Reuse Seattle is an initiative of the City of Seattle to create practical solutions and standardized circular economy systems that will help our city's businesses and residents move from single-use to reuse. Reuse Seattle brings reusable food and beverage container solutions and services to the city's institutions, sports and entertainment venues, small and medium-sized restaurants, and all businesses with food service operations. Ultimately, the Reuse Seattle vision is for a network of reuse systems for food and beverage containers in use at Seattle institutions, venues, and businesses to become connected and interoperable through external public space collection systems, leveraging a set of system standards. This will enable these systems to be serviced by shared collection, transportation, washing and digital infrastructures making reuse systems convenient and accessible across our community. Reuse Seattle was formed in 2020 with founding partners PR3, Cascadia Consulting Group, and the Washington Environmental Council.

Goals and Impact:

Reuse Seattle brings reusable food and beverage container solutions and services to the city's institutions, sports and entertainment venues, small and medium-sized restaurants, and all businesses with food service operations. We aim to create a standardized, city-wide reusable food and beverage container system that is scalable, affordable, equitable, and ubiquitous. In the short-term (2023/2024), our goals are to: (1) Attract reuse service providers to invest in Seattle, creating shared infrastructure for reuse. (2) Trial and scale reuse for takeaway, BYO, and dine-in durables in target sectors: Entertainment (Music & Sports), Coffee Shops, Assisted Living, Corporate Campus & Institutions, etc. (3) Develop a blueprint for facility-based, closed-loop reuse systems to become connected and interoperable with external public space collection systems, leveraging a set of system standards. To date, we have worked with 5 reuse service providers in the City of Seattle, and 10+ participating venues.