New York startup replacing single-use containers with reusable PP

Fed up with seeing takeout containers and coffee cups littering New York streets, entrepreneur Caroline Vanderlip sought to craft a system that would reduce single-use waste.

The idea began in 2019 with a desire to overhaul the to-go industry with reusable containers. But after months of development, it became clear that it would be a risky challenge to disrupt consumer behaviors.

Instead, Vanderlip decided on a more targeted approach: a reusable dishware program that would partner with corporate cafeterias, schools and other institutions to replace single-use packaging with containers that could be washed and recirculated. That is the premise of Re:Dish, a Williamsburg-based startup officially founded in 2020 that says it has diverted more than 22,000 pounds of trash from landfills and other waste systems so far this year.

Re:Dish’s containers are molded from polypropylene and are dishwasher and freezer safe. The company does not identify its supplier, but said they are made in Oregon.

"We take something that people don't really think about—the packaging that their food is in—and on an individual basis it may not feel like a lot of environmental savings, but when you aggregate that across tens of thousands of users on a daily basis, it becomes quite significant," said Vanderlip, Re:Dish's founder and CEO.

The concept is simple: Re:Dish provides reusable containers to a client for food service. Once diners are finished, they drop those containers—which are custom-made in an Oregon plant—in bins that Re:Dish then collects and trucks to its industrial cleaning facility in Williamsburg, and the cycle repeats. Workers process up to 8,000 pounds of dishware per day, though Vanderlip says the startup has the capacity to process nearly 100,000 pounds each day.

Currently, Re:Dish says, the firm is partnered with multiple Fortune 500 companies, five schools and a couple of film sets. The firm charges 60 cents per container, with varied rates for schools, and expects to close 2022, its first year of operations, which started in March due to the pandemic, with just shy of three quarters of a million dollars in revenue, said Vanderlip. The startup expects to generate between $5 million and $7 million in revenue for 2023.

Environmental impact

The firm has crafted a nifty dashboard, called Dish Track, that allows companies to quantify the environmental impact of using Re:Dish's services in real time. That data can be folded into companies' emissions reporting and toward sustainability goals.

"We want to encourage reuse in large institutions because the impact can be greater than the individual consumer or one restaurant," said Vanderlip. "So we are very focused on institutions and the education of the employees or students of that institution as to why it matters."

Waste that would typically be sent to a landfill is eliminated, and the carbon emitted and water that would have been used during the manufacturing process is saved. The system is also a greener alternative than compostable packaging, which in some cases requires more energy and water to manufacture than its plastic counterparts.

"All of the environmental impacts, from a carbon standpoint, are really happening before the packaging has ever even made it to a person to use in the first place," said Rich Grousset, vice president of sustainability at Re:Dish. He stressed that the energy used to manufacture single-use products is consistently higher than what it takes to pick up, wash and bring back containers. "And so trying to shift people's thinking to understand that is really important."

Toward that end, Re:Dish has sought to green every aspect possible of its operations. It optimizes its trucking routes, with the fleet traveling less than 15 miles per day. (A switch to electric vehicles is the goal but currently cost-prohibitive.) Equipment recirculates some of the water used in the cleaning process, and the firm hopes to eventually purify and reuse all the water used for on-site washing.

When reusable containers are damaged and need to be replaced, Re:Dish sends them back to the manufacturer, which grinds them down and repurposes the flakes into new dishware. The company also repurposes a plastic film the manufacturer uses in the shipping process by partnering with aNYbag, a local company that uses the material to create handbags.

"My experience has been that people will do the right thing when it's put in front of them," said Grousset. "That's what we're seeing play out in these institutional settings where we operate: If you just swap out the single-use products for the reusables, everyone uses it."