Local councils and waste and recycling organisations could evolve their current services to help support the adoption of reusable packaging in the Waikato region, a new report commissioned by Waikato Regional Council has found.

Return to Reuse, the report by Reuse Aotearoa, says having a third-party system that collects empty packages, inspects and sanitises them, and then redistributes them back to producers would enable more businesses to shift to reusable packaging.

Valerie Bianchi, Waste Prevention Advisor for Waikato Regional Council, says most of the Waikato businesses using reusable packaging are independently managing their own system.

“Having to manage your own system is a time and cost burden, and it’s a barrier to more businesses adopting reusable packaging for their products.”

Bianchi says this is where councils and waste and recycling operators could step in.

“The report shows that collecting and processing reusable packaging has similarities with what waste and recycling companies are already doing when they collect and process single-use packaging for residents and businesses.”

“The research also found a willingness from both council waste officers and waste and recycling operators to explore how they could adapt and build-on their existing workflows and infrastructure to offer reusable packaging services.”

The report shares local and international case study examples of councils or resource recovery operators who are already supporting reusable packaging systems. For example, by managing public return points for reusable packaging, or installing washing infrastructure.

Based on the key needs shared by these research participants, and learnings from local and international case studies, the report identifies four opportunities that Waikato’s local councils can harness, in partnership with the region’s resource recovery sector, to support reusable packaging:

1. Use or establish collective, multi-stakeholder forum(s) to advance collaborative learning, planning and accountability around reusable packaging systems and the supporting reverse logistics.
2. Create regional, sectoral and organisational reusable packaging action plans and programmes for the resource recovery system.
3. Find ways to procure, fund or provide in-kind support for the delivery of reusable packaging reverse logistics.
4. Design and implement an action-based reusable packaging reverse logistics project (or projects) in order to gain certainty about system requirements, while actively progressing reuse on the ground.

Read the full report: Return to Reuse: The potential role for Waikato’s territorial authorities and resource recovery sector in supporting reverse logistics for reusable packaging.

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