.dezeen.com/2017/03/30/felix-pöttinger-biodegradable-poc-packaging-seagrass-design/

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In this post-covid online conference, creatives from Cow and Pepsi&Co talk about  how to tackle single-use plastic packaging and the approaches that are using in their company.

ALL FACTORS INTO ACCOUNT

- lifecycle of materials
- offer good value
- carbon footprint
- recyclability
- lower resources / lower emissions
- functionality
- Hygene
- food safety

CONSUMER BEHAVIOURS

- usability
- fits easily within people's lifestyles
- acceptability
- desirability
- convenience/ value
- EDUCATING: right information, easy messaging: easy to use + REINFORCE THGE MESSAGE THROUGH DIFFERENT CHANNELS

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To mark the end of this whirlwind year, we decided to dedicate our last The Imagine Better Series webinar to a sustainability issue that has been greatly exacerbated by the pandemic: single-use plastic packaging. This Tuesday 15 th December, our Group CEO Lucy Shea was joined by two of Futerra's most innovative partners in this space - Archana Jagannathan, Senior Director of Sustainable Packaging at PepsiCo, and Dave Muenz, Senior Vice President of ESG at Kao Corporation - for the series' fourth panel session, which explored how we can tackle single-use plastics amidst the global coronavirus pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we saw a return to single-use plastic packaging in the name of health and safety. But as we have settled into new ways of living, addressing single-use plastic waste is back on the agenda for individuals and businesses. In a recent survey by Futerra and OnePulse, we found that the actions people are most willing to make to be more sustainable is to 'waste less' and 'avoid plastic'. Although many businesses have temporarily halted efforts to make progress against commitments to reduce single-use plastics in their operations and products, others are seeing this as an opportunity to help their consumers to reduce their plastic consumption through new materials, processes, and systems. In this digital event, we invited Kao and PepsiCo to share with us how their different organizations are addressing single-use plastics to ensure health, safety, and sustainability.

Here are some of our key highlights.
The informed consumer is King/Queen
Without a doubt, big business has the power to influence change, but it is the individual consumer that holds the ultimate power to see this change through. Businesses must play a double-pronged role in the effort to tackle single-use plastics, especially now that their use is more prevalent as a result of the pandemic:

Behind closed doors, businesses must innovate environmentally-friendly options and alternatives so that the consumer is empowered to make the right choice at shelf. The challenge that businesses face are the trade-offs that they need to make in terms of a product's sustainability and durability and its acceptability, usability, and desirability in the consumer's eyes.

Businesses must also use their platforms - be they local, national or global - to educate the consumer as to the problem at hand, and how a product should be used and disposed of safely for both people and planet.

Our panellists challenged the common and widespread consumer perception - which existed long before the pandemic hit us in 2020 - that if an item is packaged it is somehow more hygienic. Dave Muenz of Kao believes that we can find other solutions, even a totally new system, that provides a more environmentally friendly way of keeping items hygienic. He encouraged businesses and individuals to resist 'quick answers' and to take time when considering the Life Cycle Assessment of alternatives which could in fact be sub-optimum and might not necessarily work well for consumers in their environments.
Form the right coalitions and support communities
Instigating large-scale and effective change is a daunting task. When asked by the audience how we can best scale efforts to reduce the use and circulation of single-use plastics, Dave and Archana agreed that every market has a different way of operating and businesses must work at every level to embed innovations and processes in this space. Once businesses have worked on a granular level with individual markets and portfolios, it is then possible to launch bold commitments across a wider geography. Archana of PepsiCo gave a promising example of this in PepsiCo's work: the pandemic maintained oil prices keeping virgin materials at cheaper prices and recycled content at a premium. Despite such setbacks, PepsiCo is still committed to launching 100% recycled content for Pepsi in 9 key markets next year.

