New Report Says Reuse Can Help Solve NZ Groceries Packaging Waste, But Waste Laws & Big Players Must Catch Up

Reusable packaging is effective at slashing the packaging that fills up our household rubbish and recycling bins after a grocery shop, according to a report released today through Āmiomio Aotearoa multi-partner research project on the circular economy.

However, reuse innovation is being held back by the lack of incentives for businesses and major retailers to reduce single-use packaging and the waste it causes.

The report, Reusable packaging in the Aotearoa New Zealand Grocery Sector: Understanding Impacts and Outcomes, compares real-life examples of single-use and reusable packaging found in several New Zealand grocery retailers for six everyday grocery products: milk, toothpaste, dishwashing liquid, oats, pumpkin seeds and olive oil.

The products in reusable packaging - which includes bulk bin and ‘on tap’ systems or packaging that manufacturers take back, wash and refill - almost always use less packaging and less plastic compared to products in single-use packaging.

“Our findings support the claim that reusable packaging systems are a real solution to the issues of overpackaging, plastic pollution and landfills that public surveys consistently show are top concerns for New Zealanders” says Hannah Blumhardt of Reuse Aotearoa, one of the report authors.

“We did find room to improve existing reusable packaging systems to reduce packaging waste even more. For example, producers and retailers could work together to set up more ‘behind-the-scenes’ reuse systems in supply chains, which they already do with reusable pallets, but this could extend to more packaging types. Retailers could also take steps to support more customers to use reusable containers at bulk bins, rather than single-use plastic and paper bags.”

The research included a kaupapa Māori study into the relationship between te ao Māori and reuse. This helped to guide the range of impacts and outcomes the report considered, which spanned environmental/health, socioeconomic and cultural indicators.

“Applying these indicators, we found that regardless of whether producers or retailers use single-use or reusable packaging, more thought could be given to their potential role in supporting tino rangatiratanga, including Māori rights to kai sovereignty. That is, the right to access, manage, share and produce safe and nourishing food and protect ancestral food systems” says Blumhardt.

The study also found that products in reusable packaging are usually less affordable and available to New Zealanders than products in single-use packaging, for a range of reasons.

“Many of the smaller retailers and local producers who champion reusable packaging systems struggle to compete in the current groceries environment and lack the power to encourage larger retailers to participate in reuse systems and create economies of scale” says report co-author Gradon Diprose of the Bioeconomy Science Institute.

“Also, while ratepayers and councils foot the bill to recycle or landfill single-use packaging, producers and retailers cover the costs to make reusable packaging systems work, which usually makes the products in them more expensive. They’re operating on an uneven playing field” says Diprose.

The report makes various recommendations, including that: all producers and retailers keep better data on their packaging footprint and share it with the public to improve transparency about the impact of single-use and reusable packaging; the government apply economic and regulatory policies to drive producers and retailers to replace single-use packaging with reusable packaging, using opportunities like a proposed regulated product stewardship scheme for packaging under New Zealand’s Waste Minimisation Act; and the Commerce Commission and its Grocery Commissioner include packaging and wider sustainability considerations when proposing future measures for the supermarket sector's larger players.

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