THE FAMILY PUMP
Julie Corbett is the closest thing to a sustain-
able packaging oracle that we’ve got. Corbett,
the founder of Ecologic, is behind such innova-
tions as Seed Phytonutrients’ shower-friendly
paper shampoo bottles. And the future she
sees might not be what you expect. Or what
you want to hear. You may have heard about the
problem with pumps. Often presented as the
white whale of the sustainable packaging com-
munity, pumps are typically made out of two or
more types of plastic and a metal spring. Short
story: “The pump will never be recyclable, no
matter what people say,” says Corbett. She pre-
dicts there will be a new breed of pump, made
of recycled plastic, which is better than the cur-
rent situation. But her ultimate solution is a bit
more radical: Standardized pumps, purchased
somewhat like a knife set, and used for decades
for everything from cleansing oil to dish soap.
WORKS LIKE
LOTION, LOOKS
LIKE FLOUR
“I call it the liquefication of America,” says
Corbett. “We’re addicted to plastics because
we’ve liquefied everything.” The only way out
is to move toward solid and powdered prod-
ucts—and to invest in new beauty technology.
(Like a just-add-water moisturizer, for example.
We’re ready!) But even bars are not devoid of
packaging—where else would the ingredi-
ent list go? But Corbett has a solution for that
too: “It’s going to involve technology. Maybe
at the store, you’ll have a touch screen that
will tell you what the ingredients are before
you buy.” For those wondering why we can’t
just use glass for all that liquid America slosh-
ing around: Glass is heavy, expensive, and
carbon-polluting to ship. And that’s just part of
the problem: The recycling process for glass
releases more greenhouse gases than plastic
or aluminum do. And it pretty easily pollutes
the recycling stream. “Everyone is asking why
[the big beauty brands] don’t use more glass,”
says Corbett. “It’s because they’ve all made car-
bon commitments to lower their footprints, and
glass will increase them.” Instead let’s ask the
big beauty brands another question: “Where
can I buy parchment-wrapped wafers that mix
with water to make a facial essence?”
A MILKMAN
RENAISSANCE
Recycling giant TerraCycle’s Loop program,
which launched last year, has a solution to the
packaging problem: What if we used reusable,
refillable packaging for...every single product in
the world? The concept is a simple return to the
days of the milkman, only now you’re putting
down a deposit on a reusable aluminum sham-
poo bottle, delivered to (and later picked up at)
your door in a reusable fabric box. You can now
get Pantene Pro-V shampoo, Gillette razors,
and more in nine states, Washington, D.C., and
two regions in France, and there are plans to
expand to the West Coast, Canada, Japan, and
the U.K. this year. Loop’s service, ambitious and
utopian, provides a hint that refillable, standard
packaging could be the future. —C. C.
In a world where
“recycling” doesn’t exactly
mean what we thought
it meant but we still want
clean hair and crimson
lips, how do we imagine a
world without packaging?
It requires expert
foresight—and a little
wishful thinking.
MEDICINE
climate
change
CABINET
THIS IS
YOUR
ON
