When you toss a plastic bottle into your recycling bin, there’s no guarantee it actually gets recycled. In fact, odds are, it doesn’t.

According to the World Economic Forum, just 14% of plastic packaging is collected for recycling globally. And because of complexities in the recycling process, huge amounts of single-use plastic (as well as glass and cardboard) that consumers try to recycle ultimately end up getting burned or tossed into landfills anyway. If recyclable materials are contaminated by food waste, or if consumers misunderstand what can be recycled and where—to cite two common examples—their garbage may not end up being repurposed after all. A 2017 study in Science Advances estimated that, of all the plastic waste generated globally up to 2015, just 9% had been recycled, while 12% was incinerated and the rest ended up in landfills or scattered around the natural environment. Some plastic waste is burned to create fuel or energy, but this process is itself energy-intensive and emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Given that broken system, it’s clear that “recycling our way out of [the climate crisis] will not work,” says Sander Defruyt, who runs plastic innovation initiatives at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), a sustainability-focused nonprofit. “Reuse, as well as plain elimination of a lot of packaging we don’t need, will also have to be a crucial part of the solution.”

Recycling is, at its core, about reuse. But Defruyt is talking about something slightly different than that broad definition. Proponents of what’s known as a “circular economy” argue that, instead of feeding into the convoluted recycling process, companies should replace single-use containers with those that can be used over and over again—often a durable metal or glass vessel that can be refilled either in a store, by a company or in a consumer’s own home.

These systems have a clear appeal. They’re intuitive, for one thing: it’s easy to understand the concept of refilling a bottle, whereas it’s hard to know where the plastic container you toss in a bin actually goes, or what happens to it when it gets there. And rather than dealing with waste after the fact, circular systems reduce it at the source. Using the same containers, in the same form, over and over again ideally eases demand for virgin materials, reduces energy needed to spit out thousands of new plastic bottles or cardboard boxes, and prevents heaps of trash from ending up in landfills or oceans. But such programs are not perfect. They rely heavily on consumers following directions and actually reusing packages as intended, and often involve upcharges that exclude consumers without disposable income. Perhaps more importantly, the environmental benefits of these initiatives may not be as great as they appear.

The idea of reusing containers is hardly new. If you’ve ever bought a vat of hand soap and used it to refill various dispensers around your house, or brought your own cup to Starbucks, you’ve taken part in this system.

But in recent years, companies have experimented with new ways of doing it. The startup Loop, an offshoot of the recycling company TerraCycle (which critics say does not recycle as much as it promises), launched in the U.S. in 2019 as an e-commerce platform selling food, beauty products and household essentials, all in reusable packaging. Consumers could order quinoa in a metal canister or face wash in a glass jar, then send back the empty packaging for cleaning and refilling and repeat the cycle. On Sept. 22, Loop announced that it would also begin offering products in a limited number of brick-and-mortar Walgreens/Duane Reade and Kroger stores nationwide. It’s also working with retailers in the U.K., Japan, France and Australia.

Global corporations including Coca-Cola, Unilever and Procter & Gamble have also piloted reusable packaging programs within the last few years. Unilever, for example, set up refill stations for select hair care products in some Walmart locations in Mexico. It also offers refillable versions of some of its Love Beauty and Planet-branded hair products at certain Target locations in the U.S. In Chile, it works with a startup that delivers laundry detergent and cleaning product refills to customers’ homes by electric tricycle. Major beauty brands like the Body Shop are also experimenting with in-store refill stations. Then there are startups like CleanPath and Blueland, whose entire business model is designed around selling concentrated detergents and cleaning products that people can mix with water in reusable containers at home.

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Right now, reuse programs like these are small potatoes in the scheme of global manufacturing. Dozens of major companies, including Unilever, Walmart and Johnson & Johnson, share data on their use of both recycled and reusable materials with EMF. Cumulatively, less than 2% of their plastic packaging was reusable as of 2019, Defruyt says. Still, over the past few years, the circular economy movement has gained steam. In the U.S. alone, according to market-research firm Mintel, the reusable packaging market for beauty and personal care products grew by about 65% from June 2020 to May 2021. Unilever and Procter & Gamble have pledged to halve their use of virgin plastics by 2025 and 2030, respectively.

While the particulars of reuse programs vary from brand to brand, two questions apply across the board. One, will customers buy into the system? And two, is the program actually environmentally friendly?

The answer to the second question depends heavily on the answer to the first.

Shelie Miller, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, says there’s a “payback” period associated with any reusable item—a number of times it must be reused before it’s actually better for the environment than the single-use alternative. Something like reusable sandwich wrap may never break even, according to Miller’s research, because the energy and resources required to make and wash it far exceed what goes into making flimsy disposable bags. (Ditto for many cotton tote bags, as explored recently by the New York Times.)

