Latest news with #7-Up
The Star
18 hours ago
- The Star
Hongkonger held for ‘placing Coca-Cola, 7-Up bottles mixed with urine in shops'
Hong Kong police have arrested a man, 63, on suspicion of mixing his urine with at least seven bottles of Coca-Cola Plus and 7-Up and placing them on shelves at several supermarkets across the city, which left a nine-year-old in need of hospital treatment. The force said on Monday that the unemployed suspect was apprehended in Sham Shui Po on Saturday for allegedly administering a noxious substance with intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy another person, an offence punishable by up to three years in prison. It added that the urine was not injected into the bottles and that the man was believed to have targeted supermarkets in Sham Shui Po, Mong Kok and Wan Chai in the past year. The man allegedly acted out of revenge following unpleasant experiences, possibly a quarrel, with supermarket staff. He is expected to be charged and will appear at Kowloon City Court on Tuesday. 'Police stress that the case committed by the suspect this time is a very serious crime, involving not only public health but also the public's confidence in food safety,' Chief Inspector Yau Yu-sing of the Kowloon West regional crime unit said at a press briefing. The case came to light in late July after a nine-year-old boy felt unwell after consuming a drink bought from one of the supermarkets. He was taken to hospital for treatment and was discharged the same day with no lasting symptoms, Yau said. Most of the contaminated drinks were discovered by supermarket staff during routine checks. Yau said police had identified the suspect after analysing a large amount of security camera footage. Officers seized clothing, shoes and a backpack believed to have been worn by the man during the alleged offences from his Sham Shui Po home. Seven bottles of drinks have been sent for analysis, with preliminary results indicating a possible presence of urine but no poison. Police said they believed the man acted alone and that the incident was isolated. Yau urged the public to carefully inspect products before buying them, particularly bottled drinks. He said signs of tampering could include a broken seal, a bottle for a carbonated drink feeling less firm, or a different liquid level compared with other products. A Swire Coca-Cola HK spokeswoman said the 'matter is restricted to a very small number of isolated cases involving tampered Coca-Cola Plus 500ml bottles in Hong Kong'. She added: 'We fully cooperated with the authorities throughout their investigation and acted in accordance with their guidance. We appreciate their dedication and thorough work in investigating this matter.' The bottler added that 'the safety and quality' of products were 'always Swire Coca-Cola HK's top priorities'. Supermarket chain Wellcome said the safety and well-being of customers were its 'top priorities' and that the products had been taken off its shelves. 'Wellcome has always placed great emphasis on food safety and hygiene. We take this incident very seriously and are in close communication with our supplier. The products have been removed from shelves as a precautionary measure,' it said. Rival chain ParknShop also said that it placed 'the highest importance on product safety and customer health, and is concerned about the recent suspected case of beverage contamination'. 'Regarding the concerned products, ParknShop has immediately launched an investigation and has strengthened in-store inspections and information reporting,' it said. 'To date, we have not received any customer complaints related to the incident or the concerned products. As a precautionary measure, we have arranged immediate removal of the affected products from the shelves in all our stores and will continue to follow up with our suppliers to ensure customer safety.' It said that anyone who suspected that they might have bought any affected products could contact ParknShop's customer service hotline for help. A spokesman for the Centre for Food Safety, under the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, said it had received a complaint in July via the 1823 government hotline about a bottle of Coca-Cola Plus bought in a Mong Kok supermarket that had an unusual, urine-like smell. 'Apart from this case, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department has not received other related complaints,' he said. The spokesman added that the centre had increased surveillance and testing at retail points in the district, with results showing no abnormalities. The spokesman said the centre had also inspected the manufacturing plant and found no issues with the production process. The centre will continue to cooperate with police on their investigation and follow up with the manufacturer to monitor the progress of the case. Yau said: 'If [you] find that the packaging has been tampered with, or after opening the package [you] notice a strange smell inside the food, please immediately notify the shop or the relevant manufacturer.' -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Daily Mirror
30-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- Daily Mirror
'I tried new 7UP Pink Lemonade flavour and was left surprised by one thing'
