When we think about reusable containers, we often think about saving the planet - but did you know that you could be saving space as well?? Storage space, that is! (sorry, I can never resist a pun).

So many college campuses struggle with storage space - especially in a big city. Storage is often at a premium in the back of the house as it is, with shipments of food, beverages and paper goods moving in and out all day long. Add to that to the chemicals, pots and pans case packs of compostable to go containers and you have quite a crowd!

That’s where reusable containers come to the rescue. Our clients are always surprised to learn how much space savings can come with a reusable program. How is that possible, you ask? Well, for starters, the life of a reusable container is very different from a single use container.

See, single use containers are purchased in bulk and if you are like a lot of campuses out there, you go through hundreds (if not thousands) of containers each month. Let’s use this example from an urban campus.

Currently, they have about 1400 to go meals served each day. They are trying to be as sustainable as possible, so they purchase biodegradable clamshells. 1400 to go meals a day means that they use about 4 cases of clamshells each day - OR an entire pallet of containers every 9 days. A whole pallet! That takes up a lot of space. Not only that, the containers have to constantly be reordered, received and stored. That’s a lot of extra work.

Now, let’s consider the lifecycle of a reusable container in the situation outlined above. If you have 1400 to go meals served each day - and allow the students to keep the containers for 2 days before returning them - that means you should have about 3000 containers on hand.

On Day 1, 1400 containers get sent out into circulation, leaving 1600 behind. Day 2, based on our data, about 700 containers will be returned and sent back to the dishroom. Also, on Day 2, another 1400 containers will be deployed. By Day 3, all of the initial containers have been returned and washed and the cycle continues. At any given moment, a reusable container is either:

Clean and Ready
In Use
In a Return Bin
In the Dishroom

And then the cycle continues!

At USEFULL, we have been collecting and analyzing data for years. We know that the average