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Yea. My elevator pitch for this is “shipping containers for everyday items”.

If we standardize on reusable container sizes then they can be returned, washed, and reprocessed back into the supply chain.



Here in Norway, soda bottles were returned, washed and used again.

They moved to single-use bottles some years ago, using recycled plastic[1], citing that the energy required for the transportation, washing etc of the reused bottles was higher than that of making new from recycled plastic.

A big issue is that a bottle going back to be washed is mostly air, so you get relatively few in a single truck. The new ones gets shredded at the store, thus you get a lot more plastic in a single truck.

So any reusable container would at the very least need to be stackable. However, I think the bottle story[2] here in Norway shows recycling is perhaps better than reusing.

[1]: https://www.coca-cola.no/nyheter-og-kampanjer/i-norge/100--r...

[2]: https://www.coca-cola.no/baerekraft/emballasje/redusertklima...


Perhaps this will change when the bulk of energy used is renewable, so that the tradeoff of using more energy isn't as much of a problem.


I think the issue is designing them around sterilization.

Very few people demand sterilized shopping baskets in supermarkets, but they will for restaurant dishes, and you’ll notice more wear is present in the latter despite they are more gently handled inside a place.




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