Unwrapped: The Plastic Crisis (Part 2) | Can Companies Fix Plastic Pollution?

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Joining the conversation is Jeff Bezzo of SC Johnson, one of the world's largest household product companies, who works at the intersection of sustainability and business strategy. Jeff pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes for a 130-year-old company to rethink packaging at scale, and why voluntary corporate action can only go so far without policy to back it up.

Together, they explore:

• The hidden reasons some plastic gets recycled and some doesn't
• How Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) works, and why it's gaining momentum across the US
• What SC Johnson has learned from real-world experiments with refill and reuse systems
• Why global companies are increasingly asking for consistent policy, not just goodwill
• The honest tensions between sustainability goals and business realities

This episode is about the messy middle of solving a global crisis—where companies, policymakers, and consumers all have a role to play, and where progress depends on getting the incentives right.

Links for More Info:

Jeff Bezzo bio

WWF Plastics page

ACT: Tell Global Leaders You Want a Future With Less Plastic

TRANSCRIPT:

Seth Larson: All right, this is Nature Breaking, and we're doing a three-part series on the plastic pollution crisis. But before we get started today, Erin, I've got another question for you.

Erin Simon: All right, I'm ready.

Seth Larson: Can I recycle this? And for those listening, I'm holding up a plastic produce clamshell container.

Erin Simon: Can you put, bend it over and look at the bottom and tell me the number with the chasing arrows?

Seth Larson: So yeah, the number inside the triangle?

Erin Simon: Yeah.

Seth Larson: It is a number one.

Erin Simon: Okay. So that's PET. And so PET is what is also your plastic water bottles or beverage bottles, and so it can be recycled. However, this is a PET thermoform, so not in a bottle shape. So you're gonna want to check first with that sticker on your recycling bin. But it is possible to recycle, just not everywhere.

Seth Larson: Gotcha.

Erin Simon: So check first.

Seth Larson: Good to know.

Seth Larson: I'm Seth Larson.

Erin Simon: And I'm Erin Simon.

Seth Larson: And this is Nature Breaking, a World Wildlife Fund podcast, and today you're gonna hear part two of Unwrapped: The Plastic Crisis, our special three-part miniseries on the plastic pollution situation. And today we're gonna be talking about the present.

Erin Simon: We're gonna focus on what's going on today and what we're doing to solve it, what is actually working and what's not. So how can we take action that will help us to solve this problem at scale?

Seth Larson: Love it. Let's get into it. So Erin, last episode we went back to the beginning and we talked about all the things that led us to this present moment of plastic pollution seemingly everywhere in our lives. Today, we're grounding ourselves in the here and now.

Erin Simon: That's right. This episode is gonna really look at what we're trying to do right now as we grapple with this whole set of solutions that we can potentially put into play. In particular, we're gonna start with companies, those that are actually making a lot of those plastics that end up in nature, and what role they can play in both the problem and the solution.

Seth Larson: Yeah, because at the end of the day, plastic ends up becoming pollution because a company is manufacturing it, either as packaging or as a product in and of itself, and then they're selling it to consumers like us. And consumers either try to recycle it and maybe fail, or throw it in trash where it doesn't belong, or just drop it on the ground where it certainly doesn't belong. So we're gonna get into some of the ways that companies can be a part of helping to address that problem.

Erin Simon: Exactly, and companies have a role in the entire process, right? They kind of sit in what we consider the beginning of a supply chain.

Seth Larson: Yeah.

Erin Simon: But if we move to recover these things, they have multiple roles in that, right? And so the choices they make in how their products are designed, not just for this first use, but for hopefully more uses, and how they can communicate with their consumers, that's gonna all make a really big difference as we move forward.

Seth Larson: Yeah, and the role of companies doesn't have to stop there either, right? Because companies can also play a big role in advocating for policies that improve recycling and limit the amount of plastic that ends up becoming waste.

Erin Simon: I think that's really important and where our guest comes in, because I think a lot of companies, as we started working with them on this issue, realized that they couldn't do this without partnering with the government to put those policies in place.

