6. How can we make refillable packaging work?

James Piper: Hello. Welcome to talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one sided stories. I'm James Piper, author of the rubbish book, and I'm joined by Robbie Staniforf, my far from rubbish friend. Hey, Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: Hiya, James.

James Piper: It's great to have you back. I missed you, man. It's been like, It was weird not having you here last week.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I know. I can't believe it. You ditched me. No, only joking. Hopefully. everybody really enjoyed the interview. I must be honest. I did miss it. And I, was just saying before we, press record that I could do several more of these, per week. So two or three. I'm just so excited to get in. There's so much to talk about, so many different issues to cover. I'm just really sort of keen to get moving with them all.

James Piper: It is a bit of a pain having to wait each week, but I do think we'd rapidly run out of top.

Robbie Staniforth: No.

James Piper: You reckon we could do, like, what, two or three a week?

Robbie Staniforth: Honestly, I think there's so much to cover when it comes to even just the smallest stuff. Even if we just stick with packaging, which we've predominantly focused on so far, we would be able to fill multiple episodes per week. Whether people would want to listen to them or not is maybe another thing.

James Piper: Yeah. The thing I'm regretting is not releasing them on, like, a Tuesday because Thursday is like, the best day of the week. Like, you get to the end of the week, you're already excited. I don't need the excitement of the podcast when I need. That is Tuesday. So I feel like, I've messed up a bit there, but, you know, I can't change it.

Robbie: I hope you enjoyed the interview episode last week

Now. We are a Thursday release, so I hope you enjoyed the interview episode last week. I certainly enjoyed interviewing Natalie. And, it was a really interesting discussion. We had a good discussion, Robbie, about. I hope you've listened to it, but just in case you haven't, we had an interesting discussion about our coffee bot episode. And, we were chatting about, well, just going over some of the things we've learned, like, in the first four episodes, just checking in on them, things like export figures for plastic. And, I just really enjoyed the chat. Do we have any corrections? I've got a couple of. I don't think we should call this corrections. They're sort of all editions, but because corrections makes it sound like. I think we'll leave the word corrections for when we actually got something wrong. this is the edition section.

Someone said coffee pods are actually quite weak

I had a really good email in and had a, well, I had a couple of emails on this point actually, which was around coffee pod. So we're going right back to episode two. Someone said one of the or two people actually emailed in to say, one of the things we didn't talk about was the fact that coffee pods are actually quite weak. And, they're presumably because of the amount of coffee and there are some people who double up on a coffee pod.

Robbie Staniforth: Whoa, I've not heard about that.

James Piper: Yeah, so this was an email in from Mike and Sarah. So thank you, Mike and Sarah. And they said that were they to use coffee pods, which they don't for this reason, but were they to use coffee pods, they would need to use two per cup. Now, as a coffee pod user, I just didn't even think about it because I've never come across this and I've never had to do that. I've always thought it's been strong enough for me, but then I find with the, pods that I use, I can do a long coffee and it's still quite strong.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, well, I don't have a lot of experience, with using those coffee pods, but every time I have had one, I must say usually in a hotel if I'm working on business or something, just a short coffee, you know, with a little bit of milk. I don't recall actually ever making, a long one.

James Piper: Yeah, there we go. So that's, a really good addition, I think. You know, we'll have to start. Well, we said we keep evolving these episodes, but if we keep going back to episode one and two, we're just.

Robbie Staniforth: Gonna, we're never gonna get anywhere.

James Piper: Could take years. Yeah, it could take years. So keep, giving us feedback, guys. Preferably episode three onwards. I mean, obviously if you have something to say about episode one or two, feel free. speaking of that, I do actually have some feedback from episode one, so we'll just wrap this up as well.

We got some comments in from Ian about our bottle top podcast

we got some comments in from Ian. Now, we both know Ian very well. He's done lots of amazing stuff. He's a bit of a legend in the waste industry, did a lot of the work that we talk about with co op, and lots of other things. Over the years, I have enjoyed working with Ian and he was kind enough to actually read through my book and make sure it wasn't complete rubbish. And he seems to be doing the same with our podcast. He's listening through and just giving us feedback, which is great. He wanted me to make it clear that the pizza boxes that we were referring to in episode one were takeaway. I know that's a passion for him because I know he spent a long time developing pizza boxes and packaging, for pizza, for co op. So that's obviously a passionate area.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, the quick pizzas, the self cook ones. You're talking about self cook. Self cook.

