Reusable Container Systems 101 Seminar

Preparing for a waste-free (near) future.

Businesses are increasingly looking to improve their sustainability practises, and notably with respect to adopting circular economy practices. This seminar will address reuse as a systemic replacement to single-use container packaging, and it will be most beneficial to hospitality, FMCG and other food & beverage industries serving over-the-counter. It is also well suited for facilities and property managers - those with hospitality tenancies, and who must deal with the downstream volume of packaging in waste streams.

There is a growing awareness of the wastefulness and damage of single-use packaging, with barely a week going by without a major news story on the subject. With the global North’s waste colonialism an increasingly visible issue in the face of plastic importation bans, this problem is both ever-increasing and now a marketable opportunity to address.

While it has been easy to consider compostable packaging as a stop-gap to single-use waste, compostables have been shown to be flawed in practice, with limited impact on the problem.

Reuse is the gold standard to replace disposable packaging but to date the relative scarcity of appropriate reusable packaging, and the increased workload that sanitisation demands, have also meant that reuse systems have come slower to the party. That said, those working in reusable systems deployment are seeing a growing interest and demand for such solutions.

Outcomes:

Attendees will receive evidence-based insights gained from the experience of successful reusables systems implementation. Knowledge gained can be applied to support the establishment of transformative systems in their own organisations - setting them up to thrive financially and responsibly by replacing single-use waste with reusable packaging and supporting systems.

We are excited to share our learnings with you to extend the kaupapa of reuse and to support your organisation's journey away from waste and towards regeneration through systems for reusables that really work.

Come and find out what this really means in practice.

Hear from:

Facilitator: David Binstead, Again Again

Presenting:
Louise Nash, Circularity – Circular systems overview, workflow considerations, Design as a tool for reuse, Sanitisation requirements.

Allan Birch, Tadpole – Containers and material considerations, What makes a container ‘fit-for-purpose’?, Pros and cons of vertical/brand system vs a shared system.

Nada Piatek, Again Again – Systems of management. Pros and cons of cash deposit/return vs tech managed vs incentivised trust systems. Demo of Again Again's tech-enabled consumer container management system.

Sophie Ward, Wanaka Wastebusters and SUCfree Wanaka – Activating change in your community.

Jamie Forsyth, Returnr and Returnr Marketplace – Best in class steel containers, applied in a waste-free marketplace in Melbourne.

Q&A at the end.