And so we're joined today by Jeff Bezzo from SC Johnson. that's one of the world's largest household product companies. Jeff works at the intersection of sustainability and business strategy, and fun fact, he comes from a financial background. And so he's been in the room for a lot of these decisions, and has been a great advocate for extended producer responsibility.

Seth Larson: Yeah, I was just gonna say, SC Johnson has been a really important partner in working with WWF...

Erin Simon: Yeah

Seth Larson: ... and others to advocate for extended producer responsibility, or EPR, at the state and federal level. And today we're gonna get into what that actually means and why it's important, in our conversation with Jeff.

So with that, I think we can get into it, right?

Erin Simon: Let's roll.

Seth Larson: All right. Excited to be back here with Erin Simon and Jeff Bezzo. Welcome to Nature Breaking

Jeff Bezzo: Thanks so much for having me.

Seth Larson: So Jeff, SC Johnson has been around for over 100 years. I think it's something like 130 years now, and everyone's gonna know the brands that you produce, from Ziploc bags to Windex cleaner. But the conversation around plastic packaging and corporate responsibility has really changed a lot just in the last handful of years. Can you walk us through how SC Johnson has been thinking about its role in the plastic pollution crisis, and what it actually looks like to try to make changes in a company that operates at your scale?

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah, sure. Sustainability has always been one of our pillars of our strategy, but I would really say that things got kicked off when we were a signatory to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2025 commitment. That really set things in motion as far as plastic reduction, PCR use. At the same time, we also kicked off with Plastic Bank, our recovered coastal plastic program. We were a founding partner with them, and so that at the same time got us into a new space with collecting plastic in, uh, Southeast Asia and Brazil, and then turning it back into bottles, which has been quite a technical journey. Following the 2025 commitment and kind of hitting our numbers about a year early, we hit 25% PCR globally.

Seth Larson: Can you just tell us what does PCR stand for?

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah, post-consumer, post-consumer recycled content. Basically what goes into a consumer's blue box that gets turned back into pellets and then eventually bottles again.

Seth Larson: Gotcha.

Jeff Bezzo: In the case of plastic.

Seth Larson: Your goal...

Jeff Bezzo: Yep.

Seth Larson: ... that you hit was using 25% of the material in your products from that recycling pipeline?

Jeff Bezzo: Exactly right. So 25% of our plastic packaging was made from that recycled content, globally, and that reduced... in addition to lightweighting bottles and elimination of unneeded plastics, we reduced our virgin plastic footprint on packaging by 33% over that same timeframe. What we realized was there's-- there was a benefit for these companies that did sign up. About 20% of the global volume of plastic packaging was included in that EMF commitment. We saw that those companies that did sign up for it made more progress. Even some of them didn't meet their goals, but they still made more progress than the rest of the market. And what we started to realize is that voluntary actions can only go so far. We actually need get into the advocacy space to try to get legislation in countries. But also, we got engaged in the global plastic treaty negotiations as well, when the UN kicked that off about three years ago. Fast forward to today, we have a new strategic plan. We tend to do those in five-year increments. So our strategy 2030 actually aligns nicely now with our recommitment through Ellen MacArthur Foundation for 55% PCR by 2030 and the same amount of virgin plastic reduction over that timeframe. So we've kind of gone from more of a technical, practical sustainability program to one that's really shifted towards advocacy and consumer education at the same time as doing all the technical work in the background.

Seth Larson: Yeah. This has been such a consistent theme whenever I talk to representatives from companies who are working with WWF on various sustainability initiatives, whether it's on plastic or really anything. A company can only get so far on its own. It, it... you really need that broader ecosystem to go along and make the improvements that are required throughout the system to be able to meet your own goals. Because at the end of the day, each company is operating as part of this broader system, and you're only gonna be as sustainable as the system allows you to be. I appreciate that perspective. Erin, I'll kick it over to you for the next question.

Erin Simon: Yeah, so let's build on that a little bit. You had talked about having these targets that you and the other members of the Global Commitment had, and how, while you didn't... not everyone made that target, but you all made progress towards that. There's just this gap between our intention and what actually happens, right? There was a moment where we all had to say it's not about just designing for recycling, it's about measuring if it's actually recycled, right? And so can you talk a little bit about the, from the SCJ or a company perspective, what does meaningful progress look like in packaging design when you have sort of those lenses that you have to keep in mind? And what has slowed that progress? What has been getting in the way of companies making those changes faster?

