I spent the weekend studying it and the “Valuing Plastics” study (2014) also by Trucost, as well as the related “The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics” (2016) by the World Economic Forum. I also exchanged two rounds of clarifying emails with the folks at Trucost. I came to the following conclusions:

By opting to focus on the question of plastics’ environmental costs versus alternative materials, the report curiously reignites what was debated ad infinitum in the ‘materials wars’ that many of us lived through during the 1990s. Since that time, many consumer brands opted to transition to plastics from the more recyclable metal (e.g., coffee cans), glass (mayonnaise, ketchup) and paperboard (milk cartons) based upon the environmental and financial costs, as well as other benefits of ‘light-weighting.’

So, this rehash of what seems fairly well known at this point (and even acknowledged within the Trucost/ACC study itself as the benefits of plastic soda bottles, car composites and food packaging) seems to distract from the more relevant and pressing issues these other reports recommend - namely, more public disclosure of specific risks of plastics by the companies involved and greater focus on end-of-life management aspects, e.g., recycling, reuse and preventing the escape of plastics into marine environments, especially in Asia.

Despite efforts by the Trucost folks to help me understand otherwise, this report appears to grossly oversimplify its argument by first lumping all plastics together and then assuming that all plastics will be replaced in wholesale fashion by alternative materials at what amounts to over four times the weight of plastics. They also assume that an equal amount of alternative materials as plastics will wind up as marine debris, despite suggestions earlier in the report that the unique nature of plastics - e.g., its application in single-use containers and its ability to be blown by the wind (plastic bags) - makes it particularly susceptible to becoming marine debris.

As a green marketer, I can’t help but note another concern with this report: Despite heed paid to ‘areas for improvement’ by Trucost, readers will misconstrue plastics in general to be ‘green.’ For the Federal Trade Commission, the government body that monitors truth in advertising claims, consumer takeaway - not intended communication - is what determines if a claim is misleading. Indeed, at least one press report has already declared as much in its headline, “Vindicated: Plastics are Green After All.”

A reminder: The latest iteration of the FTC’s “Green Guides” for environmental marketing now warns against the making of ‘general environmental’ claims.

I applaud Trucost for including the recommendations that it did in the ACC report with regard to improving the environmental costs of plastics. However, as someone immersed in all things ‘zero waste,’ I missed more of a discussion of specific opportunities for the industry to promote waste reduction (outside of light-weighting) and reuse, things that plastics are well suited for. Doing so would have helped Trucost more directly address the opportunities raised in the “New Plastics Economy” report, as well as underscore the credibility that comes with promoting the responsible consumption of one’s product.

Jacquelyn Ottman is a pioneer in green marketing, author of “The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding” and “How To Make Credible Green Marketing Claims: What The Updated FTC Green Guides Means for Marketers”.

This article originally was published in slightly modified form at TriplePundit.com.

 (Image: Timothy Krause, via Flikr)

Every time I see a plastic shopping bag blowing down a sidewalk, I make the effort to pick it up and bring it to the trash or recycling. That’s because here in New York City, plastic bags can wind up in a river, and eventually, the ocean where they can kill fish, birds, turtles. This horrifies me. And the numbers do, too.

Each year, New Yorkers use 5.2 billion plastic carry-out bags, and many of them end up as pollution. Plastic bags clog storm drains, exacerbating flooding and sewage discharge, and cause urban blight when they wind up in trees and wash up on beaches.

What We Can Do

If this horrifies you too, you can now do something about it. Go to bagitnyc.org and let the mayor and our city councilmembers know you support Intro 209-2014, legislation that would impose a 10-cent fee on supermarket bags among other things, to get New Yorkers to think twice about taking a bag. It will incentivize shoppers to bring their own reusable bags and can raise consumer awareness about other mindful shopping habits. In Washington, D.C., where a similar law is on the books, plastic bag usage dropped 60 percent. In San Jose, California, plastic bag litter was cut by a whopping 89 percent, and the average number of plastic shopping bags decreased from 3 bags to 0.3 bags per visit.

Opportunity to Make a Difference

Think of the difference it would make if we could reduce plastic bag usage in New York! In addition to the environmental benefits, it would take a big bite out of the $12 million the city spends annually to dispose of bags in landfills. As the largest city in the world with a fee on plastic bags, it would set an example for many other cities as well.

Let’s Get This Bill Passed by Earth Day

We missed our opportunity last year, but we can still make it happen in 2016. Contact your council member to voice your support for Intro 209 to impose a 10-cent fee on plastic shopping bags! Make a telephone call, send an email or send a letter or personal email.

Jacquelyn A. Ottman is a native New Yorker, green marketing pioneer and author, zero waste advocate, and founder of WeHateToWaste.com

Originally published in the West Side Spirit on March 8, 2016

(Image: Uli Seit/ New York Times)

Have you been hearing about “Zero Waste” lately? It’s an international movement that now counts among its adherents big U.S. cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Minneapolis. Most recently, New York City has taken its first steps down this road. On Earth Day 2015, Mayor de Blasio announced the city’s first Zero Waste plan, an attempt to rein in the costs and risks associated with disposing of the more than 10,000 tons of discards generated each day in New York which are exported at great environmental, health and financial expense to out-of-state landfills and incinerators.

Zero Waste is a new mindset about how we use our natural resources and the pollution we create when converting these resources to products and packaging. It’s not only about diverting waste from landfills and incinerators so that resources can be reused, recycled, and composted into new materials. It’s particularly about changing our purchasing and repair habits so that we reduce the amount and toxicity of waste that we create in the first place. Changing behavior is a process and most easily done by starting with a few things and adding more as you go along.

Did you know that most of the environmental impacts of our society trace to the emissions, water and land pollution and climate impacts generated because of the mining, logging, refining, manufacturing, and transporting of products that we buy? In fact, EPA has indicated that about 40 percent of all climate impacts are due to the production of goods (so that’s even more than emissions associated with lighting and heating/cooling our buildings or emissions from cars).