Social News Assistant Editor Samantha Bartlett decided to try out the new 7UP Pink Lemonade flavour which people have been talking about online to see what it was like There's nothing much more exciting to food and drink lovers than a fresh flavour of your favourite snack or beverage, such as the new Starbucks flavour spotted at Sainsbury's. That's why I was pleased when I managed to get my hands on a bottle of the recently released 7UP Pink Lemonade flavour – but did it live up to my expectations? The 7UP Pink Lemonade is the latest zero-sugar addition to the 7UP range that's apparently "tailor-made for sun-soaked afternoons".It's a blend of zesty lemon, lime and raspberry, and is designed to be served straight from the fridge, poured over ice, or used as a vibrant mixer in summer cocktails and mocktails. I decided to try it just on its own on my lunch break and I was very pleasantly surprised by how light and fruity it was. Some pink lemonades can often be too sharp or sweet, but this was the perfect blend and slipped down a treat, especially in this hot weather we've been having. It's also a great alternative for those trying not to drink Cola-Cola or Diet Coke, as it's caffeine-free. There's also no preservatives and no artificial colourings in it, which can only be a good thing of course. People online have also been loving the flavour, with the popular @greedysisterz_review_snacks Instagram account branding it "refreshing" and "perfect for a sunny day". One follower of the account admitted they also "loved" the drink, while another added: "It's so refreshing". Meanwhile, fellow Instagram account @soft_drinks_worldwide also was a fan, writing: "This 7-Up is a little sweeter than most pink lemonades I've had, which balances the sharp citrus's taste well. "All in all, pretty good drink, and always nice to see new flavours added to the UK market. I hope this one stays." Ben Parker, VP Sales – Off Trade, Carlsberg Britvic, said: '7UP Pink Lemonade represents a fresh twist for what is such a popular brand. "As one of the largest brands in the fruit-flavoured carbonates retail space, bringing in £77 million in Retail Sales Value, it presents an exciting opportunity for consumers and retailers. "We want to continue growing the category with exciting innovation, offering a drink that not only delivers on taste but also visually stands out on shelves to catch the eye of shoppers. He added: "We really look forward to seeing consumers trying the product and retailers and stockists benefiting from a launch that creates a buzz in the soft drinks space.' 7UP Pink Lemonade is available for shoppers to buy at Sainsbury's, Tesco, Amazon and Ocado with plans to roll out to additional retailers soon.
Buzz Feed
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
71 Incredible Charts Every Smart Person Should See
This chart shows how much money one person needs to make to live comfortably in each US yeah, things have gotten expensive. To drive home just how expensive things have gotten, look at this chart showing fast-food inflation over the last decade. If you're being honest, you're probably a little foggy on the difference between a second cousin and a first cousin once removed. This napkin explains it all! Depending on where you live in the States, you either say "soda," "pop," or "Coke" (as a lifelong Californian, I say "soda"). Check out who says what and where. Here are the highest-grossing music tours of all-time through the end of last year (Taylor's tour has only added to the lead since then). This important chart tells you how you can know when someone has spiked (or otherwise tampered with) your drink. This chart has some terrific advice on how to stay calm (and let's be ALL need this right now). And this chart will help you pick the safest swimsuit possible depending on whether you're hitting the lake or pool (black in the pool is a good so much at the lake). I have one of the least common birthdays on this list (Let's f'ing go. Let's go. I guess.) What about yours? This chart tells you some of the biggest red flags to watch out for when interviewing for a job (including the old "we're like a family" oof). Someone needs to send this chart to Leo to help him see his dating life is getting more than a tad awkward. It's like, no, Leo, there isn't room next to the 20-year-old on the floating door! You're almost 50! Here's where you can find national parks in the USA, and it's interesting to see how some states have a lot, and some have none at all. And this chart shows you the most popular fast-food chains in each state (and I'm only learning about Burgerville, Dick's, and Culver's from this!). If you've ever wondered how to define bullying (as opposed to just folks being rude or mean) this one is for you. This chart from the Holocaust Museum explains the early signs of fascism and — looks around at 2024 — yeah. This chart of Japanese emoticons (used throughout much of Asia too) is so I guess I'll be using these now? This chart explaining how airlines make their money through seating is super interesting. 