Characterisation and environmental value proposition of reuse models for fast-moving consumer goods: reusable packaging and products

Problem: Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) are products that are purchased and consumed frequently to satisfy continuous consumer demand. In a linear economy, FMCGs are typically offered as single-use and disposable products. Limitations in product design, insufficient collection systems, and inefficient recovery processes prevent high recycling rates. As a result, FMCGs often end up in landfill or the environment, contributing to waste accumulation, and pollution. Whilst recycling is the most common waste prevention strategy practiced by the industry, the process is limited to addressing only the final stage of the product life cycle, omitting the overproduction and consumption of materials typical of FMCGs. Instead, reuse is a strategy that is capable of extending the value of resources by slowing material flows. Novel reuse models that require the consumer to interact with durable primary packaging and products are emerging in the FMCG industry. However, the constituent elements and operation principles of such reuse models are not fully understood. The aim of this research is to develop a comprehensive characterisation of reuse models and to evaluate their potential to deliver environmental value. Method: Ninety-two reuse offerings were selected and analysed to identify their reuse system elements. The analysis led to the identification of a framework including five reuse models, which were also evaluated to establish their capability to deliver environmental value when compared to conventional single-use and disposable FMCGs. Results: Currently in the FMCG sector, reusable products are mostly durable packaging, such as bottles and containers for beverages, foods, personal and home care goods, and are infrequently durable products, such as personal and baby care goods, including razors and nappies. Three reuse models involve exclusive reuse, a behaviour by which a reusable product is used and kept by a single user throughout the product lifetime. In exclusive reuse models, users are provided with either a reusable product (model 1), a reusable product with preparation for reuse infrastructure (model 2), or access to preparation for reuse infrastructure (model 3). Two reuse models involve sequential reuse, a behaviour by which a reusable product is used by multiple users throughout the product lifetime and returned after each use to a provider. In sequential reuse models, users are provided with either a reusable product with preparation for reuse infrastructure and provider-operated recovery services (model 4), or a reusable product and provider-operated services for recovery and preparation for reuse (model 5). Whilst the five reuse models can operate standalone, some offerings were found to embed a multi-model approach. Both exclusive and sequential reuse models are capable of delivering environmental value by reducing the use of natural resources and retaining their value in the economy. In particular, sequential reuse models were found to have a greater capability to increase the share of recyclable resources by offering access to infrastructure for the closure of material loops. Conclusions: Consumers can currently access five reuse models and choose between exclusive and sequential reuse behaviours. When adopted in conjunction with recycling, reuse models can enable a more efficient consumption of FMCGs. Providing the infrastructure necessary to enable reuse and recycling is key to the successful and sustainable deployment of the reuse models

Systemic reuse models for sustainable glass packaging design and innovation

The Italian glass packaging industry is the first in Europe, with 21.3% of production value. It has 14 companies with 39 factories, 7,800 employees and a growing annual turnover of 2.4 billion euros. This trend of production preserves, on the one hand, a good synergy concerning the recycling process, but at the same time, it needs to reduce environmental impacts through reuse practices. This research and analysis work was carried out in collaboration with a company that designs and produces glass packaging, focusing on and evaluating the current reuse and returnable-empty models, outlining the opportunities for a transition towards systemic business that stimulates innovation in new sectors. Subsequently, through a research-through-design approach, a second concept phase defines which guidelines to design packaging within returnable vacuum systems in new sectors and which strategies are feasible to start a transition

From e-trash to e-treasure: how value can be created by the new e-business models for reverse logistics

Reverse logistics, that is, all operations related to the reuse of used products, excess inventory and packaging materials, gain increasing attention globally both for their promising financial potentials, the sustainable growth alternative they offer and the environmental positive impact they have. In this paper, we introduce reverse logistics and we explain how the adoption of e-commerce provides new possibilities to existing business models and what are the new e-business models in reverse logistics that have emerged. We compare these three new e-business models, namely, returns aggregators, specialty locators and integrated solution providers on a number of aspects and identify keys for their competitive advantage. Finally, we discuss conceptual and actual opportunities for these e-business models to thrive and advance and present some e-commerce tools that are being developed with the aim to address the distributed, dynamic and knowledge-intensive aspects of applications that contribute to the advancement of e-businesses in the field of reverse logistics.e-commerce;Reverse logistics;e-business models

This has already been used! A paradigm to measure the point at which people become unwilling to use reusable containers

Reusing packaging and containers can significantly reduce plastic waste, yet little research has considered whether people are willing to reuse containers, especially as they start to show signs of use. The present research developed a novel method for identifying how worn or dirty a container needs to be before people become unwilling to reuse it and demonstrates how this paradigm can be used to investigate factors that might influence people's willingness to reuse that container. Across four studies, we recruited University staff and students or members of the local and online community and asked them to complete a variation of our paradigm designed to measure their willingness to reuse containers, followed by self-report measures of disgust, concerns about disease, and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. The findings demonstrate that: (i) the paradigm can identify the point at which people deem a container unacceptable for reuse, (ii) there is substantial variation in people's thresholds, and (iii) variation can be explained, in part, by individual differences (e.g., feelings of disgust) and contextual factors. This paradigm provides the basis for a scientific study of psychological, physical, and environmental factors that are crucial to the success of reuse models and ultimately, reducing plastic waste

The stewardship of things: Property and responsibility in the management of manufactured goods