So, adopting new consumption habits capable of cutting out waste are things that we all can resolve to do in 2016. At the same time, we’ll can reap big rewards in cutting down on clutter and stress, saving money, and even strengthening our communities to create a better life for ourselves and neighbors.

New York City’s new “Zero Waste” plan calls for a 90 percent diversion from landfill by 2030 of all waste generated by households, businesses, schools and other institutions. But savvy New Yorkers don’t have to wait that long to get to “zero waste or darn near.” Start by taking some of the steps outlined below in your home, community, and in the larger city this year with the objective of reducing how much you dispose of in the trash (waste).

1. Reuse, repair and recycle in your own household

Reuse

Supermarket plastic bags represent 2 percent of the city’s waste stream and cost the city $2 Million to dispose of each year, clogging up sewer drains, blighting trees, and gumming up recycling works in the process. A simple thing that all New Yorkers can do is to carry a foldable reusable bag with you, setting a good example while doing so. It’s amazing how a little social pressure can make trends catch on. Once the bag’s packed, you’ll find it that much easier to make a habit of carrying a refillable water bottle, a spork, and asking the folks at Starbucks to prepare your coffee ‘to stay’.

Donate and buy used things. That completes the reuse loop. There’s everything from the online forums to Goodwill, Housing Works, and Salvation Army, but there are also less known places to donate and buy. Big Reuse, with warehouses in Astoria and Gowanus, is a place for promoting reuse of building materials like lumber, cabinets, appliances, furniture, lights, plumbing fixtures, and doors.

Repair

Thanks to some innovative fixit organizations, getting things repaired is starting to get easier in New York. PopUp Repair shops are now appearing in greenmarkets on the Upper West Side and Inwood, and the Fixers Collective stage walk-in repair nights in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Inspired by an international movement, local congregations and other organizations can stage repair cafés of their own, staffed by volunteers with skills, tools and sewing machines. San Diego is now staging a repair cafe in the main library every two weeks, staffed by volunteers. Want to learn fixing skills? Check out ifixit.com.

Recycle

Most items can be recycled, or composted or reused in New York City, if you know what to do. For starters, note which items go in “Green Bins” (paper and cardboard) and which are appropriate for the Blue (Mixed recyclables - metal, plastics, glass). Note that all paper and cardboard is recyclable as are all rigid plastics.

The ‘chasing arrows’ recycling logo has three arrows for a reason:

1. collect in communities,
2. make items from the materials that are collected, and
3. buy the products made from recycled content.

So, to close the ‘recycling loop’, make sure to buy products and packages that are made from recycled content and labeled as such. Note that the chasing arrows logo doesn’t always mean a product contains recycled content.

Avoid putting plastic bags, bubble wrap and film in with your recyclables since that contaminates them making it harder to sell for making into new products. Rather, take plastic bags and film to large grocery and drugstore chains, which now must offer plastic film recycling collection bins under New York State law.

Food and Organics

Employ ‘first in first out’ to minimize spoilage in your refrigerator. Make leftovers into new meals and stock for soups. Forty percent of food is wasted in this country while people go hungry. Wasting food unnecessarily depletes soil and water resources, energy resources used in their preparation for market, packaging and transportation, and creates pollution and greenhouse gases along the way. So, take care to buy only the food you can use - or pass it along to friends and neighbors - before it goes bad.

If food does go bad, compost food scraps along with leaves and grass in your own backyard or community garden. Composting creates organic material that, when mixed with your soil, makes it more fertile so plants grow faster. Food and yard debris deposited in landfills create methane, a greenhouse gas more than 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide.

If you don’t have a back yard, many New York residents are now in walking distance of 40 local greenmarkets where you can drop off scraps excluding meat, fish, dairy products and pet waste for composting into soil right here in the city. If you live in an apartment building, you can request a 21-gallon bin provided by the Department of Sanitation by visiting www.nyc.gov/apt-recycling. (This link also works for requesting bins for textiles and electronics.)

Textiles

Drop off textiles, which include clothing as well as sheets, upholstery and other fabrics, and shoes, at numerous greenmarkets and thrift stores. These articles are sorted for reuse or recycling. Your landlord can now request a RefashionNYC bin for collecting clothing right in your apartment building from the Department of Sanitation services (see above link). Don’t forget to save your gently worn coats until mid-November when The NYCares Coat Drive begins.

Electronics

Since January 2015 it has been illegal to discard electronics in the trash. If you can’t get your landlord to participate in the city’s e-cycle bin program, electronics can be discarded at a number of office supply and electronics stores, such as Staples and Best Buy. Thrift stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army also collect. (Here is a map of collection sites.)

Want to learn more about opportunities to recycle in New York City? Consult the city’s webpage of helpful “zero waste” resources.

2 Cooperate with your community

Working collaboratively with members of your local community to reduce waste magnifies the impact of individual household efforts. One trend in particular that has been augmented by the Internet, is the sharing economy. Manifested online and off, it helps individuals and communities to leverage underutilized assets while creating opportunities for social interaction and building economic resilience.

Sell/buy/exchange

Organize a flea market, yard or stoop sale by a single theme like fancy dresses, handbags, kitchen aids or sci-fi books. Take advantage of internet sites that enable anyone with a laptop or smart phone to immediately sell, buy or exchange. Craigslist.org and eBay.com are popular websites for peer-to-peer selling, Wallapop is new for Android, and a growing number of communities are creating private Facebook ‘For Sale or Trade’ pages.

Rent/lease

Keep closets from overflowing with seldom-used formal wear by renting haute couture for your next big wedding or gala via locally-based RentTheRunway.com. You can even try on dresses at their Flatiron location. To get around, you can rent shared vehicles by hopping on a Citibike or taking out a ZipCar.

Share/borrow

Ninety percent of what we own is used infrequently, so why keep it around permanently? Borrow and share tools, party supplies, board games and more from similarly-minded neighbors at Peerby.com, NextDoor.com, or Neighborgoods.net. Let neighbors know which items you’re willing to share through tools available on the latter website or a simple listserve circulated among dwellers in your building or on your block. A resource for bartering and swapping is moneycrashers.