7-Up "never had it, never will," but these other drinks range from having a little caffeine to a LOT. College costs more than ever these are some majors you might want to reconsider. Cats are chart will help you understand them. This data is a few years old, but something you might want to consider when buying a car (if you don't want to be conspicuous in the eyes of police). And — for you history fans — this map shows the route the Lewis and Clark Expedition took. This one will tell you the names of common things you probably don't know (like that illegible handwriting is called a griffonage). This chart shows the progression of World Cup soccer balls from 1930 to the modern day. OK, I did NOT know this — India has wildly different drinking age rules, ranging from as young as 18 in some a total drinking ban in others. If you've ever wondered where all the 8 billion people in the world live, this chart breaks it down for you. This card (found in a deck of cards) explains all the hands you can have in poker. This chart shows the very different benefits of taking a cold vs. hot shower. This chart shows what you do and DON'T want to do if you get bitten by a snake. This chart shows plants that are hard to kill (which probably makes them ideal for your home, lol). This chart tells us which countries have more males or females — and YIKES straight men in Qatar better learn some good pickup lines or buy a new shirt or something as only 24.85% of the population is female. This chart shows you how much alcohol Americans drink, and whoa — 24 million of us average 10+ drinks per day. And this fascinating chart shows you the typical colors of clothes during the Middle the natural dyes people used to create them! Speaking of clothes, here's how often you should be washing yours. Nuclear mushroom clouds can be so much more staggeringly large than you likely realized. This ingenious image does a great job of explaining how genetics making you crave gummy bears. And this chart shows you just how unfathomably large a trillion dollars is. Speaking of a fact is wild. Hyperinflation hit Zimbabwe so heavily in 2009 (inflation literally reached 230,000,000% that year!!!) that the country introduced a 100 TRILLION dollar was worth about 40 US cents. "Fishes" CAN be the plural form of "fish." Little kids everywhere are vindicated! This chart shows a trick for remembering how many days are in each month (the "knuckles" months are the ones with 31 days). Speaking of eye sight, babies don't just pop out with fully developed vision. ... It's a gradual process. This chart explains how we've all been watering our plants the wrong way. This incredible image shows just how much a cervix can dilate during childbirth. And this chart shows people draw tally marks differently depending on where they are in the world. Huh. This US map chart explains that the American Southwest's climate is like the Middle East's, and Washington's is like England's! And Los Angeles County has a greater population than 40 actual states! This graphic, I think, is a little off. It shows only seven states with larger populations than Los Angeles County, but — according to the 2020 census — there are 10 states with more than Los Angeles County's 10.04 million residents (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan).Still...I never would've imagined that!!!! Time to apply for statehood, Los Angeles, LOL! There's a type of jellyfish that's — wait for it — immortal. Known as the Immortal Jellyfish, the species (as the chart says) "can revert from sexual maturity to a sexually immature, colonial stage and repeat the process indefinitely." You can do the Heimlich Maneuver on a choking dog and save their life. And, speaking of dogs, the asphalt your pup walks on is probably way hotter than you realized. This chart shows how you can figure out what bug did you dirty just by looking at your bite. And, while things are pretty secretive in North Korea, it appears this wild fact is (or at least was) true — their professional basketball league has their own rules, including dunks being worth three points! You've probably heard streaming makes it really hard for a musician to make a living, but this chart shows just how dire a situation it is! What you wear running or riding a bike at night makes a shockingly HUGE difference in how visible you are. And this graphic explains how gerrymandering works in simple we can all understand how infuriating it is! Hackers can crack a so-so password instantly, but a really strong one can take millions (yes, millions) of years to crack. This is the differences between endemic, epidemic, and in the simplest way possible. And this card (found in a deck of cards) explains all the hands you can have in poker. If you love movies, this chart is FASCINATING. And I knew Africa was big but not THIS BIG! This cool chart shows you 16 — yes, 16! — different sizes of mattresses. And if you're wondering what the heck an Alaskan King looks like in here's one. This chart shows apples on a scale from most tart to most sweet. Ever wonder what the exact differences are between the ways you can cook a steak? This chart's for you. And if you've ever wondered, " I put the veggies in the water before or after I boil it?" Well, this chart's for you, too. This chart explains when you should eat a banana (and has me rethinking my whole at least when I eat bananas). Get this — the numbers used for our Interstate Highway System aren't all mean something specific. Also fascinating? This map that has the deets behind the territories the United States purchased. This map shows life expectancy in the different counties throughout the USA — looks like the Upper Midwest is a good place to go if you want to live a while! Want to search