Durable beauty: Unilever, Nivea and Bulldog among flurry of brands in Loop UK zero-waste pilot platform

Already launched in France with Carrefour and the United States with Kroger and Walgreens, Loop’s waste-free e-commerce model would soon be rolled out in Germany, Canada, Japan and Australia. Designed by TerraCycle – a private US recycling and waste management company – Loop worked with brands to redesign packaging into durable and reusable formats and offered these online to consumers, in partnership with large retailers.

Among the collection of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands available on the UK platform – spanning food, drink, household cleaning and beauty – there were seven personal care brands: Nivea Men, Love Beauty and Planet, REN Clean Skincare, Bulldog Skincare, Beauty Kitchen, Molten Brown, and Noice Natural Toothpaste.

Convenient and responsible beauty retail​

Loop said its pilot UK programme with retail partner Tesco meant consumers could “conveniently order and responsibly consume”​ a wide variety of products, including shampoos, soaps, moisturisers and toothpaste – all offered in durable refillable packaging.

Consumers were required to pay a deposit fee on each piece of packaging that was then fully refunded to them upon final return – done so either through a home pick-up or drop-off at more than 2,500 collection points across the UK.

Loop then sorted and professionally cleaned the packaging to “stringent health and safety standards”​ so that each product could be safely refilled by the manufacturer. “Cleaned and refilled products are simultaneously replenished as needed to the consumer, creating a convenient and safe zero-waste shopping system,”​ Loop said.

The eventual goal was to also make these reusable, durable formats available in-store across Tesco’s UK network next year.

Is mass beauty ready for durable?​

Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of Loop and TerraCycle, said Loop had been “designed from the ground-up” ​as a means to reinvent consumption. The concept had considered learnings from “historic circular and sustainable models like the milkman from yesteryear” ​whilst at the same time honouring “the convenience afforded by our single-use consumption of today”.​

Szaky previously told sister site CosmeticsDesign that in the last two years, the beauty and personal care industry had certainly opened its eyes​ to this and now understood the “crisis mode”​ and need to move away from single-use packaging.

And Amanda Balada, business development manager at TerraCycle Europe, told CosmeticsDesign-Europe last year that consumers were increasingly interested in alternative and durable package offerings.​

“It’s true that consumers are more and more aware about sustainability, in general, and they are really purchasing products taking into consideration sustainable options,”​ Balada said.

“…They understand that durable is better than recyclable or reduced packaging, even if it’s single-use. I would say there’s a trend starting from consumers to move from disposability to durability.”​