Minding Their Waste: Organizations and Businesses Reshape Supply Chains To Reduce Use of Plastics And Build A More Sustainable Future

The problem with plastic isn’t new: With few options for recycling, these products can last forever — and exacerbate health risks for people and the planet. But through my research over the past few years, I have learned that some innovative businesses and organizations are realizing the need to address the problem at its root by reducing the production and use of plastic.

For example, one company that has been consistently working to improve and internalize the impact of materials used throughout its supply chain is Seventh Generation. Manufacturer of a variety of sustainably created cleaning and hygiene products, Seventh Generation’s name is a nod to the long-term environmental and social considerations the company has when it makes decisions about the producers and processes in its supply chain.?

Joey Bergstein, the former CEO of Seventh Generation, told me how the company sets multiple sustainability goals, such as working to improve or reduce the types of plastic it uses and pursuing zero waste. To meet those standards, the company works with partners, suppliers, and third-party manufacturers —?helping to reduce waste throughout its supply chain and encourage other businesses ?to consider the broader implications of their operations.?

“One example is our supplier forums, where we bring our major suppliers together and spend three days talking about sustainability and how we can collectively improve our sustainability footprint,” he said. “Then we ask those suppliers to build an action plan and share that action plan so we can all make progress together.”

To move toward zero waste, Seventh Generation is striving to ensure that 100% of its products are recyclable and recycled, biodegradable and degraded, compostable and composted — looking to reshape the systems that surround its products to ensure they end up in the recycling stream.?

“In the zero waste work, our focus has really been around the products that we create as opposed to ensuring that there’s zero waste in the manufacturing of the operations. We don’t have much waste at all actually coming through operations,” Bergstein said. “The most waste is actually the end of life for the products that we create, which is where more companies should focus their attention.”

Among Seventh Generation’s business partners is Grove Collaborative, a company that?offers sustainability-minded household products and counts thousands of loyal customers . Stuart Landesberg, co-founder and CEO of Grove, told me that the company’s long-term vision is that consumer products will be a positive force for humans and the environment.

“One of my favorite parts of my job is the people I get to work with on the supplier side. The company is called Grove Collaborative deliberately, because we are reliant on the work that so many other people in the ecosystem have done,” he said. “There are a bunch of awesome companies doing awesome stuff, and we’re really lucky to be in that ecosystem.”

By partnering with companies that also are looking to reduce their impact on the planet, Grove helps to build a broader market for sustainable products and practices and demonstrates that business can serve as a force for societal and environmental good.?

He told me “Businesses are incentivized to maximize profit and push out externalities (such as plastic waste) to defenseless groups, to the fullest extent possible. It’s a terrible system, and the only way that this is going to change, or that we’re going to get the change we need in the world, is through business participants.”

But in addition to business innovation, there are also important policy levers. To learn more about the wide-ranging consequences of plastics and the importance of government action,?I also recently talked with Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics . The nationwide project based at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, pairs the experience of environmental policy experts with creative college students to achieve the institutional, economic, and societal changes needed to combat the plastic pollution crisis.?

During our conversation, Enck addressed the crucial need for companies to be held accountable for the environmental impacts of their products and the abundance of greenwashing among companies taking “environmental action.” To get at the root of the problem, Beyond Plastics is seeking systemic change to encourage companies to reduce the production and use of plastic packaging.?

To make that reality, Enck’s organization is pursuing policies for extended producer responsibility (EPR), that basically require companies to cover the costs of recycling programs. Countries in Europe have seen success with programs like EPR that require waste sorting and leverage fines for breaking the rules, and EPR bills have emerged in recent years in legislatures across the United States, with Maine, Oregon, and Colorado as early adopters. While these new laws appear to be a step forward in reducing environmental impact, they face challenges from Enck and other environmental advocates who say they fall short of what’s needed and actually are taking aim at the wrong issue.?

“I think we can do a whole lot better than getting money to pay for plastics recycling, which we’ve learned does virtually nothing to actually solve the plastic problem,” she told me. “The European Union has had an EPR for packaging directive in place for years. But when we talked with people in Europe, we realized that while it was good to get the funding for recycling, it didn’t do anything to actually help with plastic reduction, so to speak. Plastic reduction is where our focus needs to be; not just on recycling.”

Enck says there are six pillars for EPR policies and programs to be effective: they must reduce packaging, eliminate toxins from packaging, expand bottle bills, prohibit the burning of plastic, enforce oversight and accountability, and relieve the taxpayer.

Through Beyond Plastics, Enck and others are working to ensure that EPR bills incorporate specific reduction requirements and standards for recycled content — steps to avoid what she calls “unsustainable waste disposal.” One of the biggest challenges for Beyond Plastics is communicating the issue and the solution, and shifting the burden from consumers to the companies that create the products.?