Why can’t libraries lend more than books? To encourage reuse, the Sacramento Library is just one of many across the country expanding into lending out other items like musical instruments, sewing machines, and GoPro cameras in addition to books and CDs (the Library of Things). Take a poll of neighbors’ needs and encourage your local library to lend things, starting with items donated by community members.

Give it away/get it for free

FreeCycle.org is the granddaddy of internet sites that direct one to free goods, and allow others to pick up stuff you’re willing to give away. Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO/Vinegar Hill, and Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side are just two city neighborhoods with a “Buy Nothing” Facebook page, a project of the Buy Nothing Project, (buynothingproject.org) that promotes the free exchange of items among affinity groups.

Start low-tech. Got a spare corner in your building’s laundry room or lobby? Repurpose a cardboard carton, label it “Free Stuff” (‘Take it, leave it”) and start a healthy exchange in your apartment building. Encourage your local library, coffee house, or senior center - wherever people congregate indoors - to do the same.

Swap

GrowNYC hosts free Stop ‘N’ Swap events at local greenmarkets and schools, where people can drop off unwanted clothes, books, shoes, toys and housewares, and others can grab them, for free on a first come, first served basis. Their goal is to have one swap event in every community district each year, but why wait, when you can host your own event or party in your own building, congregation or other community group, and get in on the savings and the fun. Yerdle is a national community for exchanging goods.

A final helpful resource: Check out The NYC Stuff Exchange from the Sanitation Department to find out where to get durable items sold, donated or repaired.

3. Encourage businesses and governments to play their part

In addition to their roles as consumers, New York City residents can play an important part in achieving zero waste by encouraging the efforts of product manufacturers and government to ensure robust reuse and recycling opportunities.

Lobby city government officials to ramp up ‘zero waste’ practices by the public, starting with funding greater access to recyclables and organics collection programs curbside, on street corners, parks, offices and other public spaces. Support City Council Bill, Intro. 209-2014, which would place 10-cent fees on single-use paper and plastic bags (with certain exemptions). More information is available at www.bagitnyc.org.

Ask your City Councilmember to support the expansion of city-based reuse efforts like ReuseNYC which supports the thrift sector, Materials for the Arts, a program where you can donate used art materials that enables teachers to ‘shop’ for free art supplies in a 35,000 sq ft Long Island City warehouse, and the Lower East Side Ecology Center’s E-waste Warehouse in Gowanus, Brooklyn, that redirects collected e-waste for recycling, and refurbishes still good electronics and sells them at a fraction of the original price.

Participate in letter-writing campaigns to encourage manufacturers to design products and packages that use less material, and to help close the recycling loop, to incorporate recycled materials into designs as well as materials like aluminum or paper which are easily recycled here in New York. Ask manufacturers to stop using toxic ingredients in their products.

Lobby for an expansion of the current Green NYC public education campaign to help consumers understand why and how to recycle, and to make using reusable bags, bottles and coffee cups “cool.”

While there are many different steps consumers and citizens can take, getting towards zero waste is really more of a change in attitude than anything else. It’s a realization that the Earth and its natural resources, the atmosphere, rivers and oceans are all finite, the climate is fragile, and continuing business as usual “consume and throw” is leading us all towards a degraded environment.

The road towards Zero Waste represents the process of becoming more responsible towards our environment. The manufacture, transport, and eventual disposal of products and packages have significant environmental and climate impacts of their own that can’t be erased with even the most ardent of recycling efforts. As much as we enjoy the “right” to consume in an industrialized society, we need to acknowledge our corresponding “responsibility,” something that includes not buying what we don’t need in the first place, and shopping more mindfully, opting to buy fewer more quality things and treasuring them for the resources and craftsmanship they represent.

Together, we can do it, here in New York City.

Jacquelyn Ottman is a native New Yorker, green marketing pioneer, author, and founder of WeHateToWaste.com focused on promoting zero waste as the basis of a new consumption ethic. She can be reached at info[at]greenmarketing.com

Maggie Clarke, Ph.D., founder of Zero Waste New York, is an environmental scientist who specializes in recycling participation, waste prevention, and zero waste. She can be reached at maggieclarke[at]zerowastenewyork.org.

Originally published on CityLimits.org February 9, 2016

(Image: TreeHugger)

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately better understanding my hometown of New York City’s incredibly wasteful ways. We New Yorkers generate 11 lbs. per person of waste per day and those of us working types, 4lbs. per day. With no active landfill or incinerators (Fresh Kills was briefly re-opened to house 9/11 waste and incinerators were nixed years ago as too dirty.), we spend $300 million per year shipping our waste to Virginia, Pennsylvania and other states. (A ‘yikes’ in here would be very appropriate.)

So it was very exciting to see Mayor Bill de Blasio unveil on Earth Day his OneNYCPlan, with its goal of diverting from landfill 90% of NYC’s municipal waste by 2030.

Talk is abuzz in the waste-y circles I run in about how, in the consumption and garbage capital of the world, we will make that happen. (And early encouraging signs are that the City won’t resort to mostly incineration. According to one city official I interviewed, “We have our principles. We strictly adhere to solid waste hierarchy.”)

So I was quite interested to see ‘Racing to Zero’ when it was screened on May 28 as part of a fundraiser for local composting efforts by the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board.

A Too Sunny Presentation of Recycling

Have you seen the documentary ‘Racing To Zero’ yet? It spotlights San Francisco’s efforts to achieve an aggressive Zero Waste goal of diverting 90% of its municipal waste from landfill by 2020. San Francisco leads the country in this endeavor, and in that regard has much to teach the rest of us. However, the film’s too sunny presentation of the City by the Bay’s recycling efforts to the near exclusion of ‘reducing’ and ‘reusing’ risks sending a message to consumers that could perversely result in more waste generation-and wasteful consumption, not less.

According to the film’s website, “Racing To Zero is a quick-moving, upbeat documentary presenting new solutions to the global problem of waste. By simply substituting the word RESOURCE for the word GARBAGE, a culture can be transformed, and a new wealth of industries can emerge.”

