Would reused packaging put you off a food item or draw you in?

[preserving]

Wa product with single use packaging or that is newould you buy jam in jars (not lids) that have been reused (washed and sterilised) and drinks such as apple juice in glass bottles (again, not lids) that have been washed and sterilised?
Also flavoured salts/ oils/ gin/ dried herbs etc in glass jars that have been saved from landfil and washed/ sterilised?

Yabu- this would put me off, I want brand new packaging for food/ drinks

Yanbu- the market needs to shift into REUSED packaging and this change would make me choose this company/ product over a product with single use/ brand new packaging/ recycled or partly recycled packaging.

YANBU would LOVE this

Oops sorry, forgot to add what would your thoughts be if the company offered a 10% discount for each jar/ bottle returned. With a limit to 30% off each product.

a lot of companies already do this, and I am all for it

My milk comes in reused bottles, veg box is in reused boxes.
It's the way forward I think. I also really appreciate packaging being collected back from me.

I think its a great idea. I think that realistically, companies should be working towards this.

It may seem odd at first, but I think people would quickly get used to it - in the same way we've got used to paper straws, recycling as standard, etc.

For a while I had a subscription from Freddies Flowers and I LOVED that they collected the packaging to reuse them. Yes it was a faff keeping it in the garage for a month until they collected it, but to be honest, I can't see why Amazon can't do this.

They have distribution plants across the country, and their own vans, so why not swap a delivery for a collection of an old box? Surely it would save them money in the long run

@sunandfog that's good to hear. Would lack of consistency in product packaging put you off? So if you ordered 3 different jams and 4 bottles of juice but they came in different styles of jars or bottles, however the labels and lids would match, just not the actual jar.

(this wouldn't affect amount. so you wouldn't pay £10 for bottles of pop but one comes in 500ML and the other comes in 1L bottle. They would both be 1L bottles.)

This is already a thing, it’s very popular with those who can afford it. Unfortunately, glass is very heavy and brittle so the transport costs and wastage are actually very high. Because of the additional fuel required to transport it, the environmental benefits aren’t quite what people think and the additional costs of the fuel and wastage are passed onto consumers so it’s not really viable for a mass market product at the moment.

YANBU. So much stuff is single-use that could be re-usable.

I don’t think you’re aware of the logistical and operational difficulties of achieving this. If jars/bottles are different sizes then how would you safely package them to transport from a factory to a store? It would take more time and more packaging to ensure they don’t get broken. It would even take more time to fill them. That would cost a lot of money. How would they stack on a supermarket shelf?

The costs would be astronomical and, whilst people might like the concept, no one is paying 3x as much for jam in a reclaimed jar.

What’s likely to be a more viable solution would be to have packaging free supermarkets where the food is in large vats/buckets/tubes in the store, you take your own reusable containers and buy your products in weight (similar to how we have some fruit/veg now - but could be applied to almost all foods). But that requires a lot of up front investment from supermarkets and food suppliers in co-operation. They’re reluctant to do so for a whole host of reasons.

Ooh great responses.
Would a count of how many jars/ bottles that have been saves from landfil per year be something you'd be interested in?

I know some people have a little moan about the innocent smoothie bottles because it's a bit cringey. Im sure there was a thread on here about it.

(I'm not setting up a business one day, let me dream but I think about what I would want and its annoying because the really ethical companies cost considerably more than aldi or lidl (reasonable I understand) and it's quite upsetting being 'too poor to be ethical'. Free range eggs cost more, organic costs more, local business's cost more, plastic free packaging costs more.
I was hoping the discount for keeping and returning the packaging would be an incentive for people with smaller budgets to be interested.
We still have the problem of distribution usually the postage and packaging puts me off. Its not a £1 profuct if you have to pay £4 for delivery. AND I can't necessarily afford the buy 10x the product to make delivery worth it.

Yup. They keep costing down because the machines are programmed for one shape,wrapper,system of packaging that is coded unto the machine. If in a row they were all different it just couldn't work.not fir mass market.so again the wealth gap

Vile. I would not use and would tell others to avoid too.

@FoxInSocksSatOnBlocks that's a big reaction, what makes you feel so disgusted by reusing the glass? Is it fear of contamination?

I think it were the companies own packaging in a cycle I would be happy with this. If it were any old bottle or shape less so because I would be worried about inconsistency in process. Ie. A cylindrical jar is easier to clean than a hexagonal, and was the machine designed for this.

Also there are some zero waste shops which are essentially bulk 'supermarkets' but the ones I've looked at online are so expensive I couldn't justify paying that much, then also don't stock ham/ cheese/ meat. Just dry goods which are usually the cheapest part of my shop.

if I won the lottery I wouldn't think twice.

That's basically central (and other) european model.

Some plastic and many glass bottles are returnable and carry tiny deposit you get back when you return them.
Plaatic is recycled, but I believe glass is used often as is?
Either way, it's common practice tu reuse packaging at home as well

OK so if coca Cola started having glass bottles and they let you bring the bottle back to the shop and they collected the glass bottles back with the delivery of the new bottles, would you buy that?

@IHaveaSetOfVeryParticularSkills I wonder why we haven't adopted the same over here then?
surely you'd get less rubbish in the streets if kids could gather it up for a bit of extra pocket money

Like the old fashioned milkmen used to do.
And fizzy drinks of old.

Might be overall attitute to recycling. Recycling is big in some places.

I just checked and 1 beer bottle can do up to 10 rounds apparently!

THis already happens though, my milkman does milk, juice, water, yogurt all in glass that goes back to be reused. they also do things like shampoo, conditioner etc

Why exactly? This is what used to happen with glass milk bottles when I was young. You put your empties out and they were collected when the next delivery came, were washed, sterilised and reused. Pretty sure no one died as a result of a reused milk bottle.

There's a package-less shop near us which is great. You can take your own packaging or buy glass jars etc from them. It's a fab idea.

This was always the way things were done in the past. As kids we used to collect empty pop bottles to return to the shop for pennies to spend on sweets. It’s ridiculous that companies ever stopped doing it at all!