James Piper: You have to cook them. You cook them yourself. Yes. they don't cook themselves. and he did also give a really interesting insight that I have never thought about and we haven't. it's why it's not on the podcast, because it's not something I've considered, which was we've always talked about putting lids back on untethered bottle caps. So when we go back to the bottle caps, and he was saying that if those go into a recycling truck, that's crushing.

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James Piper: So, you know, those, the bins where they, they crush the waste down, or at the facility, if they're getting crushed, if they're untethered, the bottle caps can ping off and then get lost in the process that way. So actually, the tethering doesn't just ensure that we put it on the bottle cap, but it means that when they're getting crushed, the bottle caps are less likely to pop off and therefore less likely to get lost in the process, which is just a really great addition to our, bottle top discussion.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, well, thanks, Ian. Keep, marking our homework.

James Piper: I know. Now we know Ian's listening. I'm just the nerves. Yeah. Thank you, Ian. And, the other thing to add is I've actually set up a link tree. For those who don't know, Linktree is just a long list of links because I realised in this podcast we're talking about lots and lots of, websites, data reports, all that kind of stuff. So I've set up a link tree to put all those reports and surveys and all the things we talk about on the podcast on, so that you can see them organised by episode. And I've put the link for that link tree in our description, of each episode. So if you're listening to this, if you have a look on Spotify or apple, wherever you get your podcast, you'll see that there's a little link at the bottom to our link tree, which gives you all of those links.

Last week we discussed the sorting of glass. This week it's glass recycling

So, on to the rubbish process. The rubbish process is our opportunity to talk about the collection, sorting and recycling of waste. We've been going through collection, certainly initially, and sorting and recycling of paper and cardboard. And now we're on to glass. Last week we discussed the sorting of glass. So this week it's glass recycling. So where did we leave our glass last week, Robbie? It was sort of smashed up into like 50 p pieces. Sorry? It was smashed up into pieces the size of 50 p's.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, we. So we've got this glass, that is kind of sorted. colour, sorted is, I think, where we left, it. So piles of green, piles of brown, piles of clear. I don't think there's any other colours that they sort to. There's a little bit of blue glass around the place, but I don't think there's very much blue glass, recycling in terms of, it being melted and put back into, bottles and containers.

James Piper: Is this where we do our shout out to Bombay sapphire, a lovely gin? They use a blue glass, don't they?

Robbie Staniforth: They do, yeah. That was the first one that came to mind when I was thinking about it. And it does also, bring in some of the reason why people use glass in the first place, which is it can have that kind of premium feel, as I'm sure you know, from the many bottles of Bombay sapphire you've consumed over the years, James. So it's mixed, raw materials to get the colour, consistent and to strengthen it. And then it's melted at over 1500 degrees, which is like some, serious temperature you're putting into it. So if you ever go around a glass recycling plant, I'm sure you'll want to, make sure that you're standing well back from those furnaces for the chemistry over to James.

James Piper: So they're adding different materials. Thanks, Robbie. They'll be adding things like sodium carbonate, calcium hydroxide, aluminium hydroxide, all sorts of things, to make that glass suitable for packaging. If they're making things like cookware, which we talked about last week, so strengthened glass, your pyrex jugs, things like that, then they're going to be adding, different chemicals to make that stronger. I think one of the really interesting things about glass, and we get the same with the metals, is that if you add recycled glass glass to the process, it actually lowers that melting point. So the melting point is like 1500 degrees if you have just virgin glass. But if you're adding recycled glass, it's basically easier to melt because it's already gone through that process. And so it actually lowers the melting point. So recycling glass has kind of this double benefit because not only are you able to reuse a material and it can be infinitely recycled, but you're also reducing the energy needs for the virgin glass that you're melting down.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And this is one of the things that, you know, when we're talking here about how is glass recycled? We're actually sort of talking about how glass containers are made. Like, there isn't a, it's not the same as some of the other processes where it reaches end of his life. And it's in a load of kind of pellets, if you like. We're talking about a real genuinely sort of circular system where it's a closed loop with this recycled glass going in with primary materials that you mentioned there, James, and creating a bottle. So there is truly bottle to bottle glass making. Obviously, you need to add in some of those extra elements. It's not a 100% process. but you are talking about something, that isn't going into another product. It's glass bottles going back into glass bottles.

James Piper: At this point, you're adding more chemicals as well to, create colour. So if you want to recreate green glass, you're putting chemicals in to make greenhouse. And

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James Piper: ultimately this is creating little like globules of melted glass, which are then moulded and blown back into bottles or back into jars, whatever they're going to be. So, I mean, glass recycling is essentially very simple. You're melting it at a high temperature, which can be lower if you're using recycled glass and then you're moulding it into a new product.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And I presume it's machines that are blowing it. You haven't got glass blowers with the technical skills to blow it into a glass bottle.

