Welcome to Freight Reverse, a monthly review of RLA activities, RLA member news, and market updates.
- How Paris 2024 is designing a Summer Olympics
focused on the circular economy
- An interesting story from Parcel and Postal Technology International
on how big data and analytics can help improve reverse logistics efficiencies.
- Every year, more than 2 billion tons of waste are produced in the European Union
- equivalent to 4.8 tons per person. In 2021, most of that waste went to landfill and incineration, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA). The EU wants to double the proportion of materials used in the economy that come from recycling by 2030, relative to the 2020 rate.
- From the Financial Times
- The wrong trousers? Retail has a new solution to the returns problem. The secrecy is by design, says
Sender Shamiss
, chief executive of
ReturnPro formerly goTRG
, “to figure out how to stop bleeding dollars from handling returns that were very, very low price point”.
- There is a new type of store growing in popularity that sells brand-name goods at a fraction of the retail price. It’s called re-commerce and gives a second chance for returned items, products in damaged boxes or things that were just overstocked – Check out the video clip
from the Today show.
- UPS’
Happy Returns, a UPS Company
launches a cross-brand 'BORIS' solution
with Shein and Forever 21 being among the first to implement.
goTRG's 2023 Impact Report
highlights the company's achievements, including:
- Managing nearly 50 million pounds of returns in 2023
- Recovering a value of $5 billion in retail items for clients
- Refurbishing or recycling 99% of items at goTRG's dedicated returns centers diverting returns from ending up in landfills
According to Deloitte
, discarded repairable goods account for 35 million tons of waste, 30 million tons of resources and 261 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year in the European Union alone. Deloitte's consumer survey found that 40% of respondents admit their usual practice is to replace a defective product with a new one. A small fraction — 7% — prefer replacing the product with a used or refurbished one.
-
ASICS Movement for Mind
introduced The Asics Nimbus Mirai
that places a focus on having runners send back shoes at the end of their use to support Asics’ move toward circularity and the company’s goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in the next 25 years. “Specifically, we aim to see recycled upper material from returned Nimbus Mirai shoes be utilized in future shoes,” said Gentaro Makinoda, global innovations communications manager for Asics. “We know that as the entirety of the upper goes through the recycling process, 87.3% of the recycled material can be remade into the polyester material for future shoes.”
-
Decathlon
expanded its buy-back scheme
to allow customers to swap out and repair old sporting equipment while earning store vouchers.
-
eBay UK
announced that, as of 8 April, it is free for individual sellers to list and sell pre-owned clothing items
on its platform.
-
Urban Outfitters
revamped its secondhand offerings
into a new centralized Vintage + Remade hub, featuring a selection of vintage goods curated by the Urban team as well as used apparel that has been repaired and restored.
To register for the conference - https://rla.org/event/289
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