life expectancy by country, state, or zip code? Do it here. This super-cool chart spells out just how vastly different the planets are in our solar fruit. This sobering chart shows just how despicable these absolute monsters were. So, how did Mao Zedong — the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1943–1976 — kill so many people? A big part of it was due to his Great Leap Forward program, which aimed to turn China from an agrarian nation into an industrialized Way too fast. As a result, as many as 45 million starved, fueled by Mao's refusal to acknowledge what was happening or to accept international aid. This chart shows a ranking of countries based on how accepting they are of infidelity. This chart explains what the world's largest caves are (Kentucky's Mammoth Cave is indeed MAMMOTH). And lastly, this deep thought should inspire you to stop and reflect on your place in it all, and maybe feel a little gratitude. HT: r/coolguides
Buzz Feed
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
51 Super Fascinating Photos
Here's an invite to Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch. This old math textbook has the original Pledge of Allegiance in it, without "under God"...which I didn't even know was a thing. President Eisenhower signed a law in 1954 adding the phrase to the pledge, in part due to the Cold War ideas of Communists being "godless" and Americans being morally superior. Here's what the Statue of Liberty actually originally looked like, before time turned it green. And here's what the pyramids would've actually looked like, as they were covered in limestone and gold. Here's what the Terracotta warriors looked like with color. Ever wondered how the original Star Wars intros were made? Now ya know! And here's what it looked like to film the Ghostbusters climax. This is what the inside of a North Korean airport looks like. This is what the top of Mount Everest looks like. You know how people always run their hands over people's eyelids in movies after they die to keep their eyes closed? Well, turns out they don't stay closed, so people in morgues use these bad boys to keep them closed. This is what the original Ronald McDonald looked like. Here's a super old local newspaper about Taylor Swift as a young teenager. Here's a braille Playboy magazine. Here's an MRI of what it looks like when you rub your eyes. Here's what the inside of a credit card looks like. Here are the rules to writing Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner shorts, straight from creator, Chuck Jones. TIL they used to sell atomic energy kits for kids back in 1951. This is how giraffes sleep. This is what snake venom does to your blood. Here's what a Woodstock ticket looked like. This is what it looks like to have the condition hypertrichosis, where you grow hair all over your face. Here's what a clump of DNA actually looks like. Here are photos of a hairless cat that had to have their eyes removed — resulting in visible eye sockets and an awesome-looking cat that would fit right in on the set of a Tim Burton film. Her name is JazzyPurrs, BTW. This is what the goat cashmere is made from looks like. Here's what a sheep whose wool hasn't been shorn in five years looks like. Here's what a nuclear bomb actually looks like up close. Here's the first-ever Pride flag (and also the sewing machine that it was made on). You've probably seen examples of heterochromia, where people have two different colored eyes, before, but I doubt you've seen an example of sectoral heterochromia: where there are two colors within one eye. And you've DEFINITELY never seen a photo of someone with three pupils in one eye. Here's what 7-Up cans used to look like. Here's the plant sesame seeds come from. Ever wondor what the inside of a bowling ball looks like? Here's what the original toys for Pooh and his friends looked like. And here's the very first version of Kermit the frog, which creator Jim Henson made out of one of his mom's coats. Here are the original drafts for the game Pac-Man. Here's what a newborn parrot looks like. And this is what newborn alpacas look like. And here's what hedgehogs look like when they're born — they have no spikes! But they start to grow them in the first few hours after being born. I'm sure you've seen "for best results" washing instructions on clothing, but have you ever seen "for worst results"? I bet you've never seen a black apple. Or an all-black squirrel. Here are old drug identification kits that used to be used to train customs workers. Have you ever seen a newspaper of the day JFK was assassinated? Here's what an escalator looks like without its stairs. This is what fire hydrants actually look like when they're not in the ground. Here's the tiny hole in your eyes that drains tears to your nose, causing a runny nose when you cry. These air hostess requirements from the 1940s are super weird to see — like, why can they not be 5'1" or 135 pounds??? Have you ever seen a $500 bill? Here's what Confederate currency looked like. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a silver fox. And finally, this one isn't a photo, but I still think it's fascinating: here's footage of voice actors recording "dialogue" for the Sims 1.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Veja: Building From the Ground Up