Refillable replacements for containers that use rigid plastics, like shampoo bottles, are a better bet, Miller says. Making a reusable version of that bottle likely takes only a little more energy than the plastic one, so each time it gets reused, it moves a little closer to paying off its environmental debt—assuming, of course, that buyers refill as directed.

Consumer interest in reuse programs is there: In a 2021 survey run by Trivium Packaging and Boston Consulting Group, about 70% of respondents said they would be willing to pay more for a product that comes in sustainable packaging. But there aren’t many studies on how often consumers actually refill multi-use packages. If someone buys a metal shampoo bottle, gets lazy and tosses it in the garbage instead of refilling it, that may end up being worse for the environment than simply buying a single-use bottle, because more energy went into making the durable metal version.

The mechanics behind reuse programs matter too, says Daniel Johnson, chair of the department of packaging science at the Rochester Institute of Technology. “For the right product category and the right supply chain, the effect [of reusable packaging] can be huge,” Johnson says. “But it comes down to, what methods are you going to use to try to recover the packaging…and what does it take to get more product to the consumer?”

For example, if someone has to mail back an empty metal bottle for refilling, there will be an environmental burden associated with transporting it back and forth and cleaning it—one which may eclipse the environmental impact of a single-use plastic bottle that actually gets recycled, Johnson says. Direct-to-consumer companies that give people all the tools they need to refill at home—like shampoo capsules or detergent concentrates—are a good option because they don’t require return shipping and are convenient, he says.

For a reuse program to work, “the simpler, the better,” agrees David Luttenberger, who heads the department that researches packaging at Mintel. Convenience is key—but since refilling containers is never going to be easier than buying from Amazon, brands should also make it “more of an experience for consumers,” Luttenberger says, with well-designed refill stations or discounts on repeat purchases.

For Lush, a Canada-based cosmetics company, reusable packaging is something of a fallback option. Plan A is selling goods without any packaging at all, as Lush does with about 65% of its permanent products, says Katrina Shum, Lush’s sustainability manager—in these cases, the brand sells solids like bath bombs and shampoo bars loose. Liquid products that require packaging, like lotions and shower gels, are sold in pots made from post-consumer-recycled plastic. If customers return five pots to the store, they get a free face mask.

Even with the promise of free stuff, Lush has only about a 17% return rate in North America, Shum says. And because it’s so difficult to adequately clean the returned pots, Lush instead breaks them down and uses them to make new ones. Doing so reduces the brand’s need to buy recycled plastic from other sources, but Shum admits she’s “not too sure if it’s really too much different,” from an environmental perspective, than simply making new pots from recycled material.

TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky says Loop has a return rate of more than 80%, largely because of the financial incentives it offers: customers must pay a deposit of up to $10 (for a pack of Clorox cleaning wipes) for each container they purchase, and it’s only refunded when they return it for refilling. That concept is well-established. A 2019 report from researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology found that, compared to the rest of the country, glass-bottle recycling rates are 40% higher in the 10 U.S. states that bake in a refundable deposit to the cost of items that come in such containers.

But while Loop’s return rate is high, its denominator is low—only about 20,000 people worldwide have used Loop’s pilot programs since they launched two years ago. Szaky is frank about the model’s shortcomings: ordering from the website is expensive (on top of the deposits, round-trip shipping costs at least $20 in the U.S.) and somewhat inconvenient (items come in bulky tote bags best suited for large orders). But, he says, those flaws might be overcome once Loop can move its offerings from e-commerce to retail stores, as will happen soon in the U.S. That was always the end game, Szaky says, because it eliminates some of these costs and hassles. ”If you’re already going to walk to a Duane Reade, what’s the big deal in taking some empties?”

Read more: Thinking of Investing in a Green Fund? Many Don’t Live Up to Their Promises, a New Report Claims

By the beginning of 2022, Loop will enable U.S. customers to buy dozens of brand-name products in refillable containers at select Kroger and Walgreens/Duane Reade stores across the country, then return them at any participating location. (The website will be phased out as the retail program expands, Szaky says.) Loop is also working with fast food restaurants including Burger King to offer reusable food and beverage containers that can also be returned at any participating Loop retailer.

At a September reusability forum hosted by Loop, the World Economic Forum and the World Wildlife Fund, Kate Daly of the think tank Closed Loop Partners pitched an even bigger idea: cities could someday put reusable container dropoff stations on the street, as they currently do with trash and recycling bins. There are obviously logistical challenges around collecting, sorting and returning reusable packages from multiple makers, but Daly said this kind of widespread adoption is crucial for the concept to ever make a significant impact. “You want to have every citizen within a city have access to this new system,” she said.