This is a powerful premise, and one that needs to be embraced broadly in our society. To its credit, the film does a great job of explaining how San Francisco is able to divert laudably high levels of its waste from landfills and turn it into new products via recycling, or soil amendment (composting).

However, in its zeal to get out its message, the film depicts recycling as a magic bullet, and as such risks a ‘Rebound Effect‘ if consumers start to view recycling as permission to continue to consume at the current rate, rather then change to less environmentally impactful forms of behavior.

A seemingly simple sounding concept, recycling is fraught with complexity; any discussion of its merits needs to be balanced by a sober discussion of its limitations as well as its relationship to other, more environmentally preferable solutions to solid waste such as reducing and reusing.

Why Recycling is Not a Magic Bullet

Recyclables can be a valuable source of materials that can be turned into new products for often less cost and environmental impact than mining and processing virgin materials. It creates jobs and protects resources. (Learn about the U.S. EPA’s Sustainable Materials Management approach HERE.)

That said, not all materials can be physically recycled (due to difficulties separating for instance), or benefit from profitable markets that would warrant their collection.  Contrary to the ‘round and round’ image conveyed by the chasing arrows recycling logo (See side bar), not all materials can be recycled indefinitely; unlike glass or aluminum, paper fibers become shorter and weaker with each successive round of recycling, and eventually wind up in a landfill or compost pile.
Most plastics, when they are collected at all - typically only #1’s (PET) and #2’s (HDPE) are collected in local communities - are simply ‘downcycled’ into lesser quality material.

Finally, recycling has its own environmental impacts, starting with the energy (and resulting carbon emissions) it takes to transport recyclables from collection point to materials recovery facility (MRF) to eventual point of re-manufacture. So it is entirely possible that, from an environmental standpoint, products made from 30% recycled content could actually be environmentally as well as economically preferable to 100% recycled content.

San Francisco’s Zero Waste Manager, Robert Haley, plays a key role in the film, deservedly touting his city’s enormous achievements in diverting its now reported near 80% of waste to landfill (though some might dispute this figure as high given measurement techniques.) However, his enthusiasm for recycling can lead viewers to overestimate this method’s benefits. Picture this: at one point in the film Haley stands in front of a deli refrigerator that’s stocked with single-serve cans and bottles of soda pop and iced teas, and throwing his arms in the air, proclaims, “They are all recyclable!” (Would I be disrespectful to insert here a “Gag me with a spoon?” Read on to learn why.) 

Zero Waste Means Focusing on the Other Two ‘R’s

Achieving ‘Zero Waste’ is about more than collecting recyclables and turning them into new products. It’s about an integrated approach to solid waste management that reduces the amount and toxicity of wastes in the first place. It’s about making sure that waste materials

are directed to their highest and best use; this may include refilling some packages, for example, rather than simply sending them for recycling.

Finally, according to the definition adopted by the Zero Waste International Alliance, and espoused by the U.S. Zero Waste Business Council and others, zero waste is about more than landfill diversion. It is about preventing waste from occurring in the first place by changing consumption culture with a prominent role for Reduce and Reuse, the two R’s that rank above Recycling in EPA’s Waste Management Hierarchy.

‘Racing to Zero’ has close to zero (couldn’t resist the pun) discussion of San Francisco’s efforts to promote these other 2 R’s by highlighting campaigns (which I presume exist) to encourage consumers to use refillable water bottles and coffee cups, bring their own bags to the supermarket, or shop in thrift stores, swap instead of buy new, or obtain used products via online platforms such as e-bay and Craig’s List.

These other 2 R’s are just as important if not moreso within an integrated solid waste management plan (and documentary) educating folks about the best way to get to zero waste.  (To his credit, in announcing NYC’s OneNYC plan, Mayor de Blasio took advantage of the opportunity to pose with a refillable water bottle, suggesting that we in the media capital of the world may have a little something to teach San Fran.)

Composting does play a key role in ‘Racing to Zero’ (and is the ‘star’ of the film’s trailer), as it is considered to be a form of recycling, and its benefits are well displayed, although its treatment too could benefit from a more balanced discussion of alternative, environmentally preferable ways of disposing of food waste such as nourishment for humans and animals.

Recycling Must Not Become the New ‘Away’.

Understanding why ‘Racing to Zero’ is so unbalanced is not germane to this article (although the film’s producer is listed as an ‘artist in residence’ at Recology, the City’s outsourced recycling organization, and Recology is listed as a Partner on the official website.) And I don’t mean to ‘shoot the messenger’. This film has much to teach about the potential value of recycling to shift perceptions of trash from ‘garbage’ to a ‘resource’. Given its single-minded focus on recycling, perhaps it would have been better titled along those lines rather than as a portrayal of San Francisco’s zero waste efforts with its multi-pronged approach.

My main point is this: without a more concerted focus on Reduce and Reuse, together with a more balanced discussion of the effectiveness of recycling with the context of achieving Zero Waste, ‘Racing to Zero’ and any related communication by any other group to follow will lose an important opportunity to credibly educate the public at large and those of us in cities like my own about the role that recycling can play as an effective solid waste strategy. At worst, it risks sending a message to consumers that recycling is the new ‘away’, and that our throwaway culture can continue unabated.

What Do You Think?

This is an important topic! Let’s discuss and debate this so that future readers may benefit. What do you think? Am I too harsh? Justified? What might this documentary have done differently? Do you know of any other documentaries that do a better job of explaining what it takes to get to Zero Waste?

This article was first published on WeHateToWaste.com. Click the link to view readers comments and join the discussion!

Jacquelyn Ottman is a green marketing pioneer, speaker and author of four books including The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools and Inspiration or Sustainable Branding, (Berrett-Koehler, 2011). She is the founder and creative energy behind WeHateToWaste.com. 

Recent Blog Posts

(Image: Shutterstock)

What does it take to inspire people to ‘reduce’ and ‘reuse’ in addition to recycle? The top posts submitted during 2014 submitted by members of our growing We Hate to Waste.com global community showcase a number of brand new ideas for preventing precious resources from dead-ending in a landfill.

