The Covid-19 pandemic has made online shopping all the more appealing to millions of people, yet the practice often comes with plenty of extra waste, especially plastic.
Some online shopping services want to do something about that by helping customers wean themselves off single-use plastic products in favor of reusable ones.
One such trailblazing online company is Loop, which delivers groceries and household items to people’s doorstep and already operates in France and the United States. It has also just started offering a zero-waste service dubbed “21st Century Milkman” in the United Kingdom by focusing on brands that sell their merchandise in reusable packaging.
Several leading consumer goods companies, including PepsiCo and Unilever, have embraced the initiative by creating ecofriendly versions of their most popular brands for sale via the website. The company operates in a number of markets, including Japan and the US and has received backing from Sky.
The reusable containers in which groceries and household products are delivered are later collected by Loop. They are then cleaned and reused or recycled for the next customer in what has been described as “one of the most ambitious attempts yet to eliminate plastic waste from the household shop.” Read more…