Rocking Out With Reuse: How Star Power & Municipal Might Can Propel the Circular Economy
How riders on entertainment contracts — as well as calls for reuse in municipal RFPs — can accelerate reuse
Policy and regulation compels systems change — particularly at the state and federal level. But passing and implementing such policies takes time. Given the dual realities that a) we are quickly nearing our planetary boundaries and b) scaled reusable packaging systems can have a profound impact on reducing carbon emissions, we must get creative about how to accelerate change through reuse. We need more levers to pull alongside policy work.
When it comes to creating a robust and enduring reuse economy, building momentum in other sectors can speed up policymaking by normalizing reuse, initiating infrastructure buildout, and amplifying public pressure for sustainable alternatives to a throw-away culture.
One Place to Look? Arts & Entertainment
Your favorite actor or musician says that they care for the environment, but how do they walk the walk? Well, they can codify their commitments in their event contract as a rider.
Rider: a legally binding supplemental document to the contract that details an entertainer’s specific conditions, requests, or clauses not otherwise covered.
Green Rider, Reverb, the Entertainment and Culture for Climate Action alliance, and the Environmental Media Association (EMA) all offer resources such as templates, case studies, and one-on-one assistance to help artists and producers create customized plans that allow entertainers to affirm their values and reduce the impact of their tours and productions. These riders can include requests for recycling (everything from props to water bottles), composting and food donation, energy efficient transport — and yes, reuse.
Commonly, green riders only ban single-use water bottles, require reusable or compostable (when reuse is not available) foodware and cutlery, and allow fans to bring reusable water bottles. This is a good start to eliminating single-use waste, but it does not necessarily contribute to enduring systemic change.
Good Starting Points…
In 2022, Billie Eilish partnered with Reverb to make her Happier Than Ever Tour more sustainable. The tour avoided more than 117,000 single-use plastic water bottles by requiring reusable water bottles and mugs for artists and crew, and water refill stations for all; they also required reusable and compostable serviceware in catering and tour buses. These requirements, encouraged and supported by Reverb, pushed some venues on the tour to make first-of-a-kind changes: Madison Square Garden offered free water refill stations for the first time, and another nine shows at other venues eliminated single-use plastic bottles of any kind.
Similarly, British band Massive Attack pushed the limits of what is possible by creating the UK’s largest low-carbon, one day festival in support of climate action. By focusing on battery power, vegan food, and transportation (electric vehicles and no parking lot for attendees), they cut associated emissions by 98%, 89% and 70% respectively. Regarding reuse, they allowed fans to bring their own cups from home.
… But Stars & Venues Can Do Even Better
Venues take riders seriously. They make a concerted effort to ensure artists and producers are happy and feel taken care of while at their space. Therefore, artists have a huge opportunity to be models and catalysts for change. To really push progress, artists need to compel venues to use and participate in full-on reuse systems.
The environmental success of the Billie Eilish and Massive Attack tours and shows highlights how artists can drive change on the climate — and how powerful their voice could be if they used it to amplify reuse. For example, in 2023, rock group Depeche Mode, in partnership with AEG, piloted a reusable cup program with reuse service provider r.World for their shows at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
The success of this pilot prompted Crypto.com Arena to transition fully to reuse. They eliminated all single-use cups in 2024, with r.World as their service provider. This is a trend that Mary McCarthy, VP of Sustainability at Levy Restaurants, has noted over the last few years. Speaking on The Indisposable Podcast, she said:
Those one-off events is how reuse really got started in this world: an artist would come in for a concert with reusables in their green rider, and we’d bring in a provider and a bunch of volunteers for that one show. The shift we've seen is that now, we actually build the systems within the venues, across the stakeholders within a venue, to make it an evergreen program.
The system of washing and reverse logistics established by the arena is now available to support more businesses in the community who want to switch to reuse.
If artists or venues need more convincing, plenty of other festivals and events prove the power of reuse in reducing a production’s footprint. In 2024, the Breminale Festival in Bremen, Germany hosted 220,000 people over five days — approximately 44,000 per day, similar to Massive Attack’s one day festival. Breminale saved 2.6 tons of waste going to landfill by replacing disposables with reusable options. And the Pride Toronto festival avoided 27,645 single-use cups over three days at just two of their outdoor stages. One line in a rider can have an outsized influence on the positive impact an artist can make.
