Dive Brief:
- The small San Francisco Bay Area city of Petaluma, California, will soon host a large-scale reusable cups initiative. It’s slated to begin Aug. 5 with more than 30 participating restaurants, including Starbucks, KFC, Taco Bell, Dunkin’ and Peet’s Coffee.
- The initiative, spearheaded and announced Tuesday by Closed Loop Partners’ NextGen Consortium, will come at no additional cost to consumers. There will be more than 60 return points for the cups throughout the city. Muuse will manage reverse logistics for the cups.
- Closed Loop Partners describes this as a first-of-its-kind initiative for a U.S. city in which reusable to-go cups are the default option across multiple restaurants. It hopes the pilot with help consumers form habits centered on reuse instead of single-use food service ware.
Dive Insight:
Cities have become an important testing ground for reusable and returnable packaging systems. The NextGen Consortium — whose participants include many of the aforementioned restaurants, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and others — is now working to advance food service packaging alternatives in Petaluma. Large national chains, local independent restaurants and convenience stores alike are involved.
“By testing reuse across an entire city in partnership with key stakeholders from the community and industry, we can scale reuse collaboratively through thoughtful experimentation, building a future where reuse is the norm,” said Kate Daly, managing director and head of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners, in a statement.
Why Petaluma? The city was chosen for its tight cluster of walkable restaurants and retailers and its government’s ongoing engagement in sustainability efforts. The city was also part of a 2023 returnable cup test by Starbucks, which the company operated with Turn Systems.
Closed Loop Partners says it’s supplying marketing resources to increase awareness at participating locations. Channels include billboards, Spotify, TV, digital ads and others.
“This advances our shared goal to drive a culture shift, where reusing cups — whether company-owned or owned by the customer — is an everyday norm,” said Georgia Sherwin, senior director of strategic initiatives and partnerships at Closed Loop Partners.
In fiscal year 2023, 2% of Starbucks beverages sold were in reusable cups. The company aims for all customer-facing packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2030.
“It takes an entire community to build the future of reuse that we want to see,” said Michael Kobori, Starbucks chief sustainability officer, in a press release. “Together with fellow foodservice brands, local stores and community stakeholders, we’re leading this initiative to help further unlock behavior change toward reusables.”
Hot beverage cups in the Petaluma project are made using a “novel lightweighted” polypropylene technology, according to Closed Loop Partners, which is said to be recyclable “yet insulated and safe for hot beverages.” Cups for cold beverages are made from HDPE. In both cases, materials and designs were chosen based on current supplier offerings, the potential to nest cups, their ability to withstand washing and other factors. The cups do not contain recycled content.
The initiative is slated to run until November, with the intent of collecting “baseline data” on environmental impact and consumer participation. Some people in the reuse industry have recently criticized short-term pilots, saying they don’t allow enough time for realistic behavior change. However, Closed Loop Partners says this builds on previous pilots it’s supported. And Muuse COO and co-founder Brittany Gamez said in the announcement that “It is through initiatives like this that we can identify what is needed to operationalize shared systems at this level and inform how reuse is implemented at scale.”
