Partner Spotlight: Closed Loop Partners
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What It Takes To Achieve A Zero-Waste Future for the Retail Bag
by Kate Daly, Managing Director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners
Every year, 100 billion single-use plastic bags are used in the U.S. While they are technically recyclable in a separated waste stream with other flexible film plastics, bags generally wind up in the landfill, in the natural environment, or in the wrong recycling stream, contaminating recycling facilities by getting caught in equipment and leading to shutdowns. Urgent environmental challenges, coupled with changing consumer expectations, have prompted plastic bag bans in states including New York, while the business case for sustainability is driving retailers to reinvent their operations––and the single-use plastic bags that had been a ubiquitous part of their businesses.
Closed Loop Partners’ Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag, led by Founding Partners CVS Health, Target and Walmart, along with 10 other leading retailers, identified nine exciting innovations through the Beyond the Bag Challenge, showing the breadth and potential of solutions that could help alleviate waste. Each winning solution supports a new way to get our goods home, and together they can pave the way toward system-wide sustainable change. Here are some insights into these solutions, and how they can advance the reuse and recovery of bags.
Tracking the bag throughout its life
Leveraging digital technology, Eon uses their Internet of Things (IoT)-powered CircularID™ Protocol to help users gather information along the bag’s value chain. For example, a recycling facility can scan Eon’s tag to learn what a bag is made of, and thus know which recycling stream to send it to. Also leveraging IoT, 99Bridges uses the technology to incentivize reuse and extend the life of a bag, connecting reusable bags through smart tags and allowing retailers to give customers rewards every time they reuse their bags. And what about all the reusable bags already sitting in our closets? Fill it Forward created a digital tag that connects bags you already own to a mobile app where users track their environmental impact, can give to charitable projects, and access rewards for reuse.
Meeting customers where they are
GOATOTE’s kiosk system provides easy access to clean reusable bags, solving for moments when customers do not have a reusable bag on hand. ChicoBag’s service enables customers to borrow reusable bags on-site and get rewards for each reuse. For customers who shop online or use pick-up services, Returnity designs and manufactures reusable shipping bags and boxes, and powers the supporting e-commerce and delivery system.
Aligning with existing retail operations
To replace thin film plastics, Sway offers a seaweed-derived material that is bio-based and has potential to be carbon-negative at scale, while matching the strength and performance of traditional plastic bags. PlasticFri sources starch from agricultural waste, creating a bio-based bag. In an update to traditional paper bags, Domtar has developed a bio-based material of 100% cellulose fiber that is stretchable and strong enough to withstand multiple uses, and recyclable in the paper stream. The availability of local composting and recycling facilities is critical to ensuring that bags like these can be processed at end-of-life.
If New York City and other major cities are to achieve their zero waste to landfill goals, this type of upstream innovation across retail sectors and material types is essential. Effectively replacing the current single-use bag requires a combination of approaches for a range of communities and markets. As these solutions gain traction, it’s critical to continue testing––learning what works and what can be improved, as innovators, brands, investors and governments work together to build circular systems that keep resources out of landfills and enable a waste-free future.
About Closed Loop Partners
Closed Loop Partners is a New York-based investment firm comprising venture capital, growth equity, private equity, project-based finance and an innovation center focused on building the circular economy. The innovation center, the Center for the Circular Economy, leads industry collaborations to solve shared material challenges among many of the world’s biggest brands and retailers. Learn more here and get in touch with us at admin@closedlooppartners.com.