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah, I think, I've been doing this job for about three years and in the company for twenty-eight years, and in the industry even longer. But over the last couple of years in particular, I've started to really think about design for recyclability a little bit differently maybe than you might theoretically on paper. Meaning, pragmatically in, America or Europe, where we have infrastructure for recycling, what would actually come out of one of those recycling centers practically? And then in the developing markets, it's mostly waste pickers that are collecting materials.

Erin Simon: Yeah.

Jeff Bezzo: Would they actually pick something up, or would they leave it behind because it looks like it doesn't have as much value as something else? So looking through that lens, trying to simplify the portfolio to the things that are most likely to get picked up, so things like rigid bottles, for example, versus flexible materials that might get left behind. Then thinking about the polymers as well. So trying to simplify the number of plastics that we're actually using and limit it to the most recycled ones, which are typically PET, which is your clear bottles, and then HDPE, which is often used for things like laundry bottles. So...

Erin Simon: Yeah.

Jeff Bezzo: ...really trying to simplify the portfolio. To the second part of the question, some of the things that challenge us are when rules in certain jurisdictions in the world are not clear or timely. So two examples would be in Europe, packaging legislation, EU-wide, which the acronym is PPWR. And it was legislated, but the rules come later, and that kind of puts us in limbo as far as understanding what changes we need to make to our packaging to be compliant. And it's a similar story in California with their EPR law, SB54, which really had delayed rulemaking. We just saw the rules come out just about a month ago, and the program goes live in January 2027. So it hasn't given companies much time to really think through what changes they need to make their packaging, and that's one of the reasons we look for global rules. Global treaty is important to companies like ours and, many other companies. And then, in the United States, getting as harmonized across the states as we can that have legislation as well, because we have to design one package, not just sometimes for one market, but actually for a region or even globally based on supply chain.

Erin Simon: It's interesting, as you talk about both of those things at the same time, right? In one way you're trying to rethink the use of the material in a way where it's not just about a single use, where you're trying to create value in its cascading value, and value that can be seen by others who are not material scientists or packaging engineers. And then you're also doing this in a, like in a policy landscape that is essentially building the plane while it flies it, right? You don't have all of the rules, but you're trying to create value, rethink, but also put all these solutions into a marketplace where you're not actually sure how they're going to be judged. That can be really challenging, and of course, the consumer doesn't understand any of that when this, when these products land in their home. So I feel if we could get that global guidance to help level that playing field a bit and create some consistency, it would simplify one of the many factors we're all juggling in this process.

Seth Larson: Yeah, I actually, I wanted to follow up on one thing that you just said, Jeff. As the non-expert in the room, you talked about pickers, leaving some products, some plastic products behind versus picking up other things that then get recycled. Can you talk just for a quick minute about how those choices get made and why some plastic products are more desirable from a recycling perspective versus others that a picker might look at and just say, "that's not worth my time"?

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah, I think it's an important question for those that have maybe not traveled to some of these countries, there's a real difference in how recycling materials get collected. For us in North America, we put our bin out once a week or every other week, and a truck comes and picks it up, and it disappears and gets processed...

Seth Larson: Yeah.

Jeff Bezzo: ...at a facility. Many developing countries, there's minimal curbside collection, as we would call it. And so what often happens is waste mixed together and at a landfill often, what we refer to as waste pickers actually go through that waste and try to pull out the materials that have value. So it could be things like cans, cardboard, or in our case, we're talking about plastic.

So they're looking for the plastics that might have the most value for them because they get paid by the kilogram of, what they collect.

Erin Simon: By the item.

Jeff Bezzo: And so they're going to look for larger bottles, water bottles in particular 'cause they have good value from a resale standpoint. Things like laundry bottles. Other materials that might be lighter, or harder to collect or they might be soiled, like flexible plastics, often get left behind. And so really thinking through what practically gets collected in a developing world and a developed world is important.

