A new report from Closed Loop Partners offers insights to help guide retailers on effective reusable bag models, which it says is a key solution as regulations to reduce reliance on single-use plastic bags grow across the U.S.
Closed Loop Partners’ Centre for the Circular Economy and the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag has released a new resource to help guide retailers looking to adopt reusable bag service models.
The report, Beyond the Plastic Bag, shares key insights and analysis gathered from collaborative reusable bag pilots conducted in select CVS Health, Target and Walmart stores throughout Northern California in 2021, as part of the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag’s Beyond the Bag Pilots.
The results show that approximately 100 billion single-use plastic bags are used each year in the U.S., most of which end up as waste in landfills and the environment.
Closed Loop Partners says that reuse models play an important role in addressing single-use plastic packaging waste, alongside other complementary waste mitigation strategies. As retailers work to respond to the urgent challenge and address increasing plastic bag regulations across the U.S., it says that the report provides key findings on what drives an optimal shopper experience and uptake of reuse models.
This collaboration to test and pilot reusable bag solutions across multiple stores is a critical step toward reducing single-use plastic bag waste.
Over the next year, the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag says it will continue to conduct extensive research and in-market testing of designs and innovative bag solutions that can reduce single-use plastic bag waste. These aim to inform the viability of solutions in different contexts, as well as the full potential of solutions to more sustainably, accessibly and effectively “get goods home”.
Managing Director of the Centre for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners, Kate Daly, said: “Successfully implementing reuse models on the ground, and accelerating their growth, takes unprecedented collaboration. Since 2018, the Centre for the Circular Economy has been convening competitors to address complex material challenges and advance circular solutions, including reuse.
“This collaboration with the nation’s largest retailers to test and pilot reusable bag solutions across multiple stores is a critical step toward reducing single-use plastic bag waste.
“Iterative testing and data-driven decision-making of reuse systems can help avoid unintended consequences, like insufficient recapture of reusable packaging or the one-to-one replacement of single-use plastics with ‘reusables.’
“We hope that this report on the Beyond the Bag initiative serves as inspiration for forward-thinking organisations looking to bring reuse to the next level. The learnings from our pilots can help guide us toward a future in which reusing valuable materials and products in our economy becomes the common sense norm.”