To find ways of enhancing the recyclability and circularity of materials, businesses must also form the right coalitions, working on a global level with peers, competitors, retailers, manufacturers and governments. On a community level, even really small communities, such collaboration is also vital: there is a lot that business can learn from individuals and smaller groups, e.g. how can big business truly help and support individuals to transition to a more sustainable lifestyle? Big business has the power to escalate and expand those learnings. It is important for businesses to be involved on all levels in order to inform a multi-level effort.
We overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade
What converts a whole market to making more environmentally-friendly choices and adopting more sustainable practices? Dave shared with listeners Kao's amazing case study, where years after introducing refill packs to the Japanese market of their personal care and household items, they now make up 80% of all units sold. Patience and endurance are at the heart of such efforts, in terms of the time taken to innovate and introduce solutions to the market, as well as in working to shift consumers to adopt new behaviours. Too much sacrifice will not get the uptake, so business must incentivise consumers' conversion by offering less effort and more value. Both Dave and Archana were optimistically in agreement that, although their businesses, and the rest of the world, has seen a sharp short-term return to single-use plastics in the name of safety and hygiene amidst the pandemic, in the long-term the upward trajectory of the movements we have put in place against plastic won't change very much, and might even accelerate.

A huge thank you to Archana Jagannathan, Senior Director of Sustainable Packaging at PepsiCo, and Dave Muenz, Senior Vice President of ESG at Kao Corporation, for their participation and partnership, as well as to our viewers for their probing and inspiring questions.

Inspired and want to know more? Access the full recording of our The Imagine Better Series: Addressing Single Use Plastics During a Pandemic webinar here: https://youtu.be/ldkPdaSVxV8

Want to join in the fun? Sign up for updates and the latest in The Imagine Better Series here: https://bit.ly/imaginebetterseries

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Addressing Single Use Plastics During a Pandemic ⋆ Futerra

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To mark the end of this whirlwind year, we decided to dedicate our last The Imagine Better Series webinar to a sustainability issue that has been greatly exacerbated by the pandemic: single-use plastic packaging. This Tuesday 15th December, our Group CEO Lucy Shea was joined by two of Futerra's most innovative partners in this space ...

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Webinar about single use plastic.

In the "imagine better series" creatives from the Japanese company Cow and Pepsi&Co talked us through their work and mission on single use plastic packaging.

What I gained from it:
- lower resources and lower emissions
- needs to fit easily within people's lifestyles
- offer a good value
- ReTHINK : innovation
- EDUCATING: simple message, right information, make it easy and desirable to use the product.

ALL FACTORS INTO ACCOUNT:
- life cycle of the packaging and alternatives
(evaluating different types of materials)
- carbon footprint
- recyclability
- functionality
- hygiene
- food safety
- Consumer: usability / acceptability / desirability
- no leakage / no petroleum-based plastic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
To mark the end of this whirlwind year, we decided to dedicate our last The Imagine Better Series webinar to a sustainability issue that has been greatly exacerbated by the pandemic: single-use plastic packaging. This Tuesday 15 th December, our Group CEO Lucy Shea was joined by two of Futerra's most innovative partners in this space - Archana Jagannathan, Senior Director of Sustainable Packaging at PepsiCo, and Dave Muenz, Senior Vice President of ESG at Kao Corporation - for the series' fourth panel session, which explored how we can tackle single-use plastics amidst the global coronavirus pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we saw a return to single-use plastic packaging in the name of health and safety. But as we have settled into new ways of living, addressing single-use plastic waste is back on the agenda for individuals and businesses. In a recent survey by Futerra and OnePulse, we found that the actions people are most willing to make to be more sustainable is to 'waste less' and 'avoid plastic'. Although many businesses have temporarily halted efforts to make progress against commitments to reduce single-use plastics in their operations and products, others are seeing this as an opportunity to help their consumers to reduce their plastic consumption through new materials, processes, and systems. In this digital event, we invited Kao and PepsiCo to share with us how their different organizations are addressing single-use plastics to ensure health, safety, and sustainability.