What makes one plastic container different from another? To the untrained eye, nothing. But the catadores who make up the informal economy of waste pickers in Brazil are far from untrained. In a capacious concrete warehouse on a steamy summer's morning in Atremar, a nearly two-decade-old recycling cooperative in the city of Três Pontas in the coffee-growing state of Minas Gerais, roughly a dozen catadores await one of two daily deliveries. The truck, piled high with industrial-strength sacks bursting at their seams, plays a cheerful ditty extolling the virtues of recycling as it backs up into an entryway that opens into the interior. An eclectic bounty of soda cans, margarine tubs, shampoo bottles, pizza boxes and magazines tumbles down a ramp onto a massive table that comfortably fits four people on each of its three unblocked sides. More from Sourcing Journal Circulose Taps Longtime Cellulosic Collaborator to Drive Circularity Vicunha Makes Significant Strides in Decarbonization Can Brazil Be a New Hub for Denim Production? Pulling on gloves to protect against sharp edges, each man and woman sets to work combing through everything. A glass jar is tossed into a bin, a motor oil jug flies into another. Bottle caps are unscrewed and plastic bags balled up. Items that are in salvageable nick—some unbroken Christmas ornaments, a book someone decided wasn't worth keeping, a toaster that's easily repaired—are set aside for the little on-site shop. There's no time to be squeamish about spills or, in a room cooled only by a phalanx of wall-mounted fans, catch one's breath. Veteran catadores can do this work blindfolded, determining how something should be sorted by touch into as many as 23 categories. At times they resemble restless oversize spiders because surely no human with only two hands can move with so much speed and dexterity. Whoever says this is unskilled work is either ignorant or lying. Around here, clear bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, like the ones labeled Coca-Cola, are 'gold,' as Evelini Castro, a hearty woman with a booming voice and an abiding love for Paul McCartney, bellows in English several times. Colored or opaque bottles—7-Up, Sprite—not so much. Tetrapaks, the type of mixed plastic-and-paper packaging that milk sometimes comes in, are almost certainly dross. While the catadores will still sort and bale them using a machine that crushes everything into tidy cubes, their market value is as low as their demand. It's the 'gold,' as Castro puts it, that gets people paid and keeps the lights on. It's also what has a high likelihood of ending up in a Veja shoe. Veja, which means 'look' in Portuguese, is sometimes known as Paris' favorite sneaker, even though the shoes are almost entirely constructed in Brazil. (A European outpost in Portugal is also beginning to take shape.) The material inputs—save for leather, which comes from Uruguay, away from potential cattle-ranching-driven deforestation in the Amazon—are sourced in the South American nation. Its organic cotton is grown by 1,600 small-scale farmers across seven northeast states and its natural rubber obtained from more than 20 cooperatives in the Amazon region. Its polyester, derived from recycled plastic bottles, hails from 13 catadore-owned hubs in Minas Gerais, including Atremar. An equitable economic approach at every stage of the supply chain is what makes Veja's shoes 30 percent more expensive than those cobbled in East Asia, it says. But this has also made it a soul-crushingly hip—and morally superior—status symbol for only those in the know to know about. For the most part, anyway. When Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex donned a pair of Veja's V-10 shoes at the 2018 Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia, the ensuing attention nearly crashed its website. 'Who is this Meghan Markle?' Sébastien Kopp, who founded the brand with his childhood pal François-Ghislain Morillion circa 2004—the two disagree on the precise year—demanded to know. Ultimately, he didn't care. Veja doesn't woo celebrities with freebies, dole out discounts or fritter away cash on advertising. All that money goes back into the supply chain because that's the Veja way. Veja has almost always used polyester made from recycled plastic bottles, even though most of it was blended with virgin materials for reasons of strength or elasticity. The majority of this, which was purchased, as it were, whole cloth from China, went into the lining of its casual model, but without the same visibility or oversight other materials received. It was a couple of years ago when Veja decided it wanted to break recycled polyester out of its black box. Traceability was one reason, said Olivia Lyster, the brand's sourcing supervisor. So was having more control over the manufacturing process and therefore its impact. But there was also the fact that Veja wanted to replicate the work it was already doing in its other supply chains, like rubber and cotton, where it was paying fair trade prices and making a social difference. Because that, too, is the Veja way. 'That's when we decided: we're going to set up a PET supply chain,' Lyster said. 