New regulation, a plastic recycling crisis and retailers who firmly back reusable packaging could ignite the circular economy in Europe. David Burrows reports.
Are we finally able to see the road to reusable packaging at scale? That is the question some optimists (and even a few pessimists) will be contemplating currently – and rightly so.
“What made this possible wasn’t consumer demand alone but the alignment of regulation, funding, and supply chain convenience for all actors,” explained Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle and Loop, recently as he claimed his reuse system had reached “industrial scale” in France.
This has been a long-time coming and there have been bumps in the road (as Szaky would readily admit). Indeed, the Loop system has been trialled in the UK, Canada and Japan, as well as the US, with mixed success.
UK supermarket chain Tesco ended its Loop refill trial in 2022. Asked recently why reuse is flying in France but has come to a halt here, Szaky said: “The UK was something of a unique situation, because the initial outcome with Tesco was brilliant. But then the UK went into multi-pronged turmoil and every retailer got very scared about protecting price,” he told edie.net in September. “You also saw that too in the regulatory environment in the UK. A lot of ambitious regulation took a major backseat,” he added.
In France, meanwhile, things kicked on thanks to the country’s ‘law on the fight against waste and for the circular economy’ (Loi relative à la lutte contre le gaspillage et à l’économie circulaire, referred to in short as the Anti-waste law, or AGEC law). This is an ambitious law designed to shape a system-wide transition towards a circular economy.
For example, there are policies designed to reduce single-use plastic packaging and incentives to develop alternatives such as bulk or reusable packaging. Measures include a ban on the use of certain plastic packaging; the inclusion of packaging reduction clauses in extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes; and targets for reusable packaging.
“With the AGEC law and the commitment of our businesses and regions, we have built one of the most advanced frameworks for reuse in the world,” said Véronique Louwagie, minister delegate for trade, crafts, small and medium enterprises, and the social and solidarity economy of France, recently. “This isn’t just a national success; it’s a model that inspires, influences, and demonstrates that the transition to a circular economy is possible on a large scale,” she added.
Carry on Carrefour
France has played the long game. Indeed, it was six years ago that Carrefour became the first retailer in the world to launch Loop in-store, following an initial e-commerce pilot. Since then, the retailer has expanded to 345 stores across France, introducing more than 50 of its own private-label products to the platform alongside over 370 products from national and global brands. Retailers including Monoprix and Coopérative U, have joined the platform, helping to drive a national movement toward reuse.
The mix of regulation, retailer investments and commitments, citizen engagement and a convenient and efficient system for reuse has been crucial. “[T]he lesson is clear, if the conditions are right, reuse can become a mainstream way of doing business and not a fringe solution,” Szaky added.
Loop’s success in France stands in contrast to widespread deregulation and the rollback of voluntary corporate sustainability commitments in other markets. Major brands appear to have reneged on their commitments to reusable packaging, while the majority of those signed up to plastic commitments can boast of plentiful pilots but little success in scaling reuse.
The latest results from the global plastic commitment, run by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, are testament to this struggle with scale: most of the largest food and drink manufacturers and retailers in the world have barely managed 1% of reusables across their plastic packaging portfolios. EMF’s progress report, published this month, noting that levels of reuse are “roughly flat”. A figure, 1.2%, is there but in the small print (rather than large graphics given over the targets where progress has been steadier).
There is however optimism that reuse is about to really get going – and beyond France too. In Berlin, for example, you can now” grab your morning coffee in a reusable cup from Burger King, drink it on your way to work, then effortlessly drop it into a machine at your local supermarket while picking up groceries – just like you’d return a glass bottle. No detours, no hassle, no guilt about single-use waste piling up,” explained Nathan Dufour, reuse systems manager at Zero Waste Europe.
In the city the ReuSe Vanguard Project (RSVP) is helping to transform reuse from a seemingly clunky process into something smooth and convenient for all. Environmental Action Germany (DUH) has connected over 80 cafés and restaurants (including big names like Burger King, Kamps, and Le Crobag) with eight Rewe supermarkets, so customers can return Recup cups (Germany’s biggest reusable cup system) through the same reverse vending machines that take their bottles, alongside Sykell’s Einfach Mehrweg cups and boxes.
This isn’t just a nice local experiment, either, explained Dufour. Recup and Einfach Mehrweg already have millions of reusable containers circulating across thousands of German businesses. “Testing how these massive systems can work together through shared infrastructure, however, is the kind of breakthrough that is reshaping reuse across Europe,” he wrote in a recent update. The approach could even dovetail with deposit return schemes.
DRS is popular in Europe. Attempts to get a scheme going in the UK have been delayed several times but there is an outside chance (let’s not forget what happened in Scotland) of one launching across the country in October 2027. There is a chance it could once again be derailed of course.
Tesco et al bullish on reuse
Reuse, meanwhile, has been trialled and tested but has not yet taken off in the UK. Recent noises, however, suggest supermarkets are keen not to be left behind as the stragglers still beholden to single-use.
Nine of the UK’s largest grocery retailers, with support from UK and devolved Governments and Wrap, issued a joint statement of intent this year to explore how reusable packaging could be implemented across their stores and online. Prefill is the preferred option.
The statement “signposts to our wider supply chains our intent to build reuse at scale, increase circularity in our packaging and help customers move away from single use to a more reusable future”, said James Bull, chair of the retailer group involved and head of packaging at Tesco.
In October, Bull said the UK currently did not have adequate incentives or sufficient recycling facilities. According to a report in The Grocer, Tesco wants the UK Government to bring in regulation to encourage a major shift towards reusable packaging. “We must make sure that legislation is designed in the right way to create these platforms at scale,” said Bull.
For now, it is likely that voluntary agreements will have to take the strain. A new Plastic Pact – the UK’s version of EMF’s global commitment – is soon to be released. Campaigners and some companies are keen for the emphasis to be firmly on reduction and reuse -–the top of the waste hierarchy – rather than recycling and recycled content.
The crisis unfolding across the UK and European plastic recycling sector is no secret. Further warnings were issued this month as plants continue to close. Perhaps food and drink companies are realising they can’t rely on recycling their way out of this? The bills for the UK’s packaging EPR scheme will also be focusing the minds of the finance teams at major food and drink companies; reuse is one way to dramatically reduce the bills from that particular regulation.
“On reuse nobody is doing a good job,” said Shane Monkman, packaging lead at consultancy Eunomia as he reflected on the progress report from EMF. However, he has “high hopes for 2026 as we begin to collaborate”.
Berlin offers an exciting beta-testing of what the future of Europe’s circular economy could look like. As Dufour said: “The results could determine whether reuse remains a niche option for the environmentally committed, or becomes as normal as returning an empty bottle to the supermarket – exactly the direction European countries have been pushed towards by EU legislation.”