Erin Simon: Can I build on that just a little bit? it is, it's almost like it is the linchpin to solving this crisis, however, because if you look back to why we have all this plastic entering nature, it's because we have limited and lacking waste infrastructure. And waste infrastructure is collection, so that could be formal like the trucks that pick up our bins. It could be informal like the folks in Indonesia or Vietnam who are going around and choosing what they take to a buyer of that material. And then it is the next step in it is processing or recycling or reuse, which is like the facility with the equipment that can do that. And that requires investment to happen. But when we don't know what the design requirements are for all of those products shipping all over the world, it's really hard to get an investor interested in paying for a facility in a certain place because they don't know if there's gonna be something coming into that facility that provides a viable product or a product that somebody will want to buy on the back end.

And so again, it comes back to this need for some global alignment around how do we make these things? What should be the rules that allow us to design them so that wherever they end up, if SCJ's Ziploc bags end up no matter where, there's a way. And that's probably not a great example 'cause that's not something that's often recycled, but it... wherever it ends up, the, they know how to manage it to cascade that value again and again. And, yeah.

Seth Larson: Yeah. Speaking of policies and getting more uniformity around some of these practices, Jeff, you mentioned a minute ago EPR, which stands for Extended Producer Responsibility. And Erin and I have talked about this before. It's basically this idea that companies should bear more of the cost and responsibility for what actually happens to their products after use. So if someone buys a bottle of Windex cleaner and uses all of the Windex in that bottle to clean around their house, SC Johnson should by this theory, have some responsibility for what happens to that empty Windex bottle when the consumer is done with it and puts it in their recycling bin or whatever. Some companies have really been resistant to this concept. Others have really leaned in, and I'm curious where SC Johnson stands and how you're thinking about EPR as a tool for driving real change versus potentially adding more regulatory burden that you have to deal with.

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah, it's a great question. We are very supportive of EPR programs. I like to think of them as recycling regulation, although that's maybe too much of a broad term. But we are supportive, especially for those that are operationally efficient and allow the producers to have a voice through, usually, a not-for-profit gets set up called a producer responsibility organization. And that is run by producers, as board members and ensures that the materials that we're putting out into the market the right investments to actually get collected. So we look at models like British Columbia that has a fully producer-funded system with about 80% recovery rates across all their different packaging materials. But it's not a new concept. It's been around in Europe, especially in countries like Germany and in Belgium, for decades. But for the US, we just saw the first EPR program launch in Oregon last summer, and then we've now got seven states that have legislated here. We're engaged in the US obviously, but around the world. So we, we are very active in places like Indonesia that is in the midst of legislating EPR. I think one of the things the Global Plastic Treaty did when it kicked off, about three years ago, was really got countries thinking about this concept. For a lot of lawmakers, it wasn't top of mind, but I think through the treaty negotiations, despite the fact that they've stalled a little bit, it has really spawned a lot of interest in getting producers to fund recycling programs, as you said.

Erin Simon: So we're talking a lot about recycling and I think that's because it is of the recovery solutions that is the most developed globally, right? The ability for us to take a product and break it down, clean it, and then melt it or make it into another bottle, cup, et cetera. One of the other solutions that we think about when cascading the value of material is not actually changing that material back, or breaking it up, but just cleaning it, right, through a model like reuse. And it's similar to recycling in that you still need all of that shared infrastructure, right? You need a way to collect it, a way to clean it, a way to refill it, right? And so we at WWF as, as SCJ knows, have been pushing hard on how do we also advance reuse systems?

Because we do see them as an important part of how you can reduce the amount of single-use things you're sourcing in the first place. Really fundamentally rethinking how we just cascade that value. And SC Johnson has been experimenting with reuse solutions for a bit now. What are the things that you've discovered that you feel like for making reuse truly scalable?

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah. When you go back in time, we've had refill systems around for quite a while, and I'll talk about the three different versions of that we have. But when I step back from all that work that we've done, three factors really come into play when, consumers choose a refill product over a single use.

One is it's got to be efficacious. It has to work as they expect it to, just like the single-use version would. It's got to be relatively convenient. We know that usually refills require the consumer to have some additional interaction, but to make it as convenient as possible really helps. And then the last piece is value.

