🌱 Return to sender: How Deposit Return Schemes Tackle Single Use Packaging

Featuring Unspun, Cheekbone Beauty, Float Foods, Epic Cleantec and more...

Happy Monday!

This week we cover:

• Quick Take: Out of the loop: How the UK is playing catch up with Deposit Return Schemes

• Brand Spotlight: Sustainable by Nature: Indigenous-owned beauty brand Cheekbone Beauty showcases environmental leadership

• In case you missed it: Turning the Tide: Your 101 to Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and meet the beer made from recycled shower water.

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> Good News Last Week

🎯 Unspun launched their 3D woven collection with Eckhaus Latta. They’ve produced the world’s first woven trousers using their novel technology, Vega, which can now be purchased through their Shop and at selected outlets.

🎯 Notpla have used their latest material, Notpla Rigid, to produce custom watch boxes for ID Genève Watches. The rigid material, while also produced from seaweed, provides the same protection as rigid plastics but naturally decomposes after use.

🎯 Float Foods, the plant-based egg company, have received Food Safety Certification for their machine that produces vegan egg yolks.

🎯 Once Upon a Tuesday, HelloPrint, FLOOR_STORY and Hayman’s Gin announced they are all B Corp certified!

🎯 Simply Lunch launched three updated products following their partnership announcement with Wildfarmed. The products use Wildfarmed’s flour, produced using regenerative agricultural practices, to make their ciabatta breads.

⭐️ Ganni and Mejuri announced the launch of their capsule jewelry collection made from recycled materials. The four piece collection will contain both 92% recycled sterling silver and 95% recycled gold vermeil.

> Want good news sooner? We post every Friday on LinkedIn! If your CPG brand has good news to share, let us know.

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> Quick Take

Out of the loop: How the UK is playing catch up with Deposit Return Schemes

What is a Deposit Return Scheme?

A Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) involves charging consumers or hospitality businesses a small deposit for drinks containers (such as bottles and aluminium cans), which is refunded once the container is returned. A successful scheme increases recycling rates through behaviour change and pushes the cost of single-use plastics away from the consumers and back to the producers. It has been a long-term aspiration for the UK to roll out such a scheme and it feels like a no-brainer with the success DRS has been having around the continent.

Overview and results of the current deposit return scheme implementations in Europe. Source: Sensoneo

So how is the UK aiming to keep up with the neighbours?

With current recycling rates of approximately 70% for drinks containers, the UK has much to learn from countries like Germany and Denmark where drink bottles and cans see over 90% recycling rates. Since Scotland was earmarked for earliest launch (at one point its DRS was set to launch this month) we know what a UK scheme will likely entail:

• What will be included - Drinks in single-use containers made from PET plastic, glass*, steel or aluminium sized between 100ml and 3 litres (Source: SEPA)

*This is a point of contention but more on that below!

• The process - The producer pays 20p deposit per drink into the scheme administrator. The producer then charges the same deposit to the wholesaler and they in turn charge that to the retailer who charges it to the consumer. When the consumer returns the item the 20p is refunded to them. This step is either manual or through a reverse vending machine. The scheme administrator collects the container and gives the retailer 20p (there may also be a handling fee). All designed to make it cost neutral for the retailers. 

• The desired result in Scotland - The proponents of the scheme hope to reduce litter by a third (saving £46 million in public money), up recycling rates of these containers to 90%, reduce carbon emissions by 4 million tonnes over 25 years – the equivalent of taking 83,000 cars off the road, and extend the valuable lifetime of the materials.

So why was it postponed? 

The initial rollout of a DRS is a crucial moment. If all stakeholders are not aligned, it can fall like a house of cards. Of course, any DRS will face push back from interest groups but there was possibly one major weakness that broke the camel’s back for in Scotland…glass. Glass is not included in the plans for the English DRS which meant that worries about implications, like cross-border booze trips to save money, began gaining traction. This issue along with other complications led the ministers to call for delay. Wavering confidence saw producers pull funding from the scheme administrator, which then fell into administration.

While most wait to see what happens, Lidl Scotland has made use of the newly installed infrastructure to allow customers to recycle their PET bottles and drink cans in their reverse vending machines in exchange for 5p vouchers. The retailer estimates that it will lead to over 10 tonnes of recycling each month.

What’s going on next door?

The republic of Ireland launched their DRS on the 1 Feb 2024 (this roll out did not include glass). Early research suggests “82% of consumers supported the introduction of the DRS and 95% plan to engage with the scheme. 76% of consumers said they believe they can make a difference to the environment by recycling drink containers.”

