How a business can kick out microplastics

The Swedish online pharmacy Apotea.se used to market more than 200 products containing microplastics. Today the number is zero.
Here’s how it happened.

Sustainability expert Tove Ahlström has long been concerned by the amount of microplastics ending out in the world’s oceans. As a sustainability and business professional she felt obliged to act by example and stop the use of microplastics in her work.

In 2016 Tove Ahlström started working as Head of sustainability at Apotea.se, and she soon discovered not only that microplastics were common in lipsticks and another cosmetics, but also that it was very hard for consumers to make conscious choices.

”Microplastics have approximately 65 different names, so they’re really hard to keep track of”, Tove Ahlström said during a presentation at the global WeDontHaveTime Climate Conference, the first public, global “no-fly” event of its kind.

At the time, Apotea.se had 17 000 products in their assortment. Tove Ahlström asked the IT departments to give her a list of all products and their ingredients. She then searched through them all to find the products that contained microplastics.

Tove Ahlström made apotea.se stop buying and marketing these 230 products, and opened a dialogue with their suppliers.

At first she was met with denial. ”No, no, no. There are no microplastics in our products.” Or: ”Well, you know, this ingredient is not really a microplastic.”

But Apotea.se stood by its decision to phase out these products, and interestingly enough, after about six months many of the suppliers products started making their way back into our inventory, but this time without containing the microplastics!

Written by: Markus Lutteman

Tove Ahlström is the CEO of the independent Swedish think tank Global Utmaning (“Global Challenge”) that among other topics promote sustainable development within social, economical and environmental dimensions.

Tove is also a Climate Reality Leader within Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project.

She was the Sustainability manager at apotea.se from May 2016 until April 2018, and has previously worked as an Environmental Controller at Karolinska University Hospital and as an Environmental engineer at AstraZeneca.

She holds a Master of Science degree in biotechnology.

Her successful work in phasing out microplastics made her a finalist for the title ”Sweden’s best sustainability manager” in 2017.

We Don’t Have Time are currently building the world’s largest social media network for climate action.
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