Circular Economy Collaboration & Co-Creation Materials & Packaging

First Citywide Reusable Cup Project Shows Viability of Reuse at Scale

In three months, the first citywide program in the US to offer a free reuse-and-return system for to-go cups produced environmental benefits when compared with a single-use alternative.

Published 3 months ago | About a 3 minute read

Image: Center for the Circular Economy

Today, the NextGen Consortium, led by Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy — with partners including Starbucks, The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Yum! Brands and other global and local businesses — release the groundbreaking results from the Petaluma Reusable Cup Project, the first initiative to catalyze reuse across an entire US city.

Making Reuse an Everyday Reality: Insights and Impact from the Petaluma Reusable Cup Project reveals a major milestone for the reuse movement: Enough of the signature purple cups from the project — which was designed to automatically serve every customer ordering a to-go beverage with a reusable cup, across a citywide network — were successfully returned for the reuse system to produce environmental benefits when compared with a single-use alternative.

The first-of-its-kind, brand-led pilot collaboration — which took place in Petaluma, California from August to November 2024 — set out to address accessibility and inclusivity challenges that typically restrict the ability of reuse programs to deliver impact. Throughout the three-month project, 30 businesses in Petaluma — from national brands to local restaurants — switched out single-use hot and cold beverage cups for reusable alternatives in unison, at no cost to the customer. Locals embraced the scheme — returning cups from day one, with returns climbing rapidly in the first few weeks and over 220,000 cups returned throughout the program.

“The best part was that this project got the whole community involved. Deep public-private partnerships — including commerce and non-profits collaborating — demonstrated that it is possible to launch an inclusive and accessible reuse system that supported our residents. People got into it, and it was the talk of the town,” said Petaluma Mayor Kevin McDonnell. “We are thrilled to be a part of this important work to scale reuse systems that keep our communities clean and support positive environmental outcomes.”

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Image credit: Center for the Circular Economy

The Petaluma Reusable Cup Project was launched at a critical time — amidst growing regulatory, consumer and climate pressures on single-use packaging waste. Advancing reuse has been a focus for the NextGen Consortium, as identifying alternatives to single-use packaging becomes a top priority for brands and cities seeking to reduce waste. Globally, an estimated 500 billion single-use beverage cups are purchased and disposed of each year — 10 percent of that in the US — and many of these materials are wasted in landfills.

“The Petaluma Reusable Cup Project demonstrated an ambitious, innovative vision of reuse as an everyday reality — paving the way for the Consortium to scale reuse in California and other markets;” said Carolina Lobel, Senior Director at the Center for the Circular Economy. “Together, we can scale the solutions that have been proven to work and solve the current open challenges identified in the Petaluma project.”

The Petaluma Reusable Cup Project builds on over half a decade of work to advance reuse by Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy and its industry working groups — the NextGen Consortium, the Composting Consortium, the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag and the just-launched Consortium for Small-Format Packaging Recovery. While there is still work ahead to increase return rates, given variability across participating businesses, the remarkable success in Petaluma mark an important milestone in catalyzing and scaling reuse systems.

The Consortium invites brands, retailers, cities and innovators from all sectors to join upcoming reuse activations in cities across the US — making critical strides to building a waste-free world.

To learn more about the project, visit https://returnmycup.com/.