Effective Strategies for Regional Packaging Reuse Systems

This project will investigate technology-enabled strategies for regional plastic packaging reuse systems. Iterant has implemented an online reuse marketplace that provides economic incentives for key stakeholders involved in the manufacturing, use/reuse and recovery of plastic packaging. Our hypothesis, based on pilot data, is that this platform can deliver profitable reuse models for all three key stakeholders, and will be scalable and self-sustaining. The key innovation of the Iterant marketplace is a royalty payment mechanism available to packaging manufacturers whenever their products are transacted for reuse between third parties on the marketplace. These royalty payments can provide manufacturers with profits from reuse that equal those from single-use. Manufacturers are thus incentivized to support reuse of their products. A pro forma example demonstrating viable economics is included in the full proposal. The implementation of marketplace features is straightforward. Our challenge lies in demonstrating the ability of those who collect post-consumer packaging and process it for resale to run a profitable business while still providing savings for reusers and royalties for manufacturers. Hence the scope of work includes demonstration of process improvements in material handling and optimization of shipping logistics. Reuse out-performs single-use in both environmental and economic impact. We have demonstrated through a pilot project that resale of finished plastic packaging can command a 40x price premium over sale of the same bulk material as recycling input. This premium enables the new business model for materials management described above. We will focus on a specific plastic packaging product - an rHDPE can carrier used by a large number of craft breweries. This product is an excellent test case, as it is widely used and simple to collect and process. If we achieve 5% market share of can carriers among 230 local breweries, annual resale revenue of $93,812, aggregated brewery savings of $22,391, and manufacturer royalties of $5,465 will be generated. However, the impact of the work is applicable well beyond this one product. The market for reuse of a wider array of packaging in the US is approximately $1B. A life cycle assessment commissioned by Iterant found that reuse of these can carriers in a generic scenario has the potential to reduce carbon emissions by 43% with a single reuse (2 total uses) or by 78% with 10 reuses (11 total uses), with corresponding reductions of solid waste by up to 50% and 91% respectively.