The consumer often, wants to see a value per ounce or per milliliter, because they're doing some of the work themselves. And so sometimes for companies, it's hard to hit a value equation, for refill systems, especially because they're not often scaled to the extent that single use is. So now I can talk about the three different systems and get into what's working and, maybe what opportunities we have in the future. We do about...

Erin Simon: Yeah.

Jeff Bezzo: ...11 percent of our plastic volume done through refill systems. So the most common ones are actually things like dish soap or hand soap that you might buy a one-liter refill and refill a vessel at home. Brands like Windex do about half the volume, liquid volume, in actually a refill format. It could be a one liter or five liter that...

Erin Simon: Cool.

Jeff Bezzo: ...you refill your trigger product with. Appeal for the consumer might not be sustainability, it's usually value.

Erin Simon: Yeah.

Jeff Bezzo: So offer a larger size, offer a discount per ounce, which is attractive to a broader consumer set. So that format has been widely adopted and we've been very successful with that refill system. It does reduce plastic because the refills don't have a trigger, which is a large portion of the plastic that's used in a single use hand soap type product. And even the...

Erin Simon: And those, can I pause you for a second?

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah.

Erin Simon: Those triggers are also, they have so many different components and types of plastic, they're also really problematic for recycling, right? So it's ideal to have those be the reuse element.

Jeff Bezzo: Absolutely. And there is technology emerging for triggers that are all plastic, which maybe wasn't really a technical option a decade ago. So that's our...

Erin Simon: Oh, cool.

Jeff Bezzo: ...most common re-refill system. The next one that we've done a fair bit on is concentrates. So thinking about a smaller size that you mix water with the concentrate to refill your bottle. We haven't seen as much adoption of that. It's difficult in brick-and-mortar retail to have those products show up on shelf, in a sea of other products that are much larger. But I do think what we're seeing is some winning in direct to consumer and in e-commerce. So thinking about amazon.com or walmart.com. Um, you have an unlimited shelf there. You have an ability to really communicate more. You can show videos, how to use it. We do see uptake there, and obviously that's a class of trade in the US and many markets that's growing. So I think as we think about the future, there is a future for concentrates, especially with urbanization and smaller and smaller apartments.

The last one I would point to is in-store refills, where the consumer actually brings a bottle back to the store, and they refill in store. One of the challenges with those systems historically has been the cost of the machines themselves and getting a payback on, on either the retailer's part or the brand owner's. Surprisingly, the old bag and box that we've had in Europe, under the EcoVer brand for more than a decade, has actually continued to do fairly well in health food type stores that are catering to a more green consumer. Doesn't require any upfront cost for the retailer, and there, there's no challenge with that payback.

So I think a takeaway from all of this is we have to meet consumers where they are. Not all consumers are looking for sustainable products. It may be a benefit that they want to have, but they're more interested in value. And if that's what they're after, then we need to meet those consumers and offer them the value that they're, looking for.

Seth Larson: That's super interesting to me, and again, as the novice here, I increasingly see the option of these refill products, particularly in, in different cleaning products on store shelves and online. And I have some of... I've got the bottle that... with the trigger that... and I've got the bigger bottle for the refills. And I know, intellectually, in theory, that creates less plastic waste, but hearing the explanation about the problem of the trigger device and how that's such a big use of plastic and also problematic for recycling is super helpful for... just for me to understand, like, how this all works. And that problem of educating consumers about the use of the concentrate is super interesting also, and the problem of seeing the small bottle on a shelf next to a larger bottle, super interesting problems to work through. Hopefully, people listening to this will, will learn something new today, and if they see that as an option, maybe thinking about using it.

Jeff, my next question I wanted to ask, on the business case behind all of this from your perspective. There's often this narrative that sustainability is good for business, and sometimes it is. We hope that it is at WWF. I suspect it's not always that clean and simple from your side of things. So I wanted to ask you to talk about some of the honest tensions that might arise when sustainability goals bump up against the cost pressures and consumer expectations, or competition within your industry, and some of the other priorities that your company has to consider. How do you navigate those tensions internally?

