Ecostore wants your leftover bottles – company launches bold ‘recall’ initiative to cut plastic waste

By MiNDFOOD

Ecostore wants your leftover bottles – company launches bold ‘recall’ initiative to cut plastic waste
Ecostore's new initiative is showing how businesses can take responsibility for plastic waste.

New Zealand’s sustainably-minded home and body care brand, Ecostore, has announced a ‘Permanent Bottle Recall’.

Working with the Ministry for the Environment, Ecostore’s new initiative is tackling the urgent need to alleviate the country’s overwhelmed waste and recycling system.

Setting up over 100 collection points across the country, Ecostore is asking customers to return their bottles where they will be process and remade by the company.

Through the ‘closed loop’ model, Ecostore hopes to demonstrate how businesses can take responsibility for plastic waste.

“Our company is guided by the principle of ‘planet before profit’, yet we know that our bottles, despite using sustainable and renewable sugar plastic, are part of the problem,’ says Ecostore Group CEO Pablo Kraus.

“Issuing this Permanent Bottle Recall is a way of highlighting the urgency of the problem, while presenting a positive solution,” says Jemma Whiten, ecostore Group Marketing Director.

A recent government report found that no more than 30% of plastic packaging in New Zealand actually gets recycled. The rest gets shipped overseas or ends up in landfill.

The company says there is the potential to take millions of bottles out of the system in the near future alone.

Used bottles being processed in the factory, image supplied

“While our programme is viewed as a starting point, the aim is to create a system that can be scaled across many businesses to drive change and maximise the amount of plastic taken out of our overwhelmed system.”

Ecostore have already seen great success in trials of the programme across New Zealand schools.

“We are continuing to engage schools so young New Zealanders feel empowered to make an impact on climate change and reduce plastic in the environment,” says Whiten. “Through our programme, we want to help educate future kaitiaki to move from a linear to circular approach and learn by doing.”

To find out more about the Permanent Bottle Recall and where your nearest collection point is, visit recall.ecostore.com

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