For 30 years, ecostore, New Zealand's leading brand in sustainability, has been creating high-quality and sustainable home, body, and baby care products. Since its inception, ecostore has also been dedicated to creating more sustainable business methods.
Yesterday marked the start of Recycling Week (16th – 22nd October), and ecostore is challenging Kiwi businesses to make mindful packaging decisions and take responsibility for the waste they are creating.
"As the business community, we are responsible for what we're packaging our products in. Companies can't continue to pump out endless plastic and expect their customers to deal with it," said ecostore CEO Pablo Kraus.
Globally, plastic consumption has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Only nine percent of plastic waste is recycled. Plastic waste is in landfills, incinerated or leaking into the environment.
Ecostore is constantly working to reduce its reliance on plastic and has recently launched new plastic-free products such as its hair care bars, Dish Bars and Toothpaste Tablets. While plastic-free products are the ultimate goal, plastic packaging is still needed, and ecostore is responsible for what they produce.
"We always ask ourselves, 'Do we need plastic for this?' 'Is there something else we can use?' But where the answer is plastic, we make sure that it's our responsibility to produce that well and take care of it at the end of its life. That's on us, not our customers."
Kraus continued that recycling systems here and around the world were overloaded. The current setup can't meet demand. This leads to plastic being landfilled, ending up in the environment or being shipped overseas to become someone else's problem.
In 2020, ecostore introduced its Plastic Return Programme. By the end of last year, ecostore had collected 12,845kg of recyclable materials, the equivalent of over 180,000 1L Dish Liquid bottles.
"When people buy an ecostore bottle, they know it's the most sustainable option we can offer. Our bottles are made of a mix of recycled and sugar plastic."
Ecostore bottles can be refilled at one of over 120 refill stations nationwide. When it reaches the end of its life, ecostore has over 50 bottle drop locations where people can return bottles to the business. Kraus said ecostore wants to return its bottles to ensure they are remade into new ecostore bottles repeatedly.
Over the last three years, ecostore has tripled the amount of recycled material used in its plastic packaging. By the end of 2022, 42 percent of ecostore packaging contained PCR, or post-consumer regrind plastic.
If current plastic production and waste management trends continue, there will be roughly 12 billion tons of plastic waste in landfills or the natural environment by 2050.
Kraus emphasised that something needs to change, and every small step towards better usage and management of plastic waste has the chance to make a significant difference. Ecostore encourages all businesses, big and small, to consider the changes they can make.