'But because traceability is a very obscure sector, it's very difficult to find out where and who people's suppliers are. It's difficult to get back to the plastic bottle. So that was the first and really the biggest innovation.' But Veja had a second trick up its sleeve. Working with Dini Têxtil, a manufacturer in São Paulo, it managed to develop a textile derived from 100 percent recycled plastic bottles—something it wasn't sure it could do and still retain the performance characteristics a shoe required. The fabric, which became known as Eleva, clads a single pair of shoes in the equivalent of four plastic bottles. By now most people have a rough idea of how the bulk of recycled polyester is made: PET bottles are collected, sanitized and any labels and remaining caps separated out. The clean plastic is shredded into flakes, then melted down at high heat to create 'little balls of plastic,' as Lyster puts it. Finally, the pellets are liquified, dyed and extruded through a showerhead-like device to create long, skinny strands of fiber that can be woven into fabric. From the time Patagonia worked with Polartec to use this process to create the first recycled synthetic fleece in the early '90s, this was the environmentally virtuous thing to do. And indeed, many a brand from the late noughties onward have hinged their entire sustainability strategy on the use of the so-called rPET, which they touted as a way to reduce the world's reliance on virgin fossil fuels while taking a bite out of plastic pollution that was clogging up landfills and poisoning marine life. But the reality that has emerged into view in recent years is less simple. Clothing made this way cannot be recycled into clothing again, at least not at a scale that makes practical and economic sense, meaning that a Dasani bottle's reincarnation into a pair of harem pants only marks a brief respite before it ends up relegated to the trash heap or in a hapless turtle's stomach. Hijacking PET to appeal to the trendsetter also snatches it from a truly circular process: turning it into another bottle. It also doesn't address problems that continue to plague virgin polyester: Its inability to biodegrade, for one, and microplastic generation for another. Plus, there's also the possibility that people might use it as an excuse to overconsume, whether it's bottles or apparel—or footwear, for that matter. This is something Lyster has been thinking a lot about. 'It's true; ideally, we wouldn't be using polyester,' she said. 'But there's no other material that has the characteristics that polyester does. And so it's been, 'OK, if we use this material, how can we make it the absolute best it can possibly be?'' And Brazil, it must be said, goes through its share of plastic bottles. While the stuff from the faucet is typically treated, most people stick to bottled water because they prefer the taste or to avoid potential contamination. The country, according to the World Wildlife Fund, pumps out roughly 500 billion single-use plastic items every year, making it the largest producer—and polluter—of plastic in Latin America. Sea Shepherd Brazil and the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo estimate that 90 percent of the garbage on Brazil's beaches is plastic, with single-use items making up 61 percent of that total. This is despite the fact that its PET recycling sector is operating at only 70 percent of its total installed capacity. All of which is to say, without other forms of intervention, there's plenty more where those plastic bottles came from but more investment is needed. The 800,000 catadores who roam Brazil's streets looking to recover resources are a living infrastructure that Brasilia's Institute for Applied Economic Research says collects nearly 90 percent of the nation's recycled material. They've filled a gaping hole that a lack of formal infrastructure for collecting, sorting and reusing materials has left behind. Without them—the people who rummage through public bins and knock on doors to ask for recycling—Brazil's war against waste would be lost. It's also a sector with a high degree of vulnerability, in part because it's such an inclusive one. 'A lot of people have disabilities—for example, learning difficulties—or who may not be able to find other jobs or get income in other ways like people who are single mothers and have young children, so they work only half of the time,' Lyster said. Even so, she added, very little of the value of the materials stays with them. Here's how PET bottle collection typically works in Brazil: After enough bales are generated, usually by a cooperative that aggregates the waste to achieve the required volumes, they're sold to an intermediary who purchases them for cheap. The middleman then, in turn, peddles these to different factories at a higher price that leaves him a comfortable cut. Factories don't like working with the cooperatives or more loosely organized catadores because they think they're 'too chaotic,' though there's also a degree of prejudice and perhaps snobbishness, Lyster said. That Veja wanted to shorten the chain was met with surprise, derision and even anger. 'It's very rare for a company to care, to want to know the people that are in the supply chain directly, which is why I think a lot of companies are interested in certification because it's kind of a shortcut that allows you to know where your stuff is coming from without having to do the hard work of really knowing your supply chain,' she said. 