Reuse requires rethinking how we deliver and consume. Many food businesses think switching to reusables will significantly increase labor costs, although the actual experiences do not support this view.

Closed Loop Partners released a report this week – Beyond the Plastic Bag: Sparking a Seachange for Reuse – that illustrates reuse innovations in action. And it features two finalists for The Reusies® Most Innovative Reuse Company: GOATOTE and Fill it Forward.

Emerging trends in foodservice have the potential to completely disrupt our current disposable food-service paradigm and replace it with something better.

Upstream CEO Matt Prindiville just returned from GreenBiz’s Circularity Conference. It was a sold-out 3 day affair with more than a thousand sustainability professionals from virtually every consumer brand, plus representatives from the rest of their value chain. Here are three valuable takeaways from the conference.

Reuse services require collection from the consumer, reverse logistics, washing and sanitizing, refilling and/or restocking. Because of the challenges and costs associated for individual companies going it alone, it’s important for businesses to be able to operate on platforms that can serve many companies at the same time.

In honor of Women’s History Month, Indisposable Podcast host Brooking Gatewood presents a roundup of her favorite interviews with some of the many innovative, visionary, women-identified Solutioneers driving the Reuse Movement forward.

In the last month, some BIG brands who have been major players in the throw-away economy made historic announcements about their goals to move to reuse. We recognize that creating financial incentives for returning the packaging will be critical for ensuring that the reusable packaging doesn’t wind up in the garbage or environment.

With fans returning to sporting arenas and concert-goers celebrating the return of music festivals, sustainability issues at events and venues are coming back into focus - specifically, the ever-present disposable plastic cup. Many attempts at solutions have been introduced, from bioplastic to reuse systems and now single-use aluminum cups. But there has been no clear scientific consensus as to which options have the greatest environmental impact and which options have the least - until now.

Trash pollutes city streets, waterways, parks, and natural ecosystems – all at a cost to people and the planet. It’s clear by now that disposables don’t make any sense. But really – they literally don’t make dollars or cents. Learn why this is and how Upstream is helping transform the food service sector from a disposable nightmare to a real and reusable future.