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.”
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/.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Feb 26, 2025 9am EST / 6am PST / 2pm GMT / 3pm CET