We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mia Davis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
I first met my co-founder Victor Casale in 2020. A colleague wanted us to get together to talk about a subject that we both couldn’t let up on: beauty’s big problem with packaging. The beauty and wellness industry generate over 120 billion packages each year, and only a fraction actually gets recycled. Most are landfilled, incinerated, or littered, eventually ending up in the ocean. Vic and I were not ok with this, and agreed that we wanted to roll up our sleeves and begin to tackle this.
Pact is here to share real information on packaging production, material claims, recycling rates and other end-of-life realities—even when the truth is inconvenient. We believe this is how we can make meaningful strides toward circularity.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Pact is a nonprofit membership organization. Our vision is to end packaging waste in the beauty industry by pushing for smarter, more sustainable designs for packaging right out of the gate, and by running a collection program for hard-to-recycle. We are getting beauty and wellness industry stakeholders together to learn and share, and to agree not to greenwash about packaging sustainability or end-of-life outcomes.
There are a lot of very important, seemingly simple things that Pact is asking our industry to unite on so we can make headway. For example, we’re advocating for resin ID codes on all plastic packages so that people know what they’re buying, holding. Since plastic types numbered 3, 4, 6 and 7 are highly unlikely to be recycled, people need to know that so they’re making informed choices on the front end, and sorting their trash properly when its done.
We would like to see more refillable packaging, more recycled content in packaging, and designs that acknowledge the recycling infrastrcture and market realities… so no packages made of different materials that are fused together and which therefore can’t be recycled.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I used to think that if I wasn’t sure something could be recycled, I should just toss it in the single stream bin and hope for the best. But a few years ago I learned that this is called “wishcycling,” and it is slowing down the whole system. If something is unlikely to be recycled, it is best to put it in the trash and allow the recycling stream to be comprised of the stuff that actually has a chance to be sorted and sold.
And you know the chasing arrows in a triangle shape, which implies a package is recyclable? Well, it is often BS, unfortunately. Thankfully the state of CA recently passed a law that will prohibit the recycling symbol on packaging that is not recyclable in CA. So in a few years, I hope we see systemic changes on this greenwashing technique.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Pact is a nonprofit– because we don’t want the push for a financial return to take us away from our mission. We’re dedicated to keeping membership rates low so we can get as many stakeholders to the table as possible. And our collection program rates are also kept as low as we can, and still keep the lights on and grow.
That said, we are in need of more support from foundations, donors and members. Let us know if you can help out! [email protected]
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pactcollective.org/
- Instagram: @pact_collective
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pact-collective/?viewAsMember=true