With recycling and composting stalled at 34% across the U.S., and incinerators back atop the agendas of many U.S. cities, the timing couldn’t be better for taking a fresh look at alternatives to take-out packaging, which seems to be particularly irksome for environmentally conscious consumers.

  1) Selfies with Reusable Coffee Mugs Help College Students ‘Kill the Cup’

Drew Beal’s “Kill The Cup” campaign inaugurated across ten college campuses this past fall represents one big idea with a low-cost execution for making it socially acceptable, if not downright cool for college kids to bring their own reusable coffee cup.

What’s your favorite way to get at that last dollop of the Crest?  Do you flatten as you go?  Slice the neck?  What about the shampoo or conditioner?  Do you add a little water and swirl? Prop the bottle upside down in a corner?  You are not alone!  As the Wall Street Journal has noted, an increasing number of consumers are shaking, rattling and rolling their packages in search of the last drop, ounce and morsel — and for good reason.

According to the scientific pounders and pummellers at Consumer Reports (See Image at the top) up to 25% of the LaPrairie and Lubriderm get left behind, as well as up to 16% of the Tide. (That’s a lot of mayo, people). Although practiced by a slightly obsessive group of consumers for ages, according to the Journal, this behavior ‘has accelerated since the recession across a wide swath of ages and incomes.’  Environmentally speaking, these drips and drops, like Tip O’Neill’s ‘billion here and billion there’, add up to ‘real money’ and real impact in the aggregate, when one takes into account not only the product and package, but also the transportation and resulting emissions.

Inventors, Start Your Engines
But not every consumer sees eradicating waste as a chance to experience the thrill of the hunt, even in the quest to ‘save the planet’.  Many men and women will take their business elsewhere rather than spend precious time chasing after dollops. Indeed, as we are learning at WeHateToWaste.com, our online community of influential penny-pinchers and sustainability passionatas, all of this spells opportunity for brands, packaging suppliers, entrepreneurs and others who can help consumers get all of their money’s worth from the products they buy. With Booz & Co reporting that 50% of consumers are trying to stretch the usage of individual products and an upward trend noted since 2008, that opportunity is immense.

Got A Package That’s Hard To Mine For The Last Dollops? 

Oxo Good Grips markets a silicone spatula that is specially shaped to reach the bottom edges and under the rims of jars of all shapes and sizes. Clorox now equips its sprayer bottles of Windex and other cleaners with ‘Smart Tube Technology’ that evacuates up to 98% of product (versus 75% for conventional dip tubes) without the angling and other gymnastics. And a coating called LiquiGlide is reportedly getting ready to hit the shelves in 2015 lining packages of big name brands of toothpaste, mayo and paint.

My mailbox is becoming a magnet for gadgets designed to pick up where package design leaves off.  Two of the most recent arrivals include The Spatty, a tiny spatula that helps women get at the last dabs of pricey creams and cosmetics. When consumers are struggling to retrieve the last ounce of Palmolive liquid to generate one more sinkful of suds, there’s My Botto, a colorful plastic stand that holds bottles upside down, letting gravity do the work.

How Much Anti-Perspirant Do You Throw Away?
What other opportunities lurk for ingenious solutions to get at those nagging bits of product left on the sides and bottoms of jars, bottles, tubs and tubes?  I for one pridefully share my own strategy for getting at that last half inch of Secret that lies just out of reach. Is there an ingenious tinkerer out there who can solve this problem for consumers not willing to jerry-rig a solution like mine? Riches await. As being discussed energetically by the many waste watchers who frequent WeHateToWaste.com and other fora, other packages in need of a boost in evacuation include round salt boxes, and metal soup cans with the pull-top lids, even some mayo bottles may not be sufficiently squeezable to get the job done.

Hurry
Since launching WeHateToWaste in January 2013, we have brought together a community of consumers that delightedly pries, pulls, wraps, and rolls in order to get the last drop from everything they buy. Quick to grab a cloth shopping bag, switch off the lights, and ditch the disposable everything, they are leading the way to a new, ‘no-waste’ lifestyle (See The Newest Rule of Green Marketing: Help Consumers Live a ‘No-Waste’ Lifestyle) needed to help all consumers thrive in the resource-constrained years projected to come.  As I pointed out on this website last month, they are inspired by waste prevention practices the world over (See Cultures Around the World Can Inspire No-Waste Lifestyles) to live leaner and comfortably.

If learning about mindful consumer strategies and more efficient ways of doing things intrigues you, please drop by WeHateToWaste.com, and join in on the many important conversations that are taking place 24/7. If you would like to learn more about partnering with us, check out our special presentation at SlideShare.

If you personally hate to see things go to waste and want to talk to me directly, pick up the phone right away. With 9.5 billion people expected by 2050, there’s not a moment to waste.

Originally published on SustainableBrands.com May 2014

Jacquelyn Ottman is founder and principal of J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. NYC-based experts on green marketing and eco-innovation. She is the author of The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding (Berrett-Koehler 2011). In 2013, her firm launched WeHateToWaste.com, an online global community of consumers looking to prevent household waste, conserve natural resources and get the most from the products they buy.

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Cultures Around the World Can Inspire No-Waste Lifestyles

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Lunches delivered to workers in India in steel tiffins. (Image: Letztrend.com)

Cultures around the world possess their own unique, deeply-ingrained beliefs and traditions for minimizing waste. For instance, the Yankee Ingenuity helped America put down its early roots, and the Dutch custom of sharing unlocked ‘community’ bikes at train stations inspired bike-sharing programs in NY, Paris and other world capitals. Many such notions are the inspiration for entrepreneurs who are fast at work introducing new products that can help all consumers prevent water, energy, food and various materials from going to waste.

