Ocean Plastics Leadership Network has launched the Reuse & Refill Action Forum in partnership with Upstream and Meridian to engage collaboration across OPLN’s activist-to-industry network for advancing circular solutions across food, beverage, CPG, and more. This September’s inaugural Reuse and Refill Action Forum saw over 100 participants representing the goals and perspectives of multiple sectors including industry, activism, finance, academia, government, and more.

“So many of the organizations on this call are working across the plastics ecosystem on a myriad of issues through many different approaches,” said Dave Ford, founder of OPLN. “There are so many stakeholders and many of you don't see eye to eye, but the thing everyone can agree on is that refill/reuse is a good idea.”

The plenary is a place for connection and collaboration across sectors. There will be 3 plenaries convened over the next year, with a final wrap-up summer 2023. Working groups including beverage, food service, and consumer packaged goods. This is an opportunity for re-use practitioners to engage and align on sector-specific action plans and pathways to eliminating plastic pollution for good. Each working group will meet three times throughout the course of the series, sharing data and information and opportunities for discussion to move the needle on reuse and refill in their respective sectors.

Between October and January, beverage and food service workstreams will convene, with consumer packaging convening January to May.

The Reuse & Reuse Action Forum draws from various perspectives of the reuse and refill community, offering an ideation hub for cross-sectional engagement of the plastic crisis and alignment of goals by:

• Identifying actions and opportunities for pre-competitive collaboration on reuse/refill across sectors
• Collecting, assessing, and sharing relevant data to broadly inform development of reuse systems
• Defining necessary policy elements to create and adopt reuse and refill at scale

The once impossible notion of an all-out switch to electric vehicle production by the world’s leading automakers is now an inevitable reality. A similar sea change is not only possible, but essential to mitigate the plastics crisis.

“[Vehicle electrification] happened because the sustainability leaders in car companies rejected half measures and decided to go all-in on a climate friendly future,” said Matt Prindiville, CEO at Upstream. “What kinds of changes are we going to see for the planet and its inhabitants through conversations like these around circularity? And how can we align around a vision for the future that we’re willing to go all in for?”

McKenna Morrigan heads up a public-private partnership to advance reuse in Seattle. As a policy advisor for Seattle Public Utilities, Morrigan envisions a standardized, city-wide, reusable food food and beverage service ware system that’s scalable, affordable, and equitable. Morrigan’s work aims to create integrated and interoperable reuse infrastructure through city- and region-wide reuse and collection platforms.

“This shift from single-use to reuse that we’re here to talk about and build enthusiasm for, it’s already underway here in the U.S. in the form of policy action,” Morrigan said. “This isn’t a future thing, this is a now thing.”

For Loop, mass adoption of reuse/refill isn’t from lack of feasibility, but inconvenience. Loop is focused on seamless reusability by creating an ecosystem where reusable/refillable containers can be bought and returned anywhere.

For adoption to happen, two things must occur. First, products need to be onboarded. Second, retailers hold all of the cards, unilaterally deciding how, where, how many, and how long reusable and refillable products are featured at stores.

Image source: Loop

TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky foresees turning packaging from a cost into an asset, and is excited for the innovation ecosystems that will emerge from elevating packaging beyond a single use material.

It’s no longer whether or not consumers would bite on reusable: Prefilled, branded refillable products work with consumers. What’s more, Loop found that most consumers will go out of their way to switch to brands with refillable options should they have the choice. And this goes for both eco brands and mainstream household labels.

Until the reuse ecosystem becomes cheaper than single use, implementing reuse models will be an investment, Szaky said. But scaled, he estimates Loop will be cheaper than single use packaging. And the adoption needed to tip the scales is shockingly small, he reported: Just 1,000 stores in the United States participating would make the numbers work.

In Kroger pilots, the store co-merchandised refillable containers beside disposable ones, producing an adoption increase from 60-400 percent. The Kroger pilot showed that adoption rates vary by category. For example, items people shop by category (such as tea) saw more consumers switching to reusable packaging driving a higher adoption rate, while everyday use items showed lower adoption rates.

Pilots are ongoing in France and the U.S., with more launching soon at other large national retailers.

Image source: Kroger

Other real-world examples presented during the forum:

• Clorox partnered with Loop to roll out a concentrated bleach product in a reusable container.
• Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery is championing the refillable glass bottle cause in the food and beverage space, partnering with Oregon's BottleDrop refill program, the only statewide bottle refilling program in the U.S.

Interested in participating in the next plenary? Email Cheryl Loh at cheryl@opln.org for more information.