Orchestrating More Sustainable Reusable Food Packaging

All packaging has an environmental impact, and so does reusable packaging, which has been in use and reuse for many years. Reusable packaging represents a decoupling of the single-use packaging economy of “produce–use–dispose” and can reduce — but does not eliminate — the need for new packaging materials.The environmental impact of reusable packaging is multifaceted, and the reuse of packaging fits into the middle range in terms of its ability to reduce the environmental impact of packaging. While reuse is important, package design and minimization have a much higher environmental impact (Potting et al. 2017). The environmental impact of reusable packaging is nuanced because it depends so much on the type of reusable packaging: food manufacturer reusable packaging, food-service reusable packaging, at-home refillable packaging, or in-store refillable packaging (Coelho et al. 2020).