Sports Star Power
In the world of sports, we have seen a small but growing number of stadiums adopt reusable cups in the US: Crypto.com Arena, Moda Center, Soldier Field, Levi’s Stadium, and CPKC Stadium. Other stadiums have thus far chosen only to pilot reusable cup programs or provide them for certain beverages or at special club levels or hospitality suites.
In this sector, with a closed-loop scenario that makes reuse much easier, why aren’t we seeing more uptake? As Lisa Delpy Neirotti, an associate professor of sport management at the George Washington University School of Business recently stated in The Washington Post, “I haven’t heard of any [big-name athletes] going to ownership and saying ‘let’s do reuse.’ If some high-level star player came in and started making that their cause, it could start making people talk.” Like artists and entertainers, professional athletes have the power to leverage their fame to promote reuse solutions and be a model to millions of young fans who are ready to listen and follow their lead.
Chris Dickerson, former MLB player and founder of Players for the Planet (PFTP), couldn’t agree more. PFTP is an organization that brings professional athletes together to inspire communities and build awareness around the growing environmental crises that we face globally. Speaking on The Indisposable Podcast, Dickerson noted that if players combine their concern for the environment with their influence — and use that to demand reuse at their home stadiums — then we may begin to see progress toward normalizing reuse at sports events.
Dickerson believes that the MLB should mandate reuse:
When are we going to have this major overhaul? Essentially, that [decision] comes from the owners and the league. I think we're going to have to break away from this private entity and have mandates for leagues … to make an effort for greater impact. We have to put demands on each team to start to integrate … renewable technologies.
So What’s a Star Athlete to Do?
One simple action players can take is to encourage stadium operators to seek out and partner with reuse service providers if they are available in the area. Reuse service providers can provide logistics for washing and transportation for stadiums, eliminating the need for in-house dishwashing facilities and staffing. The Green Sports Alliance’s Reuse Playbook and Upstream’s Making the Switch report both offer decision makers guidance on the steps and considerations necessary when transitioning to reusable serviceware. Upstream also offers a model RFP for venues seeking to contract with a reuse service provider.
Championing Reuse in City Government
They may not tout the same glamor, but city governments can also wield a lot of influence by building reuse or waste reduction requirements into their contracts and RFPs with vendors, event organizers, and community groups that use public spaces. This approach can build momentum in municipalities that have not passed reuse policies but have waste diversion/management goals and want to include more reuse options in their operations.
City governments can drive environmental progress through reuse because they are responsible for significant purchasing volume. Thus, requiring and encouraging reuse can make a real impact on climate and waste reduction. Local governments can require food service vendors to provide reusable foodware for onsite dining, sign reuse service providers onto government contracts, and/or require that all events held on government spaces use reusable foodware. Additionally, municipal grants or technical assistance can be made contingent on whether or not a business uses reusable foodware and packaging. Upstream’s Climate Plan Recommendations include myriad real-life examples of these and other ways to reduce waste at the municipal level.
Municipal Reuse in Action
In Arizona, the uptake of reuse-focused policy tends to be slow. The City of Phoenix, though, oversees waste management for the airport, Convention Center, and public schools, among other locales. They cannot require these locations to go reusable, but they can encourage and educate them about the benefits of reuse. The City itself has a sustainable purchasing policy that encourages procurement officers to seek out recovered, recycled, or reused materials. Other city and municipal governments have issued executive orders and administrative directives to encourage the use of reusable, durable, compostable, or recyclable items.
Further, a waste hauling contract that incentives waste reduction can either provide cost savings to apply to pre-existing reuse systems — or, in cases where reuse is not yet established, provide an impetus to do so. Public school systems, for example, often pay the same amount to their trash hauling company no matter how much waste the schools produce. Contracts are established based on a pre-set number of hauling trips, not volume hauled. If a school system agreed to sign a contract instead based on the number of dumpsters they require, a waste reduction incentive is then baked into the contract. A contract structured in this way allows schools to save money by reducing waste.
The Road to Reuse: A Marathon and a Sprint
In the big picture, Upstream and our partners are working toward a nationwide EPR law with strong reuse provisions — or at least consistent state-to-state reusable packaging regulations — that enables widespread interoperable regional reuse. The reuse movement is building momentum, but policymaking takes time. In the meantime, influential, high-visibility spaces like sports and entertainment venues, plus municipal might, provide faster potential for scaling and normalizing reuse. When it comes to accelerating a reuse economy, it’s not an either-or between policy and contracts — it’s all of the above.