Here are some of our key highlights.
The informed consumer is King/Queen
Without a doubt, big business has the power to influence change, but it is the individual consumer that holds the ultimate power to see this change through. Businesses must play a double-pronged role in the effort to tackle single-use plastics, especially now that their use is more prevalent as a result of the pandemic:

Behind closed doors, businesses must innovate environmentally-friendly options and alternatives so that the consumer is empowered to make the right choice at shelf. The challenge that businesses face are the trade-offs that they need to make in terms of a product's sustainability and durability and its acceptability, usability, and desirability in the consumer's eyes.

Businesses must also use their platforms - be they local, national or global - to educate the consumer as to the problem at hand, and how a product should be used and disposed of safely for both people and planet.

Our panellists challenged the common and widespread consumer perception - which existed long before the pandemic hit us in 2020 - that if an item is packaged it is somehow more hygienic. Dave Muenz of Kao believes that we can find other solutions, even a totally new system, that provides a more environmentally friendly way of keeping items hygienic. He encouraged businesses and individuals to resist 'quick answers' and to take time when considering the Life Cycle Assessment of alternatives which could in fact be sub-optimum and might not necessarily work well for consumers in their environments.
Form the right coalitions and support communities
Instigating large-scale and effective change is a daunting task. When asked by the audience how we can best scale efforts to reduce the use and circulation of single-use plastics, Dave and Archana agreed that every market has a different way of operating and businesses must work at every level to embed innovations and processes in this space. Once businesses have worked on a granular level with individual markets and portfolios, it is then possible to launch bold commitments across a wider geography. Archana of PepsiCo gave a promising example of this in PepsiCo's work: the pandemic maintained oil prices keeping virgin materials at cheaper prices and recycled content at a premium. Despite such setbacks, PepsiCo is still committed to launching 100% recycled content for Pepsi in 9 key markets next year.

To find ways of enhancing the recyclability and circularity of materials, businesses must also form the right coalitions, working on a global level with peers, competitors, retailers, manufacturers and governments. On a community level, even really small communities, such collaboration is also vital: there is a lot that business can learn from individuals and smaller groups, e.g. how can big business truly help and support individuals to transition to a more sustainable lifestyle? Big business has the power to escalate and expand those learnings. It is important for businesses to be involved on all levels in order to inform a multi-level effort.
We overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade
What converts a whole market to making more environmentally-friendly choices and adopting more sustainable practices? Dave shared with listeners Kao's amazing case study, where years after introducing refill packs to the Japanese market of their personal care and household items, they now make up 80% of all units sold. Patience and endurance are at the heart of such efforts, in terms of the time taken to innovate and introduce solutions to the market, as well as in working to shift consumers to adopt new behaviours. Too much sacrifice will not get the uptake, so business must incentivise consumers' conversion by offering less effort and more value. Both Dave and Archana were optimistically in agreement that, although their businesses, and the rest of the world, has seen a sharp short-term return to single-use plastics in the name of safety and hygiene amidst the pandemic, in the long-term the upward trajectory of the movements we have put in place against plastic won't change very much, and might even accelerate.

A huge thank you to Archana Jagannathan, Senior Director of Sustainable Packaging at PepsiCo, and Dave Muenz, Senior Vice President of ESG at Kao Corporation, for their participation and partnership, as well as to our viewers for their probing and inspiring questions.

Inspired and want to know more? Access the full recording of our The Imagine Better Series: Addressing Single Use Plastics During a Pandemic webinar here: https://youtu.be/ldkPdaSVxV8

Want to join in the fun? Sign up for updates and the latest in The Imagine Better Series here: https://bit.ly/imaginebetterseries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Addressing Single Use Plastics During a Pandemic ⋆ Futerra

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
To mark the end of this whirlwind year, we decided to dedicate our last The Imagine Better Series webinar to a sustainability issue that has been greatly exacerbated by the pandemic: single-use plastic packaging. This Tuesday 15th December, our Group CEO Lucy Shea was joined by two of Futerra's most innovative partners in this space ...