'For the factories, they'd never had anyone come in and say 'We want to buy directly from cooperatives.' And so they were a bit like, 'It's just not done in this sector. You guys don't know what you're talking about. You don't know anything about recycling.' Which was fair enough.' Kopp and Morillion would be the first to tell you they didn't know anything about sneaker production when they founded Veja. They were just tired of the 'blah blah blah' they kept hearing from the companies they worked with that were 'speaking a lot but not doing lots,' Kopp said. 'And so we said, 'If we don't try to do something different, who will?' So we said, 'Let's build something out of nothing.' And then we said, 'What if we do a real product, something that we're wearing every day, something that is a symbol? That would be completely deconstructed, torn apart and rebuilt with ecological materials with fair trade?'' With 5,000 euros apiece, the duo picked a country they both loved—Brazil—and started looking for organic cotton growers, spending months in the fields with their shaky Portuguese. Then, with the vague idea that sneakers in the '40s and '50s used rubber, Kopp and Morillion decided to explore the material next, leading them to ford rivers to reach remote villages of rubber tappers in the Amazon. From the start, the goal was to pay producers the prices they deserved, not what the commodity markets decided. That became the Veja way. 'So we started from nothing,' Kopp said. 'With a production of 5,000 pairs, we bought 2 tons of organic cotton at a special price with a special contract, and so on. And we delivered the shoes. And one week later, there were no shoes anymore in the stores. So all the stores—we had 20 clients at the time—were calling us, saying 'Yes, we want more shoes.' And then we said, 'You have to wait six months because it's going to be a second production and we don't have enough organic cotton.' So we started with 5,000, which became 11,000, which became 20,000, etc. And Veja grew and grew naturally.' Today, Veja is a 600-employee-strong company that makes roughly 4 million pairs of sneakers a year. (Roughly 400,000 of these, or more than 90 percent of the shoes that utilize recycled polyester, are now lined with Eleva.) Veja cares less about certifications than about knowing the people involved. Because when you're on a first-name basis with the cotton grower, rubber tapper or plastic bottle picker—when you know the names of their children and their pets—that's already more due diligence than the vast majority of businesses do. Lyster, together with Luciana Batista Pereira, head of Veja's cotton sourcing, also refused to be daunted, even in what turned out to be a male-dominated industry. 'We were like two crazy women, saying, 'We want to buy from cooperatives,'' she laughed. They ended up speaking to Valgroup, a plastic production giant that snaps up a good proportion of the country's bales. Valgroup said no. Then no again. And again. And again. Finally, the company relented. Castro, who dreams of seeing Paul McCartney in a pair of Vejas she helped make, and Luenia Maria Silva de Oliveira are the leaders of Rede Sul e Sudoeste de Minas Gerais, a network that the 13 catadore cooperatives formed 10 years ago. They are also catadores themselves. At their first meeting with Veja, Lyster and Pereira confessed that they didn't know anything about recycling, only that they wanted to purchase plastic bottles from the people who picked them. Castro and de Oliveria, both warm and motherly presences, embraced the two immediately. 'Together, we started to think about what do the logistics look like? What does a fair price look like in the contract? How can we get the plastic bottles from the cooperative to the factory and all the different details? And they were instrumental in doing that with us,' Lyster said. 'So they really are our partners in this product. And what that involved was a lot of visiting and a lot of talking to people.' Catadores who sell through an intermediary can expect to garner 1-2 Brazilian reais (18-35 cents) for every kilogram of clear plastic bottles. Without the middleman, the factory gives them 3-4 Brazilian reais (53-70 cents), depending on the market rate, which fluctuates according to seasonal demand. On top of that, Veja pays a bonus of 7 reais ($1.23) per kilogram, which is divided between the network and the cooperative (20 percent each) and the catadores (60 percent). In the three years since Veja started the initiative, it has purchased 100 metric tons, or the equivalent of 6 million plastic bottles, a year, at what is essentially three to four times the market price. The cooperatives can use the money to purchase additional sheds and trucks or strengthen their security systems. For many catadores, the extra cash has been life-changing, allowing someone to pay for a child's education or save up for a house or car. At Atremar, a catadore can eke 1,500 reais ($263) per month, on par with the legal minimum wage. One says she dreams of visiting Disneyland one day. 'This isn't charity,' Lyster said. 