But are the payoffs really worth the logistical headaches? Though packaging is perhaps the aspect of consumer goods that is most visibly wasteful, “It’s often the product itself that is more environmentally intensive than the package,” Miller says, when you factor in the water, materials and energy required to grow, make and ship it. For the average food product, she says, packaging accounts for only about 10% of its total environmental burden—so while it makes sense for companies to experiment with reusable packaging, it’s also something of a baby step on the path to actual eco-friendliness.

In other words, reusing a bottle is great, but it doesn’t counteract the water and energy required to make and transport the thing in that bottle. As long as we want a fridge full of sodas and a bathroom full of shampoos, there will be environmental prices to pay. Packaging is just the tax on top.

Correction, Sept. 29

The original version of this story misstated the nature of Target’s refillable packaging program. While it sells select products in refillable packaging, customers cannot refill them in stores.

Write to Jamie Ducharme at jamie.ducharme@time.com.

The Benefits of Using Plastic Packaging

Plastic packaging allows us to protect, preserve, store and transport products in a variety of ways.

Without plastic packaging, a great deal of products that consumers purchase would not make the journey to the home or store, or survive in good condition long enough to be consumed or used.  

Contents

1 Why Use Plastics Packaging
2 Pack For All Seasons
    2.1 Examples of Packaging
3 Contribution to Sustainable Development
    3.1 Plastics packaging saves energy
    3.2 Plastics packaging is an optimal use of resources
    3.3 Plastics packaging prevents food waste
    3.4 Plastics packaging: continuous improvements through innovation
4 Plastics Packaging Means Low Environmental Impacts
    4.1 Oil and gas in context – carbon savings with plastics packaging
    4.2 Re-usable plastics packaging
    4.3 A strong recycling record
    4.4 Energy from waste
5 Find a Packaging Supplier
    5.1 Find a Supplier Form
    5.2 BPF Packaging Group Guide

1. Why Use Plastics Packaging?

Above all, plastics are used because of the unique combination of benefits they offer; 

Durability: The long polymer chains which constitute the plastics raw material make it extraordinarily difficult to break.

Safety: Plastics packaging is shatterproof and does not fragment into dangerous shards when dropped. For more information on the safety of plastic packaging, as well as its safety in contact with food, visit plastic packaging safety.

Hygiene: Plastics packaging is ideal for the packaging of foodstuffs, medicines and pharmaceuticals. It can be filled and sealed without human intervention. The materials used, both plastics raw materials and additives, fulfill all food safety legislation at national and European Union levels. Plastics products are customarily used as medical devices in intimate contact with body tissue and conform to the highest standards of safety in their life-saving uses.

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Security: Plastics packaging can be produced and used with tamper-evident and child resistant closures. The transparency of the pack enables users to examine the condition of the goods prior to purchase.

Light Weight: Plastics packaging items are low in weight but high in strength. Hence products packed in plastics are easy to lift and handle by consumers and by personnel in the distribution chain.

Design Freedom: The properties of the materials combined with the array of processing technologies employed in the industry, ranging from injection and blow moulding to thermoforming, enable the production of an infinite number of pack shapes and configurations. Additionally the extensive range of colouring possibilities and the ease of printing and decoration facilitate brand identification and information for the consumer.

For more information on the reasons why plastic packaging is used

2. Pack for All Seasons

The nature of plastics technology with its wide variety of raw materials and processing techniques permits the manufacture of packaging in an infinite variety of shapes, colours and technical properties. Practically anything can be packed in plastics - liquids, powders, solids and semi-solids.

2.1 Some examples of plastics packaging:

 

Bottles

Bulk Containers

Pails

Pots

Returnable Transit Packaging

Trays

Blister Packaging  

3. Contribution to Sustainable Development

3.1 Plastics packaging saves energy

Because it is lightweight plastics packaging can save energy in the transport of packed goods. Less fuel is used, there are lower emissions and, additionally, there are cost savings for distributors, retailers and consumers. 

A yogurt pot made from glass weighs about 85grams, while one made from plastics only weighs 5.5grams. In a lorry filled with a product packed in glass jars 36% of the load would be accounted for by the packaging. If packed in plastic pouches the packaging would amount to just 3.56%. To transport the same amount of yogurt three trucks are needed for glass pots, but only two for plastic pots . 
 
3.2 Plastics packaging is an optimal use of resources

Because of the high strength / weight ratio of plastics packaging it is possible to pack a given volume of product with plastics rather than with traditional materials.
 
It has been shown that if there was no plastics packaging available to society and there was necessary recourse to other materials overall packaging consumption of packaging mass, energy and GHG emissions would increase.

 

Source: PlasticsEurope
(GHG – Greenhouse gas)

3.3 Plastics packaging prevents food waste

Almost 50% of the total amount of food thrown away in the UK comes from our homes. We throw away 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year in the UK, and more than half of this is food and drink we could have eaten. Wasting this food costs the average household £480 a year, rising to £680 for a family with children, the equivalent of around £50 a month.

