Dive Brief:

• The Chicago Bears professional football team rolled out a reusable cup pilot program at Soldier Field on Sunday, partnering with Bold Reuse and Keurig Dr Pepper. The initiative will run during the remaining Bears’ home games this season.
• The program introduced multiple sizes of reusable cups to all concessions vendors in the United Club, a premium hospitality area that serves about 8,000 attendees per game, for a variety of beverages. Attendees can use the cups at no extra cost, and then return them to marked collection bins, which janitorial services collect after games and Bold Reuse picks up for sanitization.
• The partners say the Bears are “one of the first NFL teams to pilot a reusable cup program of this nature.” The pilot program is Bold Reuse’s first foray into Illinois.

Dive Insight:

The program at Soldier Field is among a growing number of initiatives trying reuse to improve sports stadiums’ and other event facilities’ sustainability profile by reducing single-use containers. 

In September, the Colorado Rockies professional baseball team launched a pilot program for reusable cups with r.World. And this summer, Crypto.com Arena and the Peacock Theater, both venues in Los Angeles, announced partnerships with r.World for reusable cup programs.

Last week, the Portland Trail Blazers professional basketball team announced an expansion of its reusable cups program, launched with Bold Reuse in 2022, to include cups for all fountain beverages served inside Portland, Oregon’s Moda Center. And last year, Bold Reuse partnered with the Oregon Convention Center in Portland to replace disposable food ware with reusable plates and trays.

With the Bears’ new pilot, KDP says it hopes to “apply learnings on logistics and reuse behaviors to future cross-industry collaborations that can potentially scale reuse opportunities.”

“We’ve learned that collective action is critical to finding viable solutions to complex environmental challenges like the advancement of a circular economy,” said Monique Oxender, chief corporate affairs officer at Keurig Dr Pepper, in a statement. The program will help the company “learn more about scaling reuse models in the U.S.”

The Bears say this waste reduction effort adds to the team’s work toward greater sustainability at Soldier Field. Besides back-of-house and consumer-facing recycling programs, in the past Soldier Field operators launched programs to reduce water use and recycle cooking oil, while also examining the possibility of composting.

Separately in Chicago, the United Center announced in September that Culligan International would make BPA-free, reusable aluminum water bottles available for purchase at all concessions stands as an alternative to single-use plastic bottles. Culligan also agreed to install new water refilling stations.