Many of these entrepreneurs’ stories are being shared at WeHateToWaste.com, an online community of waste watchers that we at J. Ottman Consulting launched in January of 2013. Its goal: define an appealing ‘no-waste’ lifestyle that can help all consumers thrive during the leaner times expected ahead. (See The Newest Rule of Green Marketing:Help Consumers Live a ‘No-Waste’ Lifestyle published 4/11/14).  With the entire world as our fishing hole, many more opportunities await to cross-fertilize a near limitless supply of cultural traditions to harvest insights for more new ways that can help all consumers reduce, reuse, and refill. 

Mottainai: How the Japanese Say ‘Waste Not. Want Not’
To help them stretch notoriously limited resources, the Japanese adhere to the principle of mottainai, which literally means ‘waste nothing.’ Used to instill the fear of a bogeyman into children who wasted food, as well as to undergird Toyota’s Lean Manufacturing System, mottainai embeds a sense of gratitude and respect for resources throughout all of Japanese culture.

With few trees and high electricity costs, Japan’s public restrooms do not provide free paper towels or hand dryers. So, everyone totes a reusable cotton ‘handkerchief’ for these and other moments.  Similarly, gifts in Japan come wrapped in luxurious reusable cloth ‘furoshikis’ rather than disposable paper.

Intrigued and inspired, two enterprising women in Monterey, California created ‘People Towels’ to encourage waste-free hand drying here in the US.  Want to get a gift wrapped at one of the 800+ Lush Cosmetics stores that are springing up around the world? Expect to hear, “We don’t use regular gift wrap, but for an additional $6.50 we’ll be happy to wrap that in one of our colorfully printed Knot-Wraps.”

Live Simply Like the Swedes
Do you know that in Sweden, it’s tacky to park your red Ferrari in the driveway for all to see? Inspired themselves by the Danes, the Swedes’ Law of Jante promotes social stability and harmony by attempting to wipe out status as a driver of consumption.  No wonder the Swedes enjoy the highest standard of sustainable living on the planet today — and brands like Ikea with its utilitarian designs and Volvo’s timeless styles and long-lasting vehicles promote high value and encourage straightforward living.

What Else Can We Learn About Living a No-Waste Lifetyle from Other Cultures?
Inspired by India’s use of reusable delivery boxes, Hunter Moyes, a chef in Vancouver, Canada, started The Tiffin Project, aligning local area restaurants in an effort to provide discounts to customers who bring their own take-out containers.

Daily, Americans use nearly four gallons of water just to brush our teeth.  Of course, we could all turn the water off when we brush (especially when using Tom’s of Maine , but then there’s the issue of the toothbrush and paste.  Perhaps an inventor one day soon will take note of the Indians’ use of neem twigs to start a modern day waterless and natural tooth care revolution.

The French have an uncanny knack for using up every bread crumb and turning leftovers into ‘soup du jour’. The NASA space program gave us Tang and freeze-dried ice cream so food could be transported more efficiently. What more can we learn from resourceful French chefs and NASA food scientists to feed an estimated 9.5 billion mouths by 2050?

WeHateToWaste.com
Since launching WeHateToWaste.com in January 2013, a picture of what a new sustainable lifestyle looks like is starting to emerge from  insights gleaned from global cultures. Still more insights can be had from listening intently to the entrepreneurs, the Green Team leaders, the sustainability ambassadors, the local composting chiefs and other influencers who are gathering at WeHateToWaste.com to compare notes, be personally inspired, and bolster their efforts to nudge spouses, co-workers, businesses and governments in a leaner, no-waste lifestyle direction.

If you have a moment, stop by WeHateToWaste.com and drop in on some of the many important conversations taking place 24/7. If you would like to learn more about partnering with us, check out our special presentation on Slideshare.

If you personally hate to see things go to waste, please call me immediately.  With 9.5 billion people expected on the planet by 2050,  there’s not a moment to waste.

Adapted from a piece originally published on SustainableBrands.com  April 24, 2014

Jacquelyn Ottman is founder and principal of J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. NYC-based experts on green marketing and eco-innovation. The author of The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding (Berrett-Koehler 2011), she founded WeHateToWaste.com, an online global community of consumers looking to prevent household waste, conserve natural resources and get the most from the products they buy.

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The Swedes Enjoy the Most Sustainable Lifestyle in the World (Image credit: Melker Dahlstrand/imagebnk.sweden.se)

In 1988, my antenna tweaked toward an emerging trend soon to be called ‘green consumerism’.  A hole in the ozone layer was discovered over Antarctica, nightly newscasts tracked the daily wanderings of the Mobro garbage barge, and air pollution clogged views of the Grand Canyon. Among the culprits: consumer products.

Alternatives needed to be found for CFCs in aerosols, polystyrene clamshells and disposable baby diapers. To move existing greener alternatives off the dusty shelves of health food stores into mainstream supermarkets, marketers needed help shifting messages from ‘saving the planet’ and ‘sparing the daisies’ to the more immediate, benefits of ‘saving money’ and ‘protecting health’.

So I Joined the Environmental Movement
Armed with over a decade’s worth of experience helping P&G and other marketers sell shampoo and potato chips from my perch on Madison Avenue, I jumped ship and joined the environmental movement.  A self-described ‘environmental marketer’, my goal: apply the skills I learned from America’s savviest marketers to help spread the word about ‘greener’ choices, and generate ideas for new ones.

For the past 25 years, my colleagues and I have been busy supporting the launch of ecolabels like Energy Star and USDA Certified Biobased. We’ve strategized for HSBC’s Effie-awarding winning ‘No Small Change’ campaign, and helped GE, IBM, 3M and other sustainability leaders develop credible appeals of their own.  For everybody else, I’ve summarized the lessons into five books, including my latest, The New Rules of Green Marketing (Berrett-Koehler, 2011) and How to Make Credible Green Marketing Claims (Advertising Age, 2013).

Next Up: Lean and Luxurious
I’ve now decided to devote the next 25 years helping businesses apply my newest rule of green marketing: offer practical solutions that can help consumers thrive during the leaner years ahead.  With 9.5 billion people expected on the planet by 2050, and 3 billion more moving into the middle class by 2030, there’s not a moment to waste.

