Facilitating the Adoption of Takeaway Reuse Systems - Cost Assessment of Moving from Single-use

However, as the report points out, we need to factor in the hidden cost of single use and we need political intervention if we want to maximise the environmental and economic benefits of reuse systems. [...] Take-away food and drink is one of the sectors where packaging waste has increased the most, making it both a pressing problem to solve and an opportunity to seize for many stakeholders.” Throughout the EU, there is growing interest in reducing packaging waste from takeaway food and drinks by replacing single-use packaging with reusable and refillable alternatives. [...] Specifically, the study compares the costs, to takeaway vendors and wider society, related to single-use packaging with the costs related to adopting a reuse packaging system. [...] As the externality costs of single-use packaging are greater than the increased costs to vendors of switching to a reuse packaging system, the cost benefits for society as a whole of making the switch outweigh the increase in cost for vendors. [...] The results of this study show that such fees are likely to increase the cost of single-use takeaway packaging for some formats (such as cups and bowls) to the extent that a reuse packaging system for takeaway packaging is expected to have a comparatively lower cost to vendors – and therefore to consumers.