Nonprofit Urges Reuse

Lynn Schenkman

The Reusable Pallet and Container Coalition (RPCC), Washington, D.C., will be expanding its national public awareness campaign to promote all types of reusable transport packaging to several states and municipalities. The Coalition hopes to convince more businesses to convert to or integrate various reusables into their transport packaging systems.

Since the RPCC was formed in 1999, the Coalition has been focused on promoting reusable transport packaging, but the coalition generally has been “associated with only plastic,” says Jeanie Johnson, RPCC executive director. “We're trying to be more focused in our whole message, which is reuse regardless of material: Wood, plastic, steel — we don't care if it's hair ribbons — as long as it's reusable.”

The goal is to see one-way transport packaging replaced with reusable packaging in the materials-handling industry, which for example, provides steel packaging for transporting motorcycles, Johnson says. Several RPCC leaders have planned speaking engagements. “If we nurture a reusables market, the government won't mandate it,” Johnson says.