Fresh water, food, petroleum and various kinds of materials are expected to be in short supply; environmental degradation and climate change will only add to the enormity of the task. The watchwords will be ‘efficiency’, ‘value’, ‘green’, and ‘credible’.  With consumers historically reluctant to trade off their comfy lifestyles for the sake of ‘the planet’, smart businesses will help consumers toss the throwaway culture and live a new attractive ‘no-waste’  lifestyle in which ‘reduce’ and ‘reuse’ become the new ‘recycle.’

What Does a No-Waste Lifestyle Look Like?
What are the implications for the future size of our homes and the length of our commutes (if we commute at all)? Will peer-to-peer sharing and swapping replace shopping and ‘stuff’? How do we make it economically feasible for the next generation of products to be repairable, upcyclable, and durable like their counterparts before the post-War generation drank the disposable (and likely plastic) Kool-Aid?

These are the questions my colleagues and I are attempting to answer by engaging with a new online community that we launched in January of 2013.  At WeHateToWaste.com, influential consumers and brands from all over the world come together to share strategies and tips for cutting down on wasted food, water, energy — you name it — at home and work; their quest: save money, time and space, cast a lighter footprint, and stay in sync with their ethics.

What Comes After Cloth Shopping Bags?
A group who long ago integrated the ‘50 Simple Things’ deep within their psyches and habits, the ardent waste watchers who frequent WeHateToWaste.com are now in search of the next cloth shopping bag, the next refillable water bottle, and the next ceramic coffee mug.  One step ahead of everyone else, they share stories of how they now tote a washable ‘People Towel’ in their purse and gym bags, carry a reusable metal ‘Tiffin’ to help cut down on the to-go packaging waste, and shake rattle and roll the Pantene bottle in pursuit of every last drop.

The Millenials, in particular — the shoppers of tomorrow — are already in the process of shifting loyalties to a new generation of brands intent on helping them balance sustainability sensitivities with stretched budgets.  Growing up with recycling as a matter of course, they are now embracing ‘refuse’, ‘reduce’, and ‘reuse’ to guide their purchases; armed with smartphones and iPads, they are borrowing, swapping and sharing with peers.  The brands and products they are taking up residence with include: Lush’s ‘Naked’ personal care products, Patagonia’s Worn Wear, Levi’s Care Instructions for the Planet, AirBnB, and Carpooling.com.

Stop By WeHateToWaste.com
As a run-up to the Sustainable Brands ‘14 conference in June, where I will be on hand to tell the WeHateToWaste.com story live for the very first time, we are publishing a series of three articles sharing some of the insights we’ve been gleaning about the new behaviors our community is adopting, the brands they are embracing, and their unmet needs as they attempt to integrate waste-watching ethics into their modern, on-the-go lifestyles.

If you get a moment, stop by WeHateToWaste.com and join in on the many important conversations going on 24/7. If you’ve got a brand that already helps consumers live leaner, or you want to figure out how to inspire employees to create some leaner yet sexy solutions of your own, consider partnering with us.

Want to learn more? Link here to check out a short powerpoint that will lay out the opportunities in more detail.

Green marketers, it took a while, but you’re on the way to finally ditching what I’ve long called ‘the babies, planets and daisies’.  Are you now ready to go lean?

Originally published at SustainableBrands.com  April 10, 2014

Jacquelyn Ottman is founder and principal of J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. NYC-based experts on green marketing and eco-innovation. She is the author of The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding (Berrett-Koehler 2011). In 2013, her firm launched WeHateToWaste.com, an online global community of consumers looking to prevent household waste, conserve natural resources and get the most from the products they buy.

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Every year I head to Europe to take part in the Sustainable Innovation Conference organized by The Centre for Sustainable Design (UK) as part of its ‘Towards Sustainable Product Design’ series of conferences.  Sustainable Innovation brings together pioneers, movers and shakers from around the world and across multiple industries who are changing the game of sustainable design to present their ground-breaking concepts and ideas. This year’s program, as always provided a glimpse into the leading edge of ideas and concepts for addressing sustainability through design and innovation.

I was invited to present my vision for creating a waste-free culture and our new website and blog, WeHateToWaste.com as part of this year’s conference themed, “Collaboration, Co-creation & New Business Models: Personal Visions, Perspectives and Stories.”

As a follow up to the conference, Martin Charter, Director of The Centre for Sustainable Design (UK) summarized the event by preparing this video recap, as well as itemizing the following key lessons:

1. Foresight: Adaption to climate change, circular economy & eco-innovation are now being hardwired into future European industrial policy scenarios; with thinking on eco-innovation now breaking away from the traditional definition of eco-industries based on ‘end of pipe’ environmental technologies towards a more horizontal view based on a pervasive ‘greening of industry’ & the development of a diverse array of eco-innovative products, services & technologies.

2. Circular Economy: Leading companies are implementing ‘design for disassembly’ & ‘design for upcycling’ in product design & development e.g., Kyocera (printer cartridges) & Globe Hope (clothing) but are finding a lack of infrastructure, knowledge, networks, skills, etc. to support these initiatives; where is the ‘smart (closed loop) grid’ discussion to enable the Circular Economy? & how should it be developed?

3. Disruption: New players entering existing markets with disruptive eco-innovative technologies can experience a very bloody fight with aggressive responses from incumbents; NestLabs highlighted the need for significant financial resources to fight legal battles, the importance of design, monitoring & quickly responding to customer feedback & creating a ‘can do’ mindset; Globe Hope & ZedFactory highlighted the need to stick to core values, the importance of personal resilience, having a solutions oriented mindset (to problems) & a lack of public policy support for sustainable & eco-innovators.

4. Business Models: An emerging question is, do green business models actually exist? & perhaps that the question needs to be re-framed; growing energy, material & water challenges are leading a number of companies to adapt their business models; many eco-innovative SMEs have a product/technology push mindset & lack sound business models, so there is a need for widespread dissemination of business model thinking amongst sustainable & eco-innovators; more strategically, ‘green ventures’ units are emerging within a number of leading companies e.g., Patagonia & Nike stimulating & financially pump-priming new & potentially disruptive sustainable & eco-innovative start up businesses.