Though most early reports are good, one worry is that major retailers have used the scheme to disguise price increases for their drinks multipacks. For example, it is has been reported that in Tesco Ireland “six-packs previously sold at €6 have been replaced by four-packs at €5 (excluding deposit value) – a reduction in product of 50%, with the shelf price only dropping by 25%.” Let’s hope this will not impact the public’s perception of the programme!

Ireland’s return logo. Source: re-turn.ie

How can producers prepare for the DRS?

With UK wide rollout expected in 2025, now is a great time to prepare if you haven’t started already. Here are some actions you can consider:

• Get the topic onto the agenda early, both with your execs and your marketing team.

• If you sell direct to consumer, start planning how you will take back your containers.

• Put yourself in the shoes of your consumer and use that as a starting point for your planning.

• Look at SKUs that are not performing well and consider if they will tip the cost/benefit scale if included in the scheme.

• Reach out to others. Britvic have kindly offered on their website to share their experience and the contact details of their deposit return department.

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> Brand Spotlight

Sustainable by Nature: Indigenous-owned beauty brand Cheekbone Beauty showcases environmental leadership

“Indigenous people are the OGs of sustainability,” says Jenn Harper, Founder and CEO of Canadian-based cosmetic company Cheekbone Beauty. 

Jenn founded Cheekbone Beauty in 2016 based on a dream - young Indigenous girls covered in lip gloss. The company was created to “help every Indigenous person see their value in the world” while developing “sustainable colour cosmetics that don’t end up in a landfill, and are made for every human.”

Cutting-edge social media marketing, features on the faces of celebrities like Blake Lively and Lily Gladstone and strong values have led to great successes for Cheekbone Beauty so far. Let’s take a closer look…

Meaningful partnerships

Cheekbone Beauty is a certified B Corp, part of 1% for the Planet and has met Sephora’s Clean + Planet Positive standards. One step better - as a PACT Collective Mail-Back member, it is possible to return hard-to-recycle elements of their packaging through a mailing programme. They work with Canopy as a Pack4Good partner committing to be conscious of Ancient and Endangered Forests in their product and packaging design too.

Of all the certifications, Cheekbone Beauty’s team has let us know which are the most useful for driving customer growth:

​​“B Corp has been the most helpful because it’s the most well-known, there’s a large platform of other B Corp certified brands to connect with and there are a ton of resources for being a B Corp certified brand available for us to use. The awareness surrounding it is massive. Sephora Clean + Planet Positive is also noteworthy because of the trend in customers looking for clean and sustainable beauty products in a retail setting which is increasingly important.”

Sticking to their principles

However, Cheekbone’s sustainability strategy is not about meeting the certification checkmarks. It’s rooted in the 7th Generation Principle:

The Seventh Generation Principle is an Indigenous concept, encouraging humans to think about those seven generations before them, and who will come seven generations after, when taking action.

Circular practices are a key way to preserve for future generations and are critical to keeping ecosystems intact. Cheekbone told us that in line with the Principle, “we are constantly looking into new product packaging and components so that we can improve our circularity involvement on all levels and products.” Their newest product, Courage Cream, is presented in a mono-material that makes it easily recyclable.

#GlossedOver

Recently, the Following the Footprints team attended an event called The Future of Sustainability Campaigns (run by Enviral). We were struck by the impact created by some seriously out-of-the-box, systems-challenging campaigns. #GlossedOver, by Cheekbone Beauty and Sid Lee, is a great example of an emotion-evoking campaign.

For background, 1 in 6 Canadian First Nations communities did not have access to clean water in January 2022. This alarming statistic inspired Cheekbone to launch three mock lip glosses to drive awareness; Luscious Lead, E. Coli Kiss, and Mercury Shimmer. 

The brand partnered with Sephora to send the product to unsuspecting beauty influencers and gather their reactions. Watch some of their responses in this video: 

#GlossedOver campaign video. Source: Cheekbone Beauty on Youtube

The campaign generated $45,000 in donations to community water programs and over 36 million impressions. 

Over the years, Cheekbone Beauty has donated over $150,000 to organizations aligned with its mission. They look forward to continuing to give back, empower youth, and weave Indigenous teachings into Western science to make products “sustainable by nature.” We can’t wait to see what they do next!

Take a closer look at Cheekbone Beauty:

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> In case you missed it

🌱 Turning the Tide: Your 101 to Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and meet the beer made from recycled shower water.

Featuring Epic Cleantec, St Austell Brewery Alpkit, Finisterre and more...

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> Follow up with…

1. Article: End-of-life (EoL) in LCA: Impacts of waste & benefits of recycling.

2. Article: Thinking differently: Using the Seven Generations Principle

3. Documentary: There’s Something in the Water

4. Report: Introducing a Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

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