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Building the future of reuse, city by city in California
Reuse Cities is a multi-brand and cross-sector collaboration to scale reusable packaging systems in California. Starting in San Diego, the program will launch as a citywide initiative that builds reuse behaviors with consumers and reduces the costs of reuse for businesses seeking to comply with statewide packaging regulations. We’re working with local leaders, national brands, cultural venues, retailers and independent businesses to make reuse a new reality for millions of people.
Making reuse accessible and easy drives consumer satisfaction, accelerates behavior change and fosters local pride.
Reuse systems help businesses get ahead of packaging mandates and minimize Extended Producer Responsibility fees.
Building citywide reuse systems reduces waste, increases efficiency and lowers costs.
For businesses, we do the heavy lifting — from design and sourcing to collection, washing, sanitization and redistribution — so they can focus on keeping customers and staff happy. We manage product usage, inventory levels and delivery to keep the system moving without adding burdensome processes for employees. Consumer sentiment and participation are measured regularly, allowing us to continuously improve the system.
For consumers, we design a frictionless user experience to adapt to their needs, supported by citywide awareness campaigns. Convenient return points make it easy to dispose of reusable packaging, and then we do the hard work of getting it back into circulation.
We're adding to our coalition of collaborators who are excited to build innovative and cost-effective reuse solutions for cities. In particular, we're inviting participation from:
Foodservice brands
Retail brands
Sports venues
Cultural venues
Academic campuses
Workplace campuses
Reuse Cities is a project led by the NextGen Consortium and managed by the Closed Loop Center for the Circular Economy. Since 2018, the Closed Loop Center has collaborated with some of the world’s leading brands on packaging recovery, innovation and reuse. This scale-up phase of the Reuse Cities Initiative follows a successful first launch in Petaluma, CA, where more than 30 restaurants participated in the first citywide reusable cup system in the U.S.
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We are part of Closed Loop Partners—which includes the largest privately held recycling company in the U.S. and one of the largest circular economy capital management groups in the world—we’re uniquely positioned to bring research, design, and real-world implementation together.