James Piper: No, that would be. I mean, unless you're very, very hipster. I don't think so.

Robbie Staniforth: So that's what we would call bottle, to bottle recycling. but there's also, or remelting it into new products. But there is also glass that gets recycled into what is called aggregate. and this is kind of really, material that goes into roads, just like aggregates that you might see pebbles, etcetera. glass shards of glass can be used, as not the top coat, but one of the lower ground works, when roads are being made.

James Piper: The glass recycling target, Robbie, is. I think it's 82%. Is that right?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that's correct.

James Piper: We've got a recycling target of 82% for glass. When we talked about paper and cardboard, we were at 83%. And when we talk about that remelt in aggregate, I believe we're remelt at about 75%. So 75% of glass goes into that kind, ah, of bottle to bottle reprocessing that you've talked about, and 25% goes into that aggregate. So being used in roads and construction.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. So two different types, two major types of what we do with recycled glass. Of course, there's other niche industries. I've seen lots of, very nice lampshades made out of glass bottles, but these, by a percentage of what's going on in the world, is very, very small. The two major types are, ah, recycling into this road aggregate, but we hope that we can get it colour sorted and actually recycle back into bottles.

James Piper: And now we turn to the rubbish topic. This is where we talk about a big issue facing the waste industry. Anything that's kind of caught our eye in the week that we want to talk about.

James: So many people have written in saying we should call this section trash talk

Before we start this, Robbie, I think we've got to discuss the name. So many people have written in saying we should call this section trash talk.

Robbie Staniforth: Yes, I've heard that a few different times. I've definitely had direct messages saying, come on, you got to fit trash talk in somewhere.

James Piper: Yeah. When we were setting up the podcast, I did think, let's call this section trash talk. And then I thought, is it, you know, maybe it's too american? What we'll do for this is we will use a feature I've discovered called a, Spotify poll. So if you're listening to this in Spotify, and even if you're not listening to this in Spotify, you can go into Spotify and find it. And we'll set up a poll on there and we'll ask you, should this be called the rubbish topic or trash talk? So if you're on Spotify right now, that poll will be up attached to this episode and just go in there and select which one you want. And then next week we will go with whatever the majority say.

Robbie Staniforth: I think I'm pretty certain of what it's going to come out as.

James Piper: But let's see, why are we doing the poll then? What a waste of time.

Robbie Staniforth: That's democracy for you, James.

James Piper: Yes. Okay. let's keep democracy moving. We've laid out kind of a few episodes. When we first started, we thought, okay, let's plan. In fact, I was reading, I think I've said before I'm on a these Reddit groups for podcasting just to like, learn how it all works, because we're obviously just starting and people were saying, you need to be like ten episodes ahead in your recordings. Just in case something happens. And I'm like, well, we are not ten episodes ahead, Robbie. Far from it. so if anything were to happen to either of us, there might be a delay in this podcast. But anyway, I have a loose plan that we are following, and this episode is kind of proof that I'm not really following that plan very well, because we did originally have something completely different to talk about here, and we followed the plan about 50%, and then Ocado came out and said they were doing some really amazing stuff in refill, and we thought, hey, maybe we should talk about refill instead. So we've gone completely off plan, and we're now talking about refill, which was sort of something I thought we might get to in about February.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, well, I'm very conscious that, ah, people probably won't see us, but we're both in black t shirts, and that looks like we planned it too. But I promise you we didn't. Is this the new uniform?

James Piper: Yeah, I thought that. So, that'll be on our socials. We'll put some videos. So if you want to see Robbie and I both in black t shirts, have a look on our podcast socials.

Robbie Staniforth: Good plug. I think it's men of a certain age.

Reusable packaging or refillable packaging can be used interchangeably

Anyway, let's talk about the topic at hand, or maybe trash talk in future. so reusable packaging or refillable packaging, these terms can get, used interchangeably, and I'm not going to get stuck on the definitions. There's lots of people who've done academic work on how to differentiate between reuse and refill

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and pre fill, and lots of these terms. I think the main thing, thing to take is that we're talking about packaging that can be used more than once. So single use packaging is an issue. it sometimes gets conflated with single use plastics, and it's just that plastic is the issue. It's actually in lots of applications. It's the fact that packaging is only used once and then hopefully recycled in some examples, but in many of many other examples, can't be recycled. And so what reusable packaging is trying to do is use more robust materials that are then washed and cleaned, out, sanitised, and then refilled again. And we've kept saying, as we've noted through these podcasts that there's this waste hierarchy, where landfilling things is obviously right at the bottom and towards the top above recycling, you have, applications like reuse and refill.

