We partnered with UK-based campaign organisation City to Sea to create a positioning paper that offers an overview of global policy lessons for reuse systems, laying out recommendations to achieve the necessary scale of finance, innovation, and collaboration for a successful reuse transition.
Europeans generate nearly 190kg of packaging waste per person each year, and in the UK, the current system still favours single-use packaging due to economies of scale in investment, policy, and entrenched consumer behaviours.
Recommendations within this insights report to help overcome this include:
- Mandatory and specific targets for reuse and refill
- Industry technical and quality standards
- Shared assets and logistics at the right points in the supply chain
- Industry incentives, leveraging existing frameworks for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
- Networks from retailers and distributors for consumers to refill and return
- Effective consumer engagement
We also explore lessons learned from case studies, including a reusable system in Germany, and the influence of reuse policy drivers in France.
Reusable packaging systems are already in place, at local and national scales all over the world, however creating more at speed and scale will require collective action from policymakers, businesses, campaigners, and citizens.
Sustainability is becoming more prominent in legislation and for many markets it’s a consumer expectation. With long-awaited policies and systems for packaging EPR and beverage deposit return schemes in the UK now coming into focus, reuse presents a key opportunity for investment, innovation, and the future of sustainable packaging.
