Big food, consumer goods firms join TerraCycle's Loop waste-free shopping platform

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Some of the world's largest consumer goods and food and beverage companies have joined a new recycling initiative, to be launched this year, aimed at collecting used plastics bottles and other durable packaging from homes and re-using them.

U.S. waste recycling firm TerraCycle announced the project -- to be run through an online shopping platform called Loop -- on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos where waste and plastic pollution is a major theme.

"There is no need to clean and dispose of the package. As consumers finish their products, they place the empty package into one of their Loop Totes. Loop will pick up directly from their home," TerraCycle said in a joint statement.

(Reporting by Mark Bendeich; editing by Jason Neely)