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah, I think I'll start with the consumer first because whenever we have a sort of ingrained product and behavior in a market, it's always a bit daunting to then change their packaging format and try something different. So a good example is we were thinking about how could we move out of flexible packaging, especially in Latin America where a product format that's common is called a doy pack, but it's basically... It's a flexible packaging that holds liquid, usually cleaner or dish soap, that sort of thing. Very common format but often doesn't get recycled. Again, back to the earlier conversation, the waste pickers might ignore it and go for a bottle. So we actually did a test market in Mexico with a light-weighted bottle to replace that flexible package in order to see what the consumer uptake would be. Would they find it? Would they understand that this is the same product they've been buying for years in a different format? Do they like it? We're often looking for, at the same time, can we get a new consumer benefit? An example in this case was its reclosable, whereas doy packs, often they're using a clothes pin to close it save product for the next time. And so...

Seth Larson: Yeah.

Jeff Bezzo: ...we're thinking about consumer benefit alongside sustainability because we really want to make sure that these products stickiness in the markets. So that's the consumer side. The financial piece, it's important when projects kick off to make sure that you set up the right parameters up front in terms of what success looks like, and then have a governance system where if something's off track... so maybe the profitability isn't where it needs to be for this new format, leadership can get engaged when they need to, make a call on are we gonna do it anyway because it's the right thing to do and we think with scale, we'll be able to make it work? Or do we need to rethink a different option and go down a different path? So I think having those governance mechanisms in place has been super important.

Erin Simon: It's definitely hard to manage all the trade-offs of that, but I think it's really helpful to get the consumer's perspective on those things. So it's always interesting to see what... how their behavior, how much openness there is to them adopting that new format. Especially when for them it might not be, like you had said, it might not be about a sustainability thing, it might just be about value, or it might be about ease. And so trying to figure out what it is that drives them in those decisions. All right, as we wrap up this episode... Oh yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.

Jeff Bezzo: And sometimes to the consumer, it doesn't look like, maybe it's a sustainable... more sustainable option because they don't understand end of life. So might be adding some plastic, but giving it a much better chance to get recycled, which... So even just educating the consumer on, yes, this is more plastic, but it's using 100% post-consumer recycled content, and it can be recycled and have another life. So it's a complicated area, really.

Erin Simon: Yeah. What an irony, the move to all of these flexible pouches and multi-laminate pouches was a packaging reduction target, in many cases a big driver for that, and it really moved us into this whole category of products that cannot be recycled. And now we're trying to back out of that with the same target of reducing plastic but making it more recyclable. And yeah, the consumer doesn't understand any of that dance. So it's really ... Yeah, it's fun. All right, so I'm gonna wrap this episode up on what is going on currently in this space, and as you can tell, there is a lot that's going on and a lot of... a lot that companies are having to juggle. For somebody who's listening in this and maybe who's working in sustainability, maybe has a role similar to yours, Jeff, or is starting to think about what their company could do and what they should be doing, what would you tell them and what would you want them to understand as far as what's meaningful corporate action? And then I think at the end I will wrap with a second question to this. So I'll let you answer this one and then I'll put a second piece on that.

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah. I didn't mention in the past, I mostly worked in finance, and my last job before this one, I was CFO for one of our divisions. And our sustainability leader was having trouble getting some projects launched, and she came to leadership and said, "I really need an executive sponsor that can help make these projects get the light of day that are needed." That's really how I started my sustainability journey even before this job, was being that sponsor. And I think that's important to have a conduit to leadership on a regular basis. And then the other piece that I think was super important was, you can't have sustainability be an afterthought in your new product pipeline. Every company's got a pipeline. Some of it is really innovative stuff, some is more for compliance or graphic changes. All those projects are taking up resources, and you don't want to go back after things launch and then lightweight them or then add post-consumer recycled content. You want to think about that upfront when projects launch.

Erin Simon: Yeah.

Jeff Bezzo: What are we building into this from a sustainable packaging perspective? Then, I mentioned governance earlier, there has to be a mechanism where if something's not on track from a sustainability standpoint, there's a forum with leadership where those trade-off conversations can happen.

And sometimes sustainability might have to take the back seat, but in many times it continues the journey that you're looking for, and ultimately comes to fruition in market, and that's what we're all looking for. Those would be the things I would point to.