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WHAT'S THE REAL PRICE OF GETTING RID OF PLASTIC PACKAGING? 

# data[].attributes.subject
WHAT'S THE REAL PRICE OF GETTING RID OF PLASTIC PACKAGING? 

# data[].attributes.body
More than 78 million tonnes of plastic packaging is produced worldwide every year by an industry worth nearly $198 billion.

About eight million metric tonnes of plastic are thrown into the ocean annually, according to data cited by Earth Day Network

Many of the companies attempting to tackle the amount of plastic waste generated by their products admit it will eat into their profits. Coca-Cola, for example, produces 38,250 tonnes of plastic packaging in the UK each year and estimates indicate it sells more than 110 billion single-use plastic bottles globally.

Coca-Cola says these efforts will increase costs.

The Pacific island nation Vanuatu became the first in the world to ban single use plastic bags, straws and polystyrene food containers!!

Several major supermarkets, including multinationals Tesco and Walmart, have already promised to reduce the amount of plastic packaging they sell their products in. Alongside Coca-Cola, drinks manufacturers Pepsi, food and cleaning multinational Unilever, food producer Nestle and cosmetics company L’Oreal have also pledged to ensure all their packaging is either reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. There is the probability that will make the goods we buy more expensive.

Fifty years ago, before the plastics revolution had gathered pace, most drinks were sold in glass bottles. Today almost all soft drink bottles are made from a tough plastic material called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET.

While the cost of producing bottles can vary depending on the raw material and energy prices at the time, it is generally not that much more expensive to produce a glass bottle versus one made from PET – about $0.01 more, according to some analysis. Transporting produce in glass bottles, costs start to rise.

A 330ml plastic soft drink bottle contains around 18 grams of material while a glass bottle can weigh between 190g and 250g.Transporting drinks in the heavier containers requires 40% more energy, producing more polluting carbon dioxide as they do and increasing transport costs by up to five times per bottle.

One report estimated environmental costs would be five times higher if the soft drinks industry used alternative packaging like glass, tin or aluminium instead of plastic

Food costs are going to increase – there can be no doubt about that,” says Dick Searle, chief executive of the British Packaging Federation

“I think people underestimate the benefits of plastics in reducing food waste,” says Anthony Ryan, professor of chemistry and director of The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the University of Sheffield.

The shrink wrap used on cucumbers for instance, can more than double the length of time the vegetable can last, allowing it to be kept for up to 15 days in the fridge and cutting food waste in half.

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Walking along a short section of stony beach, Claire Waluda stoops briefly to pick up something from between the rocks. It is a brightly coloured plastic bottle top - just one of hundreds of bits of plastic that she finds washed ashore on the remote, windswept island of South Georgia.

Located in the south Atlantic, on the fringes of the Antarctic, it is nearly 1,000 miles (1,500km) from the nearest major human settlement. Yet even here Waluda, an ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey, is finding worrying signs of our throw-away attitude towards plastic. Regularly she finds seals entangled in this debris or albatross chicks coughing up bits of plastic film.

These are just a few examples of the damage our throw-away relationship with plastics is inflicting on the environment. More than 78 million tonnes of plastic packaging is produced worldwide every year by an industry worth nearly $198 billion. Just a fraction of that is recycled while the vast majority is thrown away. Plastic litter now clutters every part of our planet, from remote parts of the Antarctic to the deepest ocean trenches.
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High profile campaigns and TV programmes such as the finale of the BBC's Blue Planet II, where Sir David Attenborough highlighted the problems plastics are causing in the world's oceans, have led to growing public alarm over the issue. In response to mounting pressure, governments, manufacturers and retailers are beginning to take steps to tackle the tide of plastic waste. But how much will this fundemantal change to the way we buy our goods actually cost?

