Container Return Scheme: An Opportunity for a Reuse Scheme

This month the New Zealand public has a major opportunity to shift the focus from recycling to reusing bottles and we need your help. We’ve written a submission encouraging the proposed Return Container Scheme be designed to return bottles to suppliers for reuse, rather than recycle them.

Please have a read and sign if you agree. All feedback welcome!

Thanks!

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We’ve found with our own Plastic Return Programme there are more opportunities for reuse than we expected. So much potential in this space!

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Thanks great! Any particular examples that we should be thinking about?

Well I think the circular model of manufacturers collecting back their own packaging can prompt ideas and solutions for reuse that might not otherwise be considered or deemed ‘practical’. For ecostore, for example, since we started collecting back our bottles, we found that our wide-mouth bulk containers (for laundry and dish powder) are suitable for reuse because they’re a) sturdy and b) easy to clean. This wasn’t something we had planned on - but it happened along the way thanks to the bottles showing up on our doorstep and some clever people organising it. If the government’s proposed Container Return Scheme included some capacity for return to manufacturers, I expect we’d see more opportunities for this type of innovation.

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Awesome. Thanks Romain!