The durability and sealability of plastics packaging protects goods from deterioration and increases shelf life. With modified atmosphere packaging made from plastics, shelf life can be increased from 5 to 10 days, allowing food loss in stores to be reduced from 16% to 4%.
 
Traditionally grapes were sold in loose bunches. Grapes are now sold in sealed trays so that the loose ones stay with the bunch. This has reduced waste in stores typically by over 20%.

3.4 Plastics packaging: continuous improvements through innovation

There is a strong record of innovation in the UK‘s plastics packaging industry.
 
Technical advances and design flair have reduced the quantity of plastics packaging needed to pack a given quantity of product over time without sacrificing the pack’s strength or durability. For example a 1 litre plastic detergent bottle which weighed 120gms in 1970 now just weighs 43gms, a 64% reduction.  
 

 

Society’s consumption levels rose by 20% between 1999 and 2004. However the use of plastics packaging only rose by 4% . 

For more information on the the environmental impact of plastic packaging

4 Plastics Packaging Means Low Environmental Impacts
 

4.1 Oil and gas in context – carbon savings with plastics packaging

Plastics packaging is estimated to account for just 1.5% of oil and gas use, the BPF estimate. The chemical building blocks for plastics raw materials are derived from by- products of the refining process which originally would have had no other uses.
 
Whilst the vast majority of oil and gas  is consumed in transport and heating , the usefulness of that used for plastics manufacture is extended by the recyclability of plastics and the potential for recovering its energy content at the end of its life in waste to energy plants.

A 2004 study in Canada showed that to replace plastic packaging with alternative materials involve the consumption of 582 million gigajoules more energy and would create 43 million tonnes of additional CO2 emissions. The energy saved each year by using plastics packaging is equivalent to 101.3 million barrels of oil or the amount of CO2 produced by 12.3 million passenger cars. 

4.2 Re-usable plastics packaging

Many types of plastics packaging are long – life artifacts. Returnable crates, for example, have life spans of over 25 years or more and re-usable bags are playing a greater role in responsible retailing.
 
4.3 A strong recycling record

Plastics packaging is eminently recyclable and a growing range of plastics packaging incorporates recyclate. EU legislation now permits the use of plastics recyclate in new packaging intended for food stuffs.

In June 2011 the Government Advisory Committee on Packaging (ACP) announced that in 2010/11 24.1% of all plastics packaging was recycled in the UK and this achievement exceeded the target figure of 22.5% stated by the government. The UK plastics recycling industry is one of the most dynamic in the EU with some 40 companies constituting the BPF’s Recycling Group.

Recycling 1 tonne of plastic bottles saves 1.5 tonnes of carbon and one plastic bottle saves enough energy to run a 60 watt light bulb for 6 hours .

4.4 Energy from waste

Plastics packaging can be recycled six or more times before its properties are weakened. At the end of its life plastics packaging can be submitted to energy from waste schemes. Plastics have a high calorific value. A mixed basket of plastics products made from Polyethylene and Polyproplylene, for example, would, at 45 MJ/kg, have a much greater net caloric value than coal at 25 MJ/kg.

 

5 Find A Packaging Supplier

5.1  Find a Supplier (form)

Please complete the online form below. Once the form has been submitted, your enquiry will then be posted onto the BPF password protected members area so the relevant companies can contact you directly.

If you do not wish to appear in the secure members’ area, please complete the online form here.

 

Fill out my online form

 

5.2  BPF Packaging Group Guide

The BPF's Packaging Group is made up of over 80 companies supplying plastic packaging products, including blow moulding, thermoforming and film.  The guide below gives details of all members of the Group.

 

 

 

Sources:

•   BASF. (2001). Plastics - they ensure that fresh remains fresh. Life and the Environment with Plastics. p 4.
•   PlasticsEurope. (2012). Saving Resources and Energy. Plastics Packaging: Born to Protect. p10.
•   Love Food Hate Waste. (2013). The facts about food waste. Available: http://england.lovefoodhatewaste.com/content/facts-about-food-waste-0. Last accessed 7th   March 2013
•   PlasticsEurope. (2012). Reducing Food Waste. Plastics - the facts 2012. p 25.
•   INCPEN. (2008). Facts and Figures. Packaging in Perspective. p 14.
•   INCPEN. (2008). Facts and Figures. Packaging in Perspective. P13.
•   PlasticsEurope. (2012). Saving Resources and Energy. Plastics Packaging: Born to Protect. p10.
•   BPI, 2011, environmental Facts, p1
•   http://www.recycle-zone.co.uk – How Recycling Works – recycling facts and tips