Many of the companies attempting to tackle the amount of plastic waste generated by their products admit it will eat into their profits. Coca-Cola, for example, produces 38,250 tonnes of plastic packaging in the UK each year and estimates indicate it sells more than 110 billion single-use plastic bottles globally. The company has pledged to double the amount of recycled material in its plastic bottles in the UK and is trialling refillable bottles. Although it refuses to give details, Coca-Cola says these efforts will increase costs.

And even companies that have been dragging their heels will soon have to address the amount of plastic packaging they use. More than 60 countries are introducing legislation aimed at reducing the use of plastic bags and other single use plastic materials. This month, tiny Pacific island nation Vanuatu became the first in the world to ban single use plastic bags, straws and polystyrene food containers.

The cost of change
Several major supermarkets, including multinationals Tesco and Walmart, have already promised to reduce the amount of plastic packaging they sell their products in. Alongside Coca-Cola, drinks manufacturers Pepsi, food and cleaning multinational Unilever, food producer Nestle and cosmetics company L'Oreal have also pledged to ensure all their packaging is either reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.

But despite these commitments, much of the food and drinks industry is still trying to work out how it will meet the targets it has helped to set for itself. Some experts fear that without the right approach, this rush to banish plastics from our shopping baskets will make the goods we buy more expensive.

"It is not as simple as 'plastic is bad' so let's use something else," warns Eliot Whittington, policy programme director at the University of Cambridge's Institute for Sustainability Leadership, where he advises drinks manufacturers on reducing waste. "It will require a complete change in the way we use product packaging at the moment. Most packaging is now used just once and thrown away. We need to move away from that. It needs some form of leadership from government."
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More than a third of the food sold in the EU now comes packaged in plastic and each of its 510 million residents produce about 31kg of plastic packaging waste a year. One reason plastic is so dominant is its ability to do more, for less: it takes less material to make a drinks bottle out of plastic, for example, than it does to make one out of glass.

"Plastics are cheap, lightweight and adaptable in ways many of the alternatives are not," says Susan Selke, director of the school of packaging at Michigan State University.

Fifty years ago, before the plastics revolution had gathered pace, most drinks were sold in glass bottles. Today almost all soft drink bottles are made from a tough plastic material called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET.

While the cost of producing bottles can vary depending on the raw material and energy prices at the time, it is generally not that much more expensive to produce a glass bottle versus one made from PET - about $0.01 more, according to some analysis.

However, when manufacturers start transporting produce in glass bottles, costs start to rise. A 330ml plastic soft drink bottle contains around 18 grams of material while a glass bottle can weigh between 190g and 250g. Transporting drinks in the heavier containers requires 40% more energy, producing more polluting carbon dioxide as they do and increasing transport costs by up to five times per bottle.

"In many cases plastics are actually better for the environment than the alternatives," explains Selke. "It is surprising until you look closely at it."

A report by the American Chemistry Council and environmental accounting firm Trucost estimates that the environmental costs - which places a value on dealing with the pollution generated by a product - would be five times higher if the soft drinks industry used alternative packaging like glass, tin or aluminium instead of plastic. As governments seek to penalise polluting companies with carbon taxes and levies, these costs may be passed onto consumers.

"Food costs are going to increase - there can be no doubt about that," says Dick Searle, chief executive of the British Packaging Federation, which represents the industry in the UK. Using glass milk bottles instead of plastic, for example, can lead to additional costs for producers.

But does this mean the costs will be passed back to shoppers?

Iceland, a British supermarket that pledged to remove plastics from its packaging by 2023, is already switching its ready meals from black plastic trays to ones made from paper and plans to use other packaging materials like glass and cellulose, which is made from wood.

"Making this change is going to cost money," warns Richard Walker, the chain's managing director. "But we are determined that our customers will not have to foot the bill."

There are some, however, who warn that abandoning plastic after nearly 70 years of using it to package our food could have other far more costly, unintended consequences.

What may at first appear to be a wasteful plastic bag wrapped around your cucumber, for example, is actually a sophisticated tool for increasing the shelf-life of your food. Years of research have allowed plastics to push the time food lasts for from days to weeks.

