Paper — still the easiest material on Earth to recycle.

As a recent empty-nester, an ad for an app that makes it easy to sell things you no longer need to be caught my attention. the ad started by saying something like "i come from a family of hoarders. but this app helped me understand that by selling things i don’t use, i give them a second life."

The idea of giving things a second life is closely related to something our industry thinks about all the time: the circular economy.

We spend a lot of time making our products more circular, moving toward less waste — indeed, toward zero-waste — with products that can be composted or that naturally biodegrade; or that can be recycled not just into a second life, but a third life, a fifth life, a seventh life.