Erin Simon: Yeah. Yeah. And it helps that you have such a, a staunch and passionate leader in Fisk, in the fact, in how much he supports and believes in this effort, too.

Jeff Bezzo: Yeah, I don't take that for granted. I'm lucky, with a private company that has a chairman that does a lot of the work himself. I don't take that for granted, and I realize a lot of sustainability leaders out there are in a different spot. But I think still finding that person that will champion your cause within a leadership team is key. If it's not the CEO, then who else could?

Erin Simon: Yeah.

Jeff Bezzo: Is it a marketing leader? Or even in my case, it was the CFO that was taking that on.

Erin Simon: Yeah. Yeah, these days making that economic case for these changes is really powerful. I think that's, I think your expertise is absolutely helpful. All right, so as we wrap up here, what is giving you hope, right? What is making you feel like this effort to move fast enough, for the industry to move fast enough, has potential and will see reality?

Jeff Bezzo: I think the biggest thing that has changed in the last, I would say three to five years, has been the amount of companies that are now coordinated and working together. If I think about the founding members for the EPR programs here in the US or, some of the trade associations that now have strong membership that are pro-EPR and not just voicing it, but actually getting involved and helping, move us forward. So I've never seen that amount of coordination. I mentioned I've been in the industry for over 30 years. Often competitors are not working together, for good reason, obviously. But in this case, from a legislative standpoint, I've really seen companies come together, not just in the US but, around the world trying to drive change in recycling programs.

Erin Simon: Yeah. It's been really powerful. I would say that is the same thing that keeps me hopeful is the fact that we've seen that collective engagement in a way. Everybody's heading for that same North Star where we all want to contribute sort of our unique gifts to shifting that linear system into something that's a bit more circular. We really appreciate that your role in this, your partnership with us on that, and the efforts that SC Johnson is making to try to contribute to that system also in a positive way.

Jeff Bezzo: Thanks for having me, and thanks for the continued partnership as well.

Seth Larson: Yeah. Thank you so much for your time today, Jeff. This is a great conversation…

All right. That was an awesome conversation with Jeff, and Erin, I'm dying to know, what are one or two big things that you are gonna take away from that?

Erin Simon: I am so excited about the momentum that is building around harmonization. I cannot tell you how far we've come in the past few years. And EPR is now in seven states in the US. That's something that if you would've asked me in 2019, I would've given you a solid no for. So the fact that we have that and we are thinking really about efficiencies and how we can harmonize to get there, yeah, that's pretty exciting. So what did you learn from it, Seth?

Seth Larson: So I thought it was really interesting to hear how companies like SC Johnson have to think about the ways that consumers might respond to some of the decisions that they're making. Because it's not enough for a company to just make a product that is more easily recyclable or that uses less plastic. They have to sell those products to consumers and also communicate to them about how they're supposed to use them or recycle them.

So I loved, for example, the story he told about looking into using a concentrate product for a cleaning solution that would come in a smaller bottle, and you add water to it to actually use it as a cleaner. The bottle would be much smaller that they're selling. Sounds great, but if you put that on a shelf next to a competitor's product that is four times bigger because it's not a concentrate, then a consumer might just naturally gravitate...

Erin Simon: They think they're getting less.

Seth Larson: ...to the bigger thing, right? Yes. So thinking through those challenges was something I've never thought about, but I really appreciate, from the consumer side of things, just learning about that and gave me more to think about next time I go shopping.

Erin Simon: Yeah. it comes back to that old saying, we don't always think about the entire world and perspective that others are coming from. And so it really helps to shine a light on the role that all of us, as consumers, have to play in solving this problem and the choices we make, right? I think we're gonna leave it there today and be back for one more episode.

Seth Larson: One more episode. Next, two weeks from now, we will be talking to Carissa Cabrera for our third and final episode of this miniseries. Carissa is a marine biologist and a climate activist, and she is sounding the alarm to a whole new generation of people about the importance of keeping plastic out of nature, particularly out of the ocean. She's also built a huge following on social media and really generated a lot of momentum to the people that she's reaching. So she's gonna talk to us about what the future could look like if we get things right.

Erin Simon: Yeah, let's end on a positive note with that. I'm looking forward to it. See you then, Seth.

Seth Larson: See you then.