In the context of broad-based concerns about the need to move towards a more sustainable materials economy, particularly as they are expressed in debates around ecological modernisation (EM), we argue that product stewardship has radical potential as a means to promote significant change in the relationship between society and the material world. We focus on two important dimensions that have been neglected in approaches to product stewardship to date. Firstly, we argue that immanent within the basic concept of stewardship is a problematisation of dominant understandings of property ownership in neoliberal market economies. In the space opened up by notions of stewardship, different ways of enacting both rights and responsibilities to products and materials emerge which have potential to advance the sustainability of material economies. Secondly, through exploration of existing expressions of product stewardship, we uncover a neglected scale of action. Both policy and dominant articulations of EM focus primarily on the efficiency of production processes; and secondarily, the attitudes and behaviours of individual consumers. Missing from this is the 'meso-scale' of social collectives including households, neighbourhoods, more distributed communities and small scale social enterprises. Based on a review of existing research from Australia and the UK, including our own, we argue that understanding of embedded practices of material responsibility at the household scale can both reinvigorate the concept of product stewardship as a potentially radical intervention, and reveal the potential of the meso-scale as a challenging but worthwhile realm of policy intervention

A framework for closed-loop supply chains of reusable articles

Reuse practices contribute to the environmental and economical sustainability of production and distribution systems. Surprisingly, reuse closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) have not been widely researched for the moment. In this paper, we explore the scientific literature on reuse and we propose a framework for reusable articles. This conceptual structure includes a typology integrating under the reusable articles term different categories of articles (transportation items, packaging materials, tools) and addresses the management issues that arise in reuse CLSC. We ground our results in a set of case studies developed in real industrial settings, which have also been contrasted with cases available in existing literature.reverse logistics;case studies;closed-loop supply chains;returns managment

DEFRA Clothing Action Plan

As part of Defra’s Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) programme, a voluntary clothing industry initiative was co-ordinated by Defra with the aim to improve the environmental and ethical performance of clothing. The Sustainable Clothing Roadmap aims to improve the environmental and social performance of clothing, building on existing initiatives and by co-ordinating action by key clothing supply chain stakeholders. Although organisations in the clothing supply chain have already taken significant steps to reduce adverse environmental and social impacts, further industry-wide co-operation and agreed commitments will enable that process to accelerate. That is the rationale behind the collaborative nature of the roadmap. The DEFRA initiative is now a WRAP (Waste Resources Action Plan) initiative. Centre for Sustainable Fashion participate on the WRAP steering group and the sub groups on design and recycling. Dilys Williams advised this report's lead author

Integrating consumer behaviour into the environmental assessment of circular packaging: a scoping review

Purpose The impact of applying circular strategies to products is often measured through life cycle assessment (LCA). While LCA estimates and compares the impacts of circular products, its ability to integrate consumer behaviour is currently limited. The integration of consumer behavioural insights is especially relevant in the packaging sector, where consumer actions at the end-of-life are crucial for the success of circular strategies. This study explores integrating behavioural insights from consumer behaviour sciences (including psychology, sociology and socio-technical approaches) into LCA for a better assessment and design of circular packaging. Methods Through a scoping review, scientific literature was mapped to (1) investigate the current integration of consumer behaviour aspects within packaging LCAs and (2) explore the behavioural determinants influencing the recycling and reusing of circular packaging. By building on the insights from these reviews, this study provides recommendations on how to integrate behavioural insights with LCA to assess the impact of circular packaging systems. Results and discussion The results indicate that LCA studies for packaging are generally based on assumptions on consumer behaviour, reducing their utility for circular decision-making. The main methods currently used to integrate behaviour variability are scenario and sensitivity analysis, with some studies using consumer profiles and behaviour research to support LCA modelling. Socio-technical approaches, e.g. agent-based modelling or system dynamics, have not been applied yet to integrate a behavioural perspective into the LCA of circular packaging, while this may be a promising avenue. The behaviour science literature covered several predictors found to be important to understand packaging reuse and recycling behaviour. Our review shows that attitudinal and value dimensions have consistently been found to influence both packaging reuse and recycling behaviour, while the latter is also strongly driven by control factors. While LCA modellers can obtain behavioural insights from the behavioural literature, the step of transforming these insights into quantifiable behaviour patterns still needs to be taken. Such endeavours can help to translate individual behaviour predictors into behavioural patterns regarding packaging reuse and recycling. Conclusions Consumer behaviour is currently not widely considered in the LCA of circular packaging. Insights from consumer behaviour sciences can contribute to LCA studies in two main ways: defining consumer profiles and modelling socio-technical parameters. Consumer profiles could be drawn from the psychological behaviour literature, while socio-technical approaches can provide models of system behaviour where the interaction of different system actors and items is quantitatively modelled and coupled with LCA models

Stress-Induced Delamination Of Through Silicon Via Structures

Continuous scaling of on-chip wiring structures has brought significant challenges for materials and processes beyond the 32 nm technology node in microelectronics. Recently three-dimensional (3-D) integration with through-silicon-vias (TSVs) has emerged as an effective solution to meet the future interconnect requirement. Thermo-mechanical reliability is a key concern for the development of TSV structures used in die stacking as 3-D interconnects. This paper examines the effect of thermal stresses on interfacial reliability of TSV structures. First, the three-dimensional distribution of the thermal stress near the TSV and the wafer surface is analyzed. Using a linear superposition method, a semi-analytic solution is developed for a simplified structure consisting of a single TSV embedded in a silicon (Si) wafer. The solution is verified for relatively thick wafers by comparing to numerical results obtained by finite element analysis (FEA). Results from the stress analysis suggest interfacial delamination as a potential failure mechanism for the TSV structure. Analytical solutions for various TSV designs are then obtained for the steady-state energy release rate as an upper bound for the interfacial fracture driving force, while the effect of crack length is evaluated numerically by FEA. Based on these results, the effects of TSV designs and via material properties on the interfacial reliability are elucidated. Finally, potential failure mechanisms for TSV pop-up due to interfacial fracture are discussed.Aerospace Engineerin