James Piper: Yeah. And the trick to making reuse better for the environment than single use is to make sure you use it enough times to justify kind of the materials that you need to use. Because obviously one of the key things is you're making something that's more robust, so it's going to have more material in it. So if we think about carrier bags, which we talked about in episode four, we talked about the fact that bags for life are heavier than single use carrier bags and therefore you need to reuse a bag for life four times more than you would a single use carrier bag. So obviously making something more robust is great and using more material is fine because it needs to go through a system a lot more. But one of the key things that you have to be able to do then is ensure that it can be used more times than its single use alternative by a factor of whatever the difference in the weight is.

To be better than plastic milk bottles, glass bottle has to be reused 20 times

For me, this came to a head, when there was a story which I will put on our link tree. there you go. Plug for the link tree. And again, that'll be in our bio for the episode. But there's this milk bottle story where the BBC had written an article saying, milk Bottle's making a comeback. Glass milk bottle's making a comeback. And Rapp had put out some data saying, to be better than plastic milk bottles, a glass milk bottle has to be reused 20 times. In the same article about how positive this was. genuinely, you can click this link and have a look. In the same article, it said on average, they've reused 18 times. So they'd said it has to be reused 20 times and then said, on average, 18 times. And so for me, and going back to what Natalie said last week, we shouldn't just look at carbon as obviously material production, all those kind of things. But it is an important point, particularly when we talk about glass. I talked about this, you know, again, you can read this article, I think I put it in the book. And interestingly, Theresa, who read my book, who is, the mom of someone who used to work for us, Robbie, Amber. my book spurred her to contact her local milk supplier and she found out from them that their glass milk bottles have been used since 1984. So I think they've been going around longer than 20 times. So that's great. So the fact that people are then doing their own research of do mine last as long is awesome. And what you're looking for really, is that 20 times piece when it comes.

Robbie Staniforth: To milk bottles, that's absolutely amazing. So I need to contact my supplier because as part of this BBC article. I'm one of those on the trend having switched to glass milk bottles a few years ago now, probably about three years ago, two or three years ago. and have them delivered every week. It's not just milk they deliver too in those bottles. I get that kefir yoghurt stuff too. And I've always wondered how many times I'm putting them out for collection every week, how many times they're going round. So it's good to know that it's 20 times, which to me doesn't seem that many times to be honest because I'm putting them out every week. So in less than six months you're going to have had a glass bottle that's going to have a better environmental benefit than plastic. I think it is a little bit worrying in the article that it says 18 times is the average of how they're used. I'm sure that's something that the the dairy industry and those retailers are trying to increase because after all it's in their interest isn't it? The more times it goes around, the less new packaging that they need to add into the system, which obviously has a cost. So it's such a good idea to have material going round and round and round and round and not having these input costs. It makes business sense.

A lot of supermarkets in the UK have set up refill schemes

James Piper: So today we want to talk about some of the supermarkets because a lot of the supermarkets in the UK have set up refill schemes, some more successfully than others. And I think it's just worth us kind of exploring each of them a little bit. just conscious that we've got to try and sort out our timing Robbie. But you know we'll just do a little bit of each and hopefully be able to explain what we think works with refill and what we think doesn't work and where things maybe could have been improved in the past.

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James Piper: So I think the first one that we want to talk about, I'm sure it was the biggest trial that had ever been done in refill outside of kind of. Im sure theres lots of people listening who were thinking back in the seventies and eighties, a lot of my drinks were in glass bottles, they would get washed and refilled. So that was back in the day when we didnt have as much material choice. Certainly there were lots of deposit schemes and lots of glass reuse schemes. weve got a lot more material choice with regards to plastic and so now were more likely to see single use than we were back when those deposit schemes were around.

Tesco trial with Loop tested reusable, refillable packaging in ten stores

So the first one that is probably worth us talking about was the Tesco trial with Loop, which was started in July 2020, ended in June 2021, and they did a report in 2022 into what worked and what didn't work. So just worth us going through that. The scheme was rolled out to ten stores. It covered 53 lines. and it was kind of a mix of Tesco owned brand stuff and brands that you'll be familiar with. So brands like Heinz Tomato ketchup, Coca Cola, they were all part of the scheme and they were providing, a material in reusable, refillable, packaging.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And the customers, that would need to switch. So obviously there would be lots of different products. And they said, in fact that 80,000 products were purchased in the trial areas. So obviously it was quite good in terms of take up. but you really did, it did require a certain type of consumer, didn't it, to engage with it?