"I think people underestimate the benefits of plastics in reducing food waste," says Anthony Ryan, professor of chemistry and director of The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the University of Sheffield.

The shrink wrap used on cucumbers for instance, can more than double the length of time the vegetable can last, allowing it to be kept for up to 15 days in the fridge and cutting food waste in half. An unwrapped cucumber would last just two days at room temperature and 9 days if refrigerated.
A meaty problem
Beef bought in polystyrene foam trays covered with plastic film will generally last between three and seven days. However if it is vacuum-packed in multilayer plastic, it can be kept for up to 45 days without spoiling. Environmental accounting firm Trucost estimate that vacuum-packing sirloin steak can cut food waste almost in half compared to conventional plastic.

Much of the food we now buy in supermarkets comes tightly wrapped in sealed plastic films and protective trays. This keeps fresh meat in an oxygen-free atmosphere, helping to prevent it from spoiling. Delicate fruit and vegetables are also kept safe from bumps that can degrade them, meaning they're more likely to be sold. Putting grapes in their own individual plastic boxes has been found to cut food waste by 75%.

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Plastic wrapping can also keep fruit and vegetables in their own little microclimates - known in the industry as modified atmosphere packaging - which can help to prevent them from ripening too quicky. Putting sweet peppers into a bag with a modified atmosphere can extend their lifespan from four days to 20, according to the Flexible Packaging Association. Extending the shelf life of food can greatly reduce the cost of food waste to supermarkets. Extending the shelf life of produce by just one day would save shoppers in the UK up to £500 million ($661m), according to anti-waste charity Wrap.

The global cost of food waste is already estimated to be almost $1 trillion a year, which is largely borne by manufacturers and retailers. While some believe that single-use plastic packaging has actually led to an increase in the amount of food we throw away by encouraging a culture of disposability, many in the plastics industry argue that without plastic packaging, the cost of food waste could rise.

Pinch and zoom on mobile to expand. Smart thinking
In this light, it might not make sense to ban plastics altogether but instead make plastics better.

"Rather than going back, it is perhaps more useful to look at innovation," says Eliot Whittington. "There are more and more companies that are reinventing plastics with additives that help them break down or making plastics that are biodegradable."

Whittington points to the growing bioplastics industry, which uses starch or protein from plants like sugarcane to generate the basic hydrocarbon materials needed to create plastics. Some of these bioplastics are not biodegradable at all, but others - like polylactic acid (PLA) - can break down over time and some are compostable, meaning they disintegrate entirely rather than merely crumbling into smaller "microplastics".

One company that has already shifted to bioplastic is British skincare company Bulldog. It has swapped its traditional plastic tubes for polyethylene made from sugarcane.

The new tubes are more expensive but "we still think it is the right thing to do," says Simon Duffy, the company's founder.

Another bioplastics leader is Coca-Cola, which two years ago launched the PlantBottle, a PET partially made with Brazilian sugarcane. It too has found that producing bottles from plants comes at a premium, although it wouldn't share with BBC Capital what this cost was.

Looking at a few examples, however, it becomes apparent just how much more expensive bioplastics can be.

A burger box made from sugarcane for instance, is almost twice as expensive as one made from polystyrene. A biodegradable takeaway fork made from plant starch costs 3.5 times more than a basic white plastic one.

Neither Bulldog or Coca-Cola are using bioplastics that can be considered biodegradable or compostable, instead encouraging consumers to recycle their bioplastics. And, in fact, there is some resistance to the widespread use of biodegradable materials.

"Bioplastics like PLA are huge contaminate for traditional recycling," says Dick Searle.

Surprisingly, due to rising oil prices, recycled plastic is actually cheaper to use than fresh, virgin plastic made from oil. A tonne of virgin PET costs around £1,000 while clear recycled PET costs just £158 per tonne.

