TerraCycle Loop Reuse: What the Refill and Return Pilots Have Shown

TerraCycle Loop reuse is one of the best known attempts to make reusable packaging mainstream. Loop launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2019, and its pilots with major retailers taught the industry a lot, including where the model needed to change.

How TerraCycle Loop reuse works

Shoppers pay a deposit on a refillable container and get it back when they return it. TerraCycle, founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer and based in Trenton, New Jersey, says its mission is to eliminate the idea of waste. It also runs the Zero Waste Box for hard to recycle items such as coffee capsules and beauty empties. These descriptions come from the company and press coverage.

The retail pilots

A nine month Tesco trial in the United Kingdom included more than 50 brands at Loop Reuse Stations, and has ended. Loop ended 2022 with about 150 retail locations worldwide, roughly three dozen of them in the United States. US pilots included Fred Meyer in Oregon, Giant Food in Washington, D.C. and Walmart home delivery in Arkansas. Packaging Dive reported in January 2023 that about two thirds of participating consumers returned containers two or more times, a company figure.

A change of model

The same reporting said Loop’s standalone e-commerce model was being phased out in favor of retail partnerships. We did not confirm any 2024 to 2026 update on Loop’s status, so readers should check the company before assuming a program is running in their area.

Context readers should know

In 2021 TerraCycle settled a lawsuit over labeling, and agreed to update labels, after claims that it did not disclose limits on how much packaging would actually be recycled. Reuse is promising, and the lesson from these pilots is that convenience, deposits and retailer buy-in decide whether it grows.

Sources: TerraCycle about page; FoodNavigator, August 2023; Packaging Dive, January 2023. Figures marked as company reported come from the company itself.