How Durable Does Reusable Packaging Need to Be?

When reuse started regaining popularity in the United States, it was hard to imagine how any version of reuse could be worse for the environment than single-use equivalents. Today, there’s growing awareness of the potential unintended consequences of reuse if return rates, and associated packaging use cycles, are not high enough to justify the added durability (and material) that comes with reusable packaging.

With the newest wave of reuse policy discussions and renewed efforts to integrate reuse models into reduction requirements of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) bills, there is growing confusion on what defines a "good" reuse system. Although many metrics are cited, use cycles or return rates paint the most robust picture of how well a reuse system operates in practice. As we build the reuse systems of tomorrow, a universal understanding of such metrics is essential. So, what is a high enough return rate?

The Reality of Today’s Reuse Rates

Across different sources, the number of reuses required to offset the added durability and materials needed for reusable packaging (also known as the breakeven point) is said to range from about five to 800 uses. But in today’s reality, reusable packaging is often reused less than five times, based on the results of past and ongoing open-system reuse pilots. For containers to have five uses on average in their lifetime, return rates need to be 80%. For a 90% return rate - which we have yet to see in open systems at scale - containers are used only 10 times on average.

Achieving five to 10 uses is still a dream state for most open-environment reuse systems, yet we see packaging designers choosing and testing packaging materials to withstand dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of uses. Brands and manufacturers designing reusable containers are often reacting to regulations that set up unreasonably high use targets for open-system models. CalRecycle* suggests washable as something that lasts 780 cycles. The Choose2Reuse drafted regulation cited a requirement of about 1,000 cycles. These types of requirements force the industry to design packaging for aspirational return rates, making breakeven points even higher.

Why Designing for Current State Matters

To mitigate the environmental impact of reuse, reusable packaging needs to be designed for current return rates. Otherwise, you limit the environmental benefits by potentially generating a higher volume of materials, that are less likely to be recovered.

Additionally, durability will naturally be a function of the usage environment; reusables must be appropriately designed for their expected use case. Items made for more closed environments, such as dine-in at a restaurant or for a drink at a venue, may have higher use cycles than open environments, such as takeaway or delivery.

The bottom line: as we transition toward more widespread reuse, we need to design with actual return rates and uses cases in mind. We must also ensure that containers that are not returned for reuse are recycled at their end-of-life (learn more about designing for end-of-life here).

While we work towards building the convenience and incentives needed to increase return rates, we must ask: what’s the least amount of material that we can put in a returnable packaging solution today to make it durable enough to survive five to 10 uses? Will it look sufficiently like a durable reusable to signal returnability? And ultimately, how many cycles does a container need to survive to beat its single-use equivalent? For open reuse systems today, when the answer is less than five or so cycles, the packaging design is going in the right direction.

Reusable packaging is at an important inflexion point. New innovations are expanding what is possible, but to ensure that reuse does not generate unintended environmental consequences, reusable packaging needs to be thoughtfully designed with today’s reality in mind. Designing reusable packaging with current return rates, use cases and eventual end-of-life in mind are all critical steps to building a reuse system that truly advances a circular economy and a waste-free future.

How Do We Ensure Reusable Cups Do Not Become Waste When They Can No Longer Be Reused Or End Up In A Recycling Bin Rather Than a Reuse Bin?

Testing is key. There are excellent design guidelines, such as APR’s design for recyclability guidelines, to help suppliers ensure their packaging meets the stated needs of the recycling system today. However reusable cups also need to be tested within the recycling process to see if they can be successfully recovered. There are three critical stages of the recycling process:

• Collection: how recyclable materials are collected in residential or commercial waste streams
• Sortation: how a package will flow at a Material Recycling Facility (MRF)
• Reprocessing: how a package aligns with similar materials to be processed and remanufactured into new materials

In early 2023, the NextGen Consortium collaborated with Van Dyk Technology Center to test how a dozen different reusable polypropylene (PP) cups would sort within a MRF and see if they would end up in the correct material bale, in this case PP.

The test mimicked the flow of a typical MRF, followed APR’s sorting guidance and tested how size, compression, 2D and 3D sortation, and near-infrared (NIR) sortation impact how well a cup can be sorted. The results were mixed and provided critical design insights for the companies that are manufacturing and deploying reusable cup formats.

