Would Huel consider working with Terracycle then, to make the bags recyclable? I understand that plastic waste might not have a very large carbon footprint, but the waste itself is still a huge problem. Carbon isn’t the only issue. This would be a great product for me, but if it means adding even more plastic waste to the immeasurable amount we have then I’d rather just deal with food that’s more perishable with a shorter supply chain. This brand is more sustainable than most, but it’s still not completely sustainable.
There is another similar thread where a Huel team member showed an image of a pallet of bags that represented an entire lifetime of usage. That really drove home for me the fact that, even though the bags themselves are not recyclable per se, the nest waste created is so favorable as to make them the best choice overall. 100% recyclable is not a realistic goal.
As for the containers themselves, the difficulty closing them is easily remedied by cleaning out the zip-lock track with the tine of a fork. Or dump it into another container.
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It’s something we’ve considered previously, and in order to be able to recycle packaging using programs like Terracycle, Huel would need to pay a substantial fee in order to join their program. While we don’t mind doing this in principle - the problem is that Terracycle is basically only offering a ‘plaster’ for the fact that many items are not collected for recycling. So instead we have decided to invest this money in developing packaging for our products that can be widely recycled via existing recycling collections (by 2025).
This takes a bit longer but will mean that all our packaging can be easily recycled by everyone without having to set up a bespoke system, and along the way, we will also reduce carbon emissions associated with our packaging (win-win). Although, it’s worth mentioning that only 2.8% of our product’s carbon footprint comes from packaging… And that is all the packaging (the pouch, boxes, and bulk transport packaging such as pallets). That doesn’t mean we won’t stop working on it to make it better though.
Was it this picture? This shows the amount of Huel pouches and shipping packaging for 96 years of Huel:
Yes, that’s it! I must have seen in on IG before I shelved Meta. To me that image makes me feel way better than a relationship with some questionable recycling standard.
I just read that Huel Essential bags are recyclable. That’s great news. I can’t imagine that innovation won’t spread to the other varieties soon…
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I like that the bags don’t fall apart and also that vermin can’t get into them, as I did have a vermin infestation for a short period due to no fault of my own, but at least the Huel bags were left alone.