5. Democratisation: Stronger ‘grassroots innovation’ is emerging through ‘people power’ facilitated by social networks, & information & communication technology (ICT) which is characterised by growing trends in the use of ‘open innovation’ including crowd sourcing ideas & funding, & the rise of makers & fixers.

6. Collaboration: Open innovation & crowdsourcing approaches are being used to co-create new businesses with collaboration & partnership being essential; developing & building relationships & trust will be viewed as as central principles to the co-creation of businesses. An excellent example is Enviu, an organization that creates innovative businesses with positive environmental and social impact (pictured above).

7. Freedom: Breaking away from conventional thinking patterns & practice needs organisations, groups & individuals that that can operate outside ‘the system’; an ability to experiment & ‘break the rules’ will be increasingly important; however, ‘breakaway organisations’ e.g. Enviu from the Netherlands that operate more openly, un-conventionally & un-reasonably will still need to have well organised structures & systems especially related to funding & project delivery.

8. Demonstration: It was highlighted that people need access to real, physical demonstrations of more sustainable futures to enable them to ‘see’ a way forward, this was well illustrated by Bright Green Island (a ‘living laboratory’ for sustainable solutions in Denmark), Pines Calyx (‘cradle to cradle’ conference centre in UK) & Village Impact (socially designed and innovated kitchens in Malawi).

9. Systems: To drive sustainable & eco-innovation there is a need to operate in parallel at grassroots & system levels, & this requires business, civil society & government to develop better ways of working together - however, presently sustainable or eco-innovation seems to be emerging from civil society & business, with government’s role being seen as increasingly unclear.

10. Capitalism 2.0: Green growth & green economy is permeating global policy thinking however ‘grassroots innovation’ is emerging from civil society & entrepreneurs rather than big business or NGOs; alongside this, new business models are emerging where business success & performance are not just being judged by financial success but also by positive environmental & social impact.

© Martin Charter 2013 mcharter@ucreative.ac.uk

I encourage you to learn more about this important conference and its ability to exchange ideas with leading edge European sustainability thinkers. For more information about the Centre for Sustainable Design and the conference, visit their website. 

Jacquelyn Ottman is founder and principal of J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. NYC-based experts on green marketing and eco-innovation. She is the author of The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding (Berrett-Koehler 2011).  Earlier this year, her firm launched WeHateToWaste.com, an online global community of consumers looking to prevent household waste, conserve natural resources and get the most from the products they buy.

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Thanks to new reports from NRDC and Harvard, indicating that 40 percent of food never makes it from the farm to a table, and that consumers are confused by “sell by” and “best by” dates, food waste is emerging as a big issue. Among the mindful consumers within our We Hate To Waste online community, food waste is now on par with long-standing environmental concerns such as water and energy supplies.

People care about food waste for all kinds of reasons, starting with moral issues such as global hunger, environmental reasons including carbon footprint (food waste decomposes in landfills into methane, a potent greenhouse gas), and even health concerns like obesity.

Despite all the attention traditionally given to leftovers, food scraps, uneaten crusts of bread, our consumers seem to be especially concerned about food waste away from home, and they are willing to take steps to deal with it that have implications for restaurant branding and practices, particularly regarding portion control and choice of doggie bags.

Mindful Consumers Weigh In 

We’ve been busy polling the many mindful consumers who visit our WeHateToWaste.com community website and we’ve garnered many insights that suggest that consumers see over-sized portions contributing factor to food waste (not to mention obesity) and seek options in smaller portion sizes and the economic benefits that go with it.

Compounding the issue are the inferiorly designed doggie (‘to-go’) bags that make taking home uneaten food impractical, less desirable, and even wasteful in and of itself because of bulky, often non-recyclable packaging.

 What Restaurants Can Do To Prevent Food Waste

Restaurants that can proactively address diners needs have particular opportunities to enhance revenues, profits, and image.  For starters, try more flexible portion options (with accompanying pricing) that can broaden appeal to such demographics as seniors, dieters, and women (beyond children who seem to be adequately served now), and reconsider ‘all you can eat’ programs. Make it easy to share restaurant entrees more easily.  Offer to pack uneaten food to-go.

Another often overlooked opportunity is to find superior doggie ‘to-go’ bag designs that can accommodate the dual challenges of serving on-the-go lifestyles (not everyone heads straight home after dining), and such environmental and health concerns such as plastic migration and compostability; not surprisingly, styrofoam heads the ‘no-no’ list of materials, among our ardent ‘waste watchers’.

Underscoring the opportunity, our consumers reported that an environmentally preferable option ‘would make them feel better about their restaurant choice,’ even swaying their choice of dining establishment in some instances. Some ardent ‘waste watchers’ would prefer to bring their own containers, volunteering existing behavior using a variety of rigid as well as flexible containers of materials including metal as well as plastic.

To make sure that uneaten food that is packed to go winds up being eaten not tossed, up-to-date doggie bags should accommodate in-home use concerns like microwave-ability and freshness, even including directions for reheating or serving suggestions.

Finally, concerns over “behind the scenes” food waste that are more difficult for diners to monitor suggests the need for more transparent restaurant practices, especially in municipalities with particularly high rates of food that is landfilled.

Our mindful consumers are surprisingly enlightened about optimum solutions to food waste, exhibiting an intuitive understanding of the Food Waste Hierarchy, i.e., making sure that food is first eaten by humans or animals, and then composted, and only landfilled as a last resort.  Establishments that can divert uneaten food to local food banks and other causes and can communicate same to patrons have particular opportunities to enhance their brand.

This article was first published on TriplePundit.com October 18, 2013

Jacquelyn Ottman is founder and principal of J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. NYC-based experts on green marketing and eco-innovation. She is the author of The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding (Berrett-Koehler 2011).  Earlier this year, her firm launched WeHateToWaste.com, an online global community of consumers looking to prevent household waste, conserve natural resources and get the most from the products they buy.

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