Contamination of PET plastic with PLA, however, can leave the resulting bottle weaker and unfit for use, meaning the whole batch will have to be discarded. As manufacturers try to reduce their plastic footprint by using greener, biodegradable plastics, the risk of mixing with conventional plastics will only increase, potentially driving up the cost of recycled materials.

"Introducing these innovative products in a system that is used to more traditional waste stream is difficult economically," says Whittington.

It is a problem that will require new ways of identifying, sorting and dealing with plastic materials when they are thrown away to ensure biodegradable materials are kept separate from those that can be recycled.

But Anthony Ryan sees other problems with the widespread use of biodegradable packaging.

"It treats the symptoms, not the disease," he says. "If the disease is our throw-away society, making packaging biodegradable only encourages people to throw more away."

Instead, he suggests another solution: use more plastic.

"In modern meat or soft fruit packaging you might have several thin layers to give it strength, to stop gas permeability and to act as an adhesive," he explains. "You could get all of these properties from a single thicker piece of polyethylene. Then you would have a reduced set of materials, which would make separating and recycling this stuff easier."

He believes that making plastics more durable could help solve the current waste problem that is blighting our planet. Rather than abolishing plastics altogether, he proposes reusing the packaging we currently throw away.

Already deposit and reuse schemes like this - where plastic bottles are returned in exchange for a cash deposit and then are refilled - are in use in Finland, Germany, Denmark and parts of Australia.

According to research by the European Commission, however, reuse and refill schemes like this can work out to be up to five times more expensive than using packaging once and then throwing it away. But the World Economic Forum found innovative reuse and refill measures could actually reduce packaging costs by at least $8 billion a year, savings that could potentially be passed onto consumers.

And as many countries seek to introduce new laws that will put new levies on plastic bags and ban certain types of single use packaging, refillable and reusable options may become more attractive.

For Claire Waluda, whose team is monitoring the levels of plastic waste in South Georgia, the price of making these changes is one worth paying.

"We are seeing wandering albatross parents feeding plastic to their chicks," she says. "Anything that can reduce the amount of plastic debris in the environment is a step in the right direction."

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What's the real price of getting rid of plastic packaging?

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Walking along a short section of stony beach, Claire Waluda stoops briefly to pick up something from between the rocks. It is a brightly coloured plastic bottle top - just one of hundreds of bits of plastic that she finds washed ashore on the remote, windswept island of South Georgia.

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Interview to my Grandpa Francesco:
"Before the 60s plastic didn't exist, the bulk supermarket had different products wrapped up in paper. The products were differentiated by coloured paper: brown for meat, blue for pasta, etc. There were well designed containers for biscuits that we use to keep as container for other things.
There weren't too many brands and the food was local and tastier.
Although, it wasn't so hygienic, food was touched by human hands."

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Client: Carrefour

A few year ago I participated to the famous creative festival D&Ad. This French project got my attention in therms of challenging the unlawful laws that are currently existing within the food market. THEY MADE IT on the 19th 2018 (The French General Assembly on Food.

Carrefour launched the Black Supermarket, a campaign that defies the law to change the law.
Illegal BlackSupermarkets were created in Carrefour’s stores nationally to sell illegal varieties of cereals, vegetables, and fruits.
We asked people to join the cause by buying the illegal products in our stores and by signing our petition on Change.org to change the law.
Print, outdoor, web films and our instore BlackSupermarket installations revealed the absurdity of the law, and turned our illegal producers into national heroes.

SOURCE:
Primary research and article below:
https://creativepool.com/sarah-lemarie/projects/black-supermarket-for-carrefour

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UK DUMPS PLASTIC WASTE TO OTHER COUNTRIES 

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UK DUMPS PLASTIC WASTE TO OTHER COUNTRIES 

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The UK is a major contributor to the world’s plastic crisis, generating more plastic waste per person than any other country except the USA. Our recycling system is already overwhelmed by plastic waste. Now our waste is overwhelming other countries’ recycling systems too, causing serious harm to their citizens and environment, particularly in India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

(source Greenpeace)

Action needed:

Most importantly, the UK needs to drastically cut the amount of plastic produced in the first place. Reducing single-use plastic by 50% would not only allow the UK to end waste exports, but would also mean less plastic going into incineration and landfill. The government must mandate a 50% reduction in single-use plastic by 2025 – and supermarkets and major brands must deliver it.