James Piper: Yeah. And they said if all of the customers in the ten pilot stores switched ketchup, Cola and washing up liquid, then reusable packaging would be used more than two and a half million times a year. So just in those trial stores, they could have achieved 2.5 million times a year, but instead they were 80,000. So I think I, there's an argument to say that while it was interesting, I'm sure the take up wasn't what they were hoping for.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it's a slightly unfulfilled potential one, but it was really great that they released this report that was kind of a little bit warts and all, so that hopefully it moves the agenda on and the next trials can build from it.

James Piper: That's right. And it's worth just noting what we're talking about here is pre fill. So there's kind of two routes that supermarkets have taken to refill. I pre fill is where you buy the packaging with the product already in. So if I was going into Tesco, id be buying tomato ketchup in a glass bottle, for example. Thats pre fill. And then when that glass bottle is finished, I get that collected or I take it back to store, they wash it and they put the ketchup back in and then the next person buys it. So that is a pre fill model where im not really having to do very much other than take the bottle back. There are then also refill models which are where they provide you with empty packaging and maybe you've seen some of those like grains and rice and pasta or detergents coming out of a vending machine that you can fill up with, and that is a refill model. So the Tesco loop was very much pre fill. Basically, for the consumer, there wasn't much difference other than they had to bring back the packaging or get the packaging collected. and Tesco, at the end of this trial, identified four areas that they needed to focus on, so they needed to simplify the customer experience. there was a deposit to the packaging, so you had to pay, a current. Remember how much it was? I think it was two pounds or something per item that you would get back when you brought the packaging back. And we know that's a barrier, because if you're buying, if you're doing your weekly shop and someone's saying, well, for every product you have to buy, you have to add two pounds, that is a significant barrier. We have the same thing with the deposit return scheme, which we'll talk about in another episode, but where if there's a ten p deposit on every can that you buy, and you buy a pack of 24 cans, suddenly you're paying two pounds, 40 pence extra, for your cans of coke. I mean, that's going to make a huge difference to people as to whether they choose or can afford that. So deposits are a barrier. We know that. and that was significant. When you have the choice, if you're facing the aisle and you've got ketchup in a plastic bottle, that's cheaper than ketchup in a reusable bottle, technically, even though it's not actually cheaper because you'll get the deposit back, it feels cheaper. that's quite m important. It needed to have a competitive price. So they did always say that the refill option would be the same price as the standard option, obviously, with the deposit then added on top, and that was a really important part of it. They recognised the need for a culture shift. And I think, really, this comes back to, do you give people the choice on refill, in which case the uptake will be lower than if you just say, no, all of our ketchup is in refill bottles, in which case it's going to be much higher. So we need that cultural shift towards refill. And they felt collaboration was really important. They had 25 suppliers engaged with the trial and they felt that they would need a lot more. I think it's worth noting at this point that these can be quite expensive schemes. You've got to do all the washing and refilling of the product and so the reality is, for the loop scheme, they were able to engage very large brands, Heinz, Ecover, all these

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James Piper: very large brands that can afford to spend a bit more getting the product to us. And if we're talking about more niche suppliers, I suspect that would be much harder.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, sure. Trying to get everybody involved, is a significant challenge.

James: There are a number of supermarkets experimenting with refillable packaging

So another one, that I actually visited myself, thanks very much to the refill coalition for an invite to one of their open days to go and see refill in store. At Aldi, they were doing cereals and, I remember recording a little video there where they had kind of standardised packaging for the store so that they could be used kind of interchangeably. And they're trying to sort of basically get it more standardised so that more retailers and more suppliers that we mentioned before can just fill up a standard looking piece of packaging that goes into the store. So the big box or the drum that the cereal comes out of. And it was great to see. And this is one of those things that addresses, the Tesco's, point that you made there, or at least one of those four things, James. And that's that they made a price promise because they were selling exactly the same cereal in these refill containers where you can either pick one off the shelf, which I had to do, unfortunately, I didn't know, to bring my own Tupperware in, advance. And you can fill it up. And the price per gramme or price per kilogramme was always that they guaranteed that it was going to be cheaper than if you bought the pre packaged goods. And I think that's a really important part, of getting people on board, is that it's not a luxury endeavour to use refillable packaging. It's actually in your best interests.

