Much better recycling is frequently touted as a key to cutting pollution from plastics waste, but some governments and business groups are starting to turn their attention to reusable packaging.

In the U.S. it remains a niche alternative, but it's beginning to show up in laws elsewhere.

Norway, for example, exempts reusables from a tax on new beverage packaging and France plans to ban disposables for on-site dining in some restaurants.

As well, Chile in May passed what advocates say may be the strongest national law, mandating that fast-food outlets switch to reusables for dine-in and to compostable packaging for takeout. It's part of broad plastics legislation there.

Some business groups, like the SA Plastics Pact in South Africa, are also taking a look. That group, which includes many plastics companies and consumer brands, plans a formal study of the environmental impacts of reusable packaging and believes it could be a positive.

Both the Chilean and South African situations were discussed on a recent webinar sponsored by the U.N. Environment Programme to look at newer approaches and the role of life cycle assessments in reducing marine litter and plastics in the environment.

In Chile, the government's 2018 ban on plastic bags became a driver for the reusable and compostable provisions in its 2021 plastics law, as the bag ban led to questions about the impact of other kinds of bags, said Guillermo González Caballero, head of the circular economy office in Chile's Ministry of the Environment.

"One thing that we learned after the banning of plastic bags, that we learned from life cycle assessment studies, is that it's not necessarily a good idea to just move from plastic to another material," he said. "Because when you look at it from a life cycle assessment, all those other materials also have their impacts."

But rather than keep a status quo of single-use packaging and have a debate about what's the best of those choices, he said Chile wanted to go in a different direction to control litter and packaging waste from fast-food restaurants.

They must use only reusables on dine-in service and compostables for takeout, he said.

"It's not only moving away from plastics but it's moving away from disposable items of any material, which is another major, major breakthrough," he said.

The government has been focused on plastics because its research shows that only 4.4 percent of plastic's uses are circular, he said.

Chile formed its own national plastics pact in 2019, which the government joined, and at the time it was the third country in the world to form a pact after the United Kingdom and France, he said.

The country's new plastics law includes extended producer responsibility provisions that require industry to help fund residential collection covering 80 percent of Chile by 2035, he said.

TerraCycle's Loop recycling program offers consumers a reusable packaging system for home delivery. The program is available in limited locations.

Plastics pacts around the world, including in the United States, are starting to put reusable packaging on their agendas.

In South Africa, which launched its pact this year, the group is planning a life cycle assessment study around reusable and refillable packaging, said Deshanya Naidoo, an analyst with the pact.

It will be a "breakthrough" study to provide businesses good information on environmental impacts specific to South Africa, she told the webinar.

"Reuse models in South Africa are often criticized, claiming that they can be more resource-intensive than single-use plastic packaging in our context," Naidoo said.

"South Africa is a cost-sensitive market, which is why we believe that reuse models have a role to play as they have the potential to supply the specific amount a consumer requires at a time and possible at a lower price than the product would be if sold in single-use packaging," she said.

She said South Africa's extended producer responsibility regulations require life cycle assessments on packaging to guide EPR fees and create a financial incentive to design packaging with less of an environmental impact.

"A life cycle approach is imperative for South Africa to support a systemic approach to ending plastic pollution," Naidoo said, adding that she believes it's also important for stronger global rules on LCAs.

She said she would like to see the global treaty on plastic waste that's being discussed now include measuring the impact of litter as part of LCAs because of "the persistence of plastics in the environment."

Environmental groups say reusable packaging models are getting more attention in the U.S., although they say the debate is further along elsewhere in the world.

The Damariscotta, Maine-based Upstream Policy Institute Inc. released a report in June making a case for reusables, arguing they can save businesses and local governments money and have a lower climate impact than disposables.

The report said that LCAs show the CO2 impacts of disposable paper, plastic and bioplastic cups are three to 10 times greater than for reusable ceramic, stainless steel and glass cups.

As well, it argued the water consumption for reusables is lower when using commercial dishwashers, because of water used to make disposable packaging.

Report author Miriam Gordon, policy director at Upstream, said she sees "a great deal of innovation" around reusables, driven partly by entrepreneurs reacting to more disposable packaging in the pandemic and by the public beginning to see reusables as "the cool thing to do."

"In the U.S., the drive is coming from cities — many in California — pushing back against the throwaway model of foodservice," she said. "In Europe, Asia and Latin America, reuse and refill policies are embedded in national plastics product bans."

The environmental group Oceana pointed to another provision in Chile's new law requiring supermarkets and convenience stores to sell and receive returnable bottles.

Christy Leavitt, plastics campaign director for Oceana, said its research shows that increasing market share of refillable bottles by 10 percent in coastal countries could lead to a 22 percent drop in marine litter from PET bottles.

"While refillable services and businesses are popping up in countries around the globe, growth in the U.S. has been slow," she said. "Refillable and reusable systems are the most sustainable alternative to unnecessary single-use plastic items and plastic packaging, and we need local, state and federal policies that incentivize companies to make that shift."

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