'These people are the crux of recycling in Brazil. They're providing a service to society by dealing with all of our materials. And they're providing a service to the environment by making sure that things that can be recycled don't go to landfill. And so it's a very concrete service that they're providing. It just tends to be something that's not given much value by society. We're just trying to give value to what they're doing.' The last thing Veja says it wants to do is to make the catadores dependent on it, although to an extent they are now because it's the only company shelling out higher prices. But Veja is a shoe company, not an NGO. Part of the bonus is allocated to cooperatives so they can build autonomy and capacity, so that if Veja disappears one day, they're not left twisting in the wind. 'Because if the cooperative is strong enough to function by itself, it can find other markets and negotiate prices for themselves,' Lyster said. 'A happy moment for us would be for them to start negotiating prices with us because it means that they don't see us as a donor; they see us as a trade partner.' At Valgroup's sprawling facility in Poços de Caldas, a two-and-half-hour drive past rolling hills and open skies from Três Pontas, photography is forbidden in all but one area: the open-air storage area where bales of plastic bottles are trucked and stacked near-daily. They loom like buildings some 15 feet above the ground, a city upon themselves. The floor is littered with flattened pieces of plastic that have escaped their former confines and then ground into the dirt by so many footfalls. Across similar setups in Brazil, Mexico and Spain, Valgroup recycles an annual 100,000 metric tons of PET per year, or the equivalent of 4.8 billion bottles. But recycled PET makes up less than one-quarter of Valgroup's production. It's mostly in the business of churning out virgin plastic, even though it's trying to mitigate some of that impact by ramping up its use of wind and solar power, which now make up half its energy sources. Recycling PET, too, isn't without its hazards. The pyrolysis process that liquefies plastic at temperatures close to 290 degrees Celsius (554 degrees Fahrenheit) can unfurl toxic byproducts, such as antimony, benzene or toluene. The company says it conducts extensive testing, followed by 'cleansing' that removes problematic substances and treats the wastewater afterward. For now, bales purchased directly from cooperatives only make up a sliver of Valgroup's accounts. But the experience so far has been a revelation, said Eduardo Berkovitz, its institutional relations and compliance director, adding 'Valgroup will continue to source directly from the cooperatives even if Veja says it has enough.' Morillion goes by 'Ghislain' in France but the more flamboyant 'Francois' in Brazil, which can confuse people who think he is two separate people. In a sunny boardroom in São Paulo, he says he doesn't see Veja using polyester, recycled or not, forever. For the most part, he sees recycled PET as a transitional material until something better comes along. Until then, Veja will continue its efforts to encourage people to hold on to their kicks longer through its repair and resale business. Since 2020, it has refurbished more than 35,000 pairs of shoes at 'repair stations' in Bordeaux and Paris in France, Berlin in Germany, Madrid in Spain and New York City in the United States. Eventually, Veja hopes to crack textile-to-textile recycling for footwear. 'I hope plastic bottles disappear from the world ASAP,' he said. 'At one point, we were already trying to get rid of polyester. And we still are, and testing new materials and developing new alternatives.' If the Eleva project lasts 10 years, helping and promoting the catadores, 'that's good enough,' he added. 'And if plastic bottles are then forbidden, which I hope they will,' then perhaps the catadores will be onto better things by then. At Atremar, the catadores are free agents, as free to come and go as Reciclita, a slinky orange-and-white tabby who is the cooperative's mascot and inspiration. (His name is derived from the word 'recycle' in the local Portuguese.) On average, they work from 7 in the morning to 5 in the evening, alternating between street collection and table sorting. Each one can lay their hands on 4,000 kilograms of materials every day, only 40 percent of which might be the 'gold' that is PET. It's hard, backbreaking and sometimes dangerous work: One catadore was jabbed by a suspicious needle and required six months of shots. All of them frequently experience that carelessness that people throw things 'away,' not knowing that 'away' leads to places like Atremar, with broken crockery, dead animals, feces and obvious garbage a regular sight among the recyclables. It's a disrespect they're familiar with, complete with the flinging of epithets like 'horse' (because of the carts they pull) and 'garbage people.' Sometimes, however, the silence is even worse. 'Most companies don't even want to talk to us,' Castro, who also serves as Rede Sul e Sudoeste de Minas Gerais's financial director, said through a translator. 'But Veja sat and ate with us. Only Veja is different.' A key difference is engagement that is relational rather than transactional. It's not only the money but also the recognition of the catadores' work that's important, she said. And now, with the passage of time, a model that no one thought would work has proven successive, which also makes it replicable. The naysayers have also been repudiated. Valgroup now says that the cooperatives deliver the 'most beautiful,' meaning the cleanest, bales. This is a particular source of pride for the catadores. 'Things only work when we work together,' Castro said.