James Piper: Great. And there's two existing schemes as well as Audi, we've also got, well, I mean, there's lots of refill schemes going on and obviously there's refill dedicated shops like, preserve we have, and scoop, I think is one as well. We have lots of refill shops available to us. But in terms of the M main supermarkets, there are still ongoing trials that I'm aware of with M and s, where they've got 25 stores. And they have said in their press release, I think it was earlier this year that they have around 10,000 customers engaged with that scheme. Again, I think they would hope, or I hope that will get bigger, because the reality is, 10,000 across 25 stores is not a huge quantity. And I think people hopefully will engage with that more. And Waitrose is currently, as far as I'm aware, running trials across four stores. So those are, two that are ongoing. And it'll be interesting to see the reports of those as they come out. And we'll probably do a refill part two episode, as we see reports come out of where this work, because it's probably the live trials that we're more interested in than kind of the historic ones. Because obviously, with the live ones, everyone's taking the learnings from the historic ones and then making them better.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, sure. But talking of a live one, Accardo is the one that's been in the news recently, and that's actually linked to this refill coalition that I mentioned before the Aldi trial, which was an in store trial. Accado, obviously a different type of retailer. so they're doing online deliveries, and I really think this will be a success because with the bigger packaging, there's less barriers, and they will also collect it from home. So just like the milk bottles that we were talking about earlier, you've actually got one less barrier, the taking. We all know what it's like trying to remember your bags for life. James, you did a good proof of that by counting people in stores. Well, if you have to turn up and inside the bags for life, you have several different pieces of packaging that you're either returning to be pre filled for you and washed out and all the rest of it, or you're bringing with you so you can refill them yourself. It's quite a barrier to entry, but it's very different for the home delivery, where it's just a swap in, swap out. Like the glass milk bottle that's been around for decades and decades. So phase one of the trial, which is starting in August, will include Accardo's, basmati rice, their penne pasta. and then phase two, which is coming later, they'll be doing non bio detergents and also fabric conditioner. And really important. The rice is a two kilo bag, the pasta is a kilo bag. The detergent and fabric conditioner is a three litre bottle. So they're looking at sort of bigger format stuff. Certainly with the detergents that have a longer shelf life, you're not getting them every day, every week, like milk. it's a bit of a longer, timeframe.

James Piper: Yeah, just to be clear, you said bag there, but the, two kilo and the one kilo, the pasta and rice are actually bottles as well. And that was one of the challenges we identified, so when we looked at the picture from the press release, one of the key things here to understand is if you're using a bottle for detergent and a bottle for food grade. So rice and pasta, when you wash those, you actually can't mix them. Like if it had detergent in before, it can only ever have detergent in again. And the

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James Piper: reason for that is the HDPE that the bottles are made from will get, you know, contaminated and taken some of those chemicals. So it's really important when we talk about food grade plastic with refill, only things that have been used for food are refilled for food. And only things that are I non food are venues for non food. And we couldn't work out from the press release how they were distinguishing because the bottles look identical. So I actually reached out to the Accado team to find out for this podcast. and thank you, Laura, who we both know well, who came back to me to explain how they've done this. And basically the bottles have a different aperture. So I think, I can't remember the numbers, but one is 80 millimetres, one's 60 millimetres, so that when they get back to the factory, for washing, or when they get back to the warehouse for washing, they can identify the different types of bottle based on how wide that aperture is.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, sure. And I must admit, when James asked me this question and said, I'm going to reach out to Okada because we know someone there and great that they came back to us, I was sort of like, I've actually seen these containers and been to the open day and I couldn't remember how I knew that they could differentiate and that food contact and things was paramount importance, but I couldn't remember. So I also reached out to find out from the refill coalition exactly the same information. So different apertures is a really neat solution to this problem.

James Piper: Yeah. And what I love most is Laura emailed saying that they call them fugly, which I, which they, fortunately term as functional ugly. And I thought this was a really interesting insight, because the reason they've made them functionally ugly is so that they get them back. Like, if they made the bottles too beautiful and too amazing in terms of their style, people wouldn't send them back. They keep them and use them for their own use. So one of the key things for them was making them ugly, functionally ugly, so that people are like, oh, I, don't need to keep this in my kitchen cupboard.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And that was one of the learnings from the Tesco trial was that, the containers just look too premium, and lots of the loop stuff. People end up keeping them at home and using them for other things because it becomes a slightly desirable item.