FACTS

- UK is the second in the world generating plastic waste per person. (science Advances, 2020)

-Grocery retail sector is one of the major contributor of global plastic crisis. Because they are highly dependent on PACKAGING, design to single use and thrown away.

- In 2018 the UK generated and estimated 5.2 million tonnes of plastic waste.

- analysis by Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) found that the top 10 UK supermarkets actually increased their plastic footprints by 1.2% between 2017 and 2019, from 886,000 tonnes to nearly 897,000 tonnes.

- LESS THAN 10% OF HOUSEHOLD PLASTIC PACKAGING GETS RECYCLED IN THE UK, The British Plastics Federation (BPF) estimates that 46% of the UK’s plastic waste is incinerated, 19% is exported and 17% goes to landfill. Yet the government and companies continue to emphasise recycling as the way to deal with plastic waste.

- 2.3 to 2.4 million tonnes of plastic packaging every year, largely from households. RECOUP, an industry body established to promote recycling, indicates that the UK recycles just 230,000 tonnes of household plastic packaging waste each year.

- THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY’S NATIONAL PACKAGING WASTE DATABASE SHOWS THAT IN 2020, 688,000 TONNES OF PLASTIC PACKAGING WASTE WERE EXPORTED FROM THE UK [Where? Turkey (209,642 tonnes – 39%), Malaysia (65,000 tonnes – 12%) and Poland (38,000 tonnes – 7%)]

- burning plastic waste poses a serious threat to people's health

- Plastic waste affects sealife, Greenpeace tested fish in Turkish waters and found out that almost half contained MICROPLASTICS.

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Dirty Business: what really happens to your recycling

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Charities and NGOs

AUTHENTICITY

Brands are emphasising heritage. But are they real? Where do they produce and manufacture, is it so authentic or is it emphasised by brand identity and messaging?

"Why are they so successful? Because they are authentic, or they seem to be. There doesn’t appear to be any kind of barrier between us, the consumers, and the people who bring us the stuff. They grew it, or they caught it in the sea, or they reared it and butchered it, and now they stand behind a stall selling it. We know where it comes from, or we think we do. Authenticity means provenance. It not only tastes good but it gives us a feeling of well-being. We are doing the right thing, both for ourselves and for the planet.

“ The more the world goes global, the more we prize the local and the authentic”

Is it just a trend?

Case study: difference between Kellogg’s FMCG fast moving consumer goods

Quality of an authentic brand:

Simple/ austere / understated.

The packaging silently screams authenticity and provenance

Authenticity is not a movement; it’s not like Occupy. It’s not anti-capitalist. It’s not antianything, and it doesn’t dominate our lives. It’s one strand of several. It’s for things that, in our hearts, we know are right – such as moderation and honesty. No group is behind it, but millions of individuals are driving it. It’s a manifestation of the spirit of our times. And, somehow, we are all beginning to be influenced by it. At last, ‘authenticity’ is beginning to have a significant impact on product brands and branding. Many big organizations are beginning to recognize the feeling for it all around them and they understand that they have to come to terms with it. Or, as a trendy young marketer I know put it: ‘Authenticity is the new thing. Now we have to learn how to fake it.’ Of course, authenticity directly relates to, and is a manifestation of, the sustainability movement. Give or take a bit, some people in some places – an increasing number – are concerned about the major environmental issues. Is global warming a reality? Are we busily destroying our own environment? Are we ruining the planet for our children and grandchildren and their children? The influence of this kind of thinking –

Olins, Wally. Wally Olins. Brand New : The Shape of Brands to Come, Thames & Hudson, Limited, 2014.