The Results: The Good, The Bad and The Unrecyclable

When designed with recycling in mind, a reusable PP cup should successfully be sorted into the correct bale at an MRF. In our tests, the top four best-performing cup models were sorted correctly more than 90 percent of the time. The test ran 50 samples of each cup through four separate runs so that each cup model ran through the facility 200 times. The results are no coincidence: successful sortability was driven by specific factors, including colour, shape, opacity, thickness and material composition. The highest-performing cups were typically opaque, thin and rigid but had some flexibility or bounce, and were all read clearly by the optical sensors of the sortation equipment. Cups that performed poorly, sorting less than 50% of the time (or sometimes not at all), often were more translucent than their successful counterparts. Overall, while only four of the cups achieved successful sortation (and a fifth cup was borderline), simple design corrections can improve the fate of the others.?

Design Tips: Making Recyclability A Priority For Reusable PP Cups

The Van Dyk sortation test gave a window into what happens to various types of reusable PP cups travelling through an MRF. However, this only assessed one step in the recycling process––sortation––and does not confirm compatibility with reclamation systems nor prove that the cup can be recycled effectively into a new package. Additional testing is needed to confirm assumptions that reusable PP cups are truly circular. For now, reusable food service packaging companies and suppliers can design with sortation in mind and improve end-of-life outcomes by considering the following:

• Follow the design guidelines created by APR and other groups: There are many resources available online to help packaging designers/suppliers ensure greater compatibility with the recycling system. For plastic packaging, the APR Design? Guide is a great place to start.
• Avoid all black plastics: While there have been technological advancements to help sort black plastics, most MRFs do not possess that technology. Both opaque and translucent black packaging is problematic and reusable cup manufacturers should design cups with today’s system in mind. If black is required, use a NIR sortable black colourant. Colourants that have passed APR testing can be found on APR’s website here.
• Not all polypropylene is equal: PP is a wide class of material. PP sorters in the recycling process are designed to detect and separate PP that is common to single-use plastic such as tubs and lids; however, other PP grades may not be as easily identified. It is critical to engage with your cup suppliers and test if needed to confirm compatibility.
• Mono materials (cups made of just one material) are best: A reusable cup that is multi-material (i.e., part plastic, part fibre, part silicone, etc.) is simply not compatible with today’s recycling system. Cups designed to be in a high-volume sharing system should be made of a singular material and avoid too many add-ons. Cups with ridges (i.e., a built-in sleeve) may also impede sortation; however, it does not appear that those design features are overly detrimental.
• Think twice before adding tech: Tracking systems are typically needed to assess the impact of a reuse system and enable traceability, but features such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags need to be evaluated further for their impact on the recycling system. While an RFID tag is unlikely to hinder a package’s sortability, it might impact whether a material can be reclaimed or recycled. APR’s guidance lists RFID tags as “detrimental,” and the NextGen team is investigating the impact this technology has on the system.

?When in Doubt, TEST

Despite widely available design guidance, reusable packaging that is not compatible with today’s recycling system continues to be manufactured. The conversation needs to be more nuanced and shift from only discussing designing for durability and the number of washes a package can withstand, to the realities of how the packaging will actually be used and travel through a system. Most reusable wares in an open system would be lucky to hit 40 reuses (which would assume a >95% return rate)! Sortation and recovery testing can help provide reusable food service packaging companies with additional peace of mind and ensure that their packaging has a better chance of staying out of landfills.

The NextGen team looks forward to continuing this journey to study and test optimal conditions for reusable packaging to succeed and achieve a positive environmental impact within a circular economy.

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Ms Adrienna Zsakay is the Founder and CEO of Circular Economy Asia Inc., and this article represents her opinions on the circular economy. Circular World Video of the Week is brought to you by Circular World? Media — a brand owned by Circular Economy Asia Inc.

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Reprinted

Today's #CircularWorldVideoOfTheWeek is a mix of two articles published by Closed Loop Partners.

1. 'Debunking Durability: How Durable Does Reusable Packaging Need to Be?' by Carolina Lobel and Carol Grzych, 24 October 2023
2. 'When Reusable Cups Reach End-of-Life: 5 Tips to Ensure They Don’t Go to Waste' By Anh Giang and Dan Liswood, 18 October 2023

Both articles have been reprinted with permission from Closed Loop Partners, a company at the forefront of building the circular economy. The company is comprised of three key business segments: an investment firm, an innovation centre and an operating group.

*CalRecycle - The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery is a branch of the California Environmental Protection Agency that oversees the state's waste management, recycling, and waste reduction programs.