James Piper: Yeah. And as you said, robbie, in terms of size, these replace about five single use pieces of packaging because they're massive. Two kilos, three kilos, and the vessels are designed to be used 60 times. So I actually think this is a scheme that could really work, because the reality is they've taken a lot of the barriers away for the customer. You already have your shopping delivered online, as you said, and you can just give the bottle back when they come to drop off your new shopping. It's infrequent. It's going to take you a while to use three kilos of pasta, so it's infrequent, so you're not having to think about it too much. And the vessels can be reused 60 times, so it kind of ticks all our boxes in terms of, it's not necessarily costing huge amounts extra, there's no deposit to pay. It's going to be, I've assumed, price match compared to other materials. and it's able to be reused enough times to justify it. And it's so encouraging to see a scheme like this. And I'm really excited to see the results of this one.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, it really is. And I think on top of that, you also have just the logic of delivery drivers around the country dropping off people's online deliveries, whatever they are, and then returning to base with an empty truck. And it's that idea that this reverse logistics, which has been around for years and years and years, that we need to utilise that empty space in those trucks. And why not have empty packaging being taken back to be washed and refilled, rather than those, empty trucks driving around the country?

James Piper: Yes. And we have actually been involved with the refill scheme, which is also worth calling out with city to see, which was to do coffee cups. In Bristol, we picked, I can't remember how many stores, a, dozen stores, I think a dozen independent cafes. And this is how you can probably make a deposit work, because what they did was you basically bought your coffee, you got given a reusable coffee cup, and then if you didn't return the coffee cup, I think it was within two weeks, you would have a deposit charged to your bank account, let's say two pounds, to cover the cost of the cup. And that is how you can make deposits work, because instead of taking it at the point of sale, which then makes it cost a lot more to the consumer. Actually, you can take it later on if they haven't returned the packaging. And certainly that's an interesting way of making deposits worked.

Robbie Staniforth: And you're definitely encouraging good behaviour, aren't you? You know, if I got two quid riding on it, I'm going to find a way to get that cut back to one of the many different stores across Bristol that were allowing, you to return them.

James Piper: Yeah, that's right. And we.

Robbie: I'm hoping Nick Bauer will be our next guest on refill

There was a great report the other day from Nick at the Bauer collective and I think, Robbie, you would. I think you're going to get into Nick on to interview. He might be our next guest.

Robbie Staniforth: I'm hoping he's going to be our next guest, but I just need to pin him down for a date. He says he's keen and yeah, I think he'd have some great insight for us.

James Piper: Yeah, he can help us build on this refill discussion. And there was a story about Asda recently, because Asda were running refill in four stores, they

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James Piper: described the economics as too challenging. They've just actually shut down that refill scheme. and they came out and said that their research showed the key barriers were cost, convenience, cleanliness and perceived product quality, which prevented customers from engaging with refill proposition. And it's just interesting that, that the media pictured that as a bit of a failure. And the reality is Nick's come out to say, look, we need to change the narrative from these trials being failed initiatives to opportunities to learn. And I think that's probably how we'll leave this, discussion. These trials are super interesting in terms of us learning every time how to make refill work. Refill is something I am hugely passionate about, and I think we can make work. I think the Ocado project has got real legs and I think it will be successful. And then it's about how do we take that model that will work well and apply it to in store, rather than just online?

This is the part of the podcast where we discuss whether something can be recycled

Now on to rubbish or not. This is the part of the podcast where we talk about whether something can be recycled or whether it should be put in your general waste. And I think I promised on the first episode that I was walking and I was thinking photographs would be a good one. So the time has come. Six episodes later, let's talk about whether photographs can be recycled.

Robbie Staniforth: Robbie, when we're talking about those photographs, you're talking about the, both the negatives. So the little ticker tape thing, is it ticker tape no, that's something else. the reel anyway, that you get in the camera. It's so long ago I can't even remember. I don't know whether you've used an actual camera, over the last decade or not, but I certainly haven't.

James Piper: Not for a long time.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And then also the printed out photographs can be varying sizes, but the kind of stuff you see, and the ones that I see now, at a certain age is the school photo that gets printed out once a year, child in school uniform. hopefully they'll never need to be recycled because I will cherish those photos until hopefully, they get cherished by a generation below me. But you're right, there certainly was a big, peak, of photos becoming a lot cheaper, through the nineties and noughties, and probably quite a lot of bang average photos that nobody wants to look at out there that need to be disposed of.

James Piper: Yeah. And they just go in the rubbish bin. They can't be recycled. And when I went to go and visit a mirth, I think for the first time, the place was covered in VCR tape. You know, like videotape where it used to unspool out of the plastic case. if we got younger listeners, they're not going to know what I'm talking about, but everyone at my age plus is going to know. And they said to me, it's the biggest problem at MRF because people try and recycle these VCR's, they think, oh, they're plastic. And literally that tape just gets everywhere. And the MRF was just full of it. It was unbelievable. And I just thought, well, as we're talking about photographs and negatives, it's basically the same thing. And that actually I was watching the Olympics, closing ceremony and they were saying that, the. I don't know if you saw the guy playing the piano vertically, but his costume was made of those VHS tape reels, which was all recycled materials. And I thought, well that's much better than finding that in a mirth.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, sure thing. I think, there must be some niche and novel activities for recycling these kinds of things, but, yeah, in terms of on an industrial scale, is this the first one where we've had an or not?

James Piper: Oh, I think it might be, yes.

Robbie Staniforth: This is just rubbish.

James Piper: This is the knot.

Robbie Staniforth: Yes.

James Piper: No, wait, it's not the oR.

Robbie Staniforth: Not.

James Piper: The or not is recycling.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, I got it. Rubbish.

James Piper: It's the first rubbish.

Robbie Staniforth: It's the first just rubbish.

James Piper: Everything else has been or not.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. fine. Well, that shows that we're bringing some balance to the podcast at least.

James Piper: Of course, of course.

Robbie answers a question from listener Natasha about recycling in Leeds

So onto the rubbish question, which is our chance to answer a question from a listener. And we had Natasha write in. So thank you very much, Natasha, for this question. It's actually a really, one for us because we've done lots of work in Leeds and this is where this question has come from. So in Leeds, Natasha has two bins, a recycling and a general waste bin. The council have opted to just kind of mix everything, which we talked about in the first episode being not a great way of recycling. But, you know, I understand that Leeds work with the MRF to separate it all out. she says in the recycling bin she can recycle plastic bottles, metal cans, cardboard, paper, liquid cartons, foil trays, pots, tubs and trays, and soft plastics. I was amazed that Leeds are collecting soft plastics, so that's great. on the 1 August, Leeds council announced that they should be putting glass bottles and jars in the recycling bin, but they will also be leaving bottle banks in place. So this is a very long winded way of me asking this question, Robbie. But should Natasha continue to use the bottle banks as she has been doing, or should she do what Leeds council have asked and put it in her recycling bin

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bin where it'll get mixed with everything else?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh gosh, this is such a tough question, isn't it? Because on the one hand you want to say, yes, support this new service that the council are putting on, because the greater good, and the logic is that if everybody puts their glass in the bin, the recycling bin at home and engages with it, more glass will get recycled as a, as a total quantity. However, as we've mentioned in the many, descriptions around glass, the bottle bank does reduce contamination and it's a more of a target material for glass recyclers and it's probably got a higher likelihood of being remelted into the, glass containers. Call back to when we were looking at the process earlier than, being used for road aggregate, if it's all sort of mixed together.

James Piper: Agree. So what we're saying there is probably continued to use the bottle banks while they still exist. I am very pleased to see though that Leeds is recycling glass, because as I say, we did lots of work in Leeds. We set up a scheme called Leeds by example, which was all about recycling on the go. And I know I'd spent a lot of time talking to the MRF there who said they couldn't take glass because basically would damage the machinery, which it does. So it's great to see that they're doing that and presumably they're hand sorting that before it goes through that process. So well done, Leeds for including glass. But if you are in Leeds and you're able to go to a water bank, that's definitely the best thing to do.

Please follow usubishpodcast across all the socials

Another episode done.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, great. I mean, we're really rifling through these topics. I really enjoyed that.

James Piper: Thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you, Robbie, for joining us.

Robbie Staniforth: Quick shout out before we go. Oh, I don't think we've done any of the socials. Don't leave it to me, James.

James Piper: This is what happens when you just stop scripting and you just go off piece. I'm, so sorry, everyone. Okay, yes. please follow usubishpodcast across all the socials. That's TikTok x, Facebook, and whichever one I've missed out. Instagram. How did I forget that one? so follow usubishpodcast. Or you can email us at, talkingrubbishpodcastmail.com. and we'd love to get any of your questions or rubbish or not. So feel free to pop us an email. We're getting a nice little backlog, but, we'd love some more. So if you could do that, that would be great. You can also comment on Spotify, and if you're enjoying the podcast, make sure you take a second just to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. That's really helpful in terms of helping us grow. And please tell all your friends and family we continue to talk rubbish. And I promise you we've got some really exciting episodes coming up, so make sure you tell everyone to listen to us and that will help us significantly. Thank you. Thank you, Robbie, for reminding me to do that. I can't believe I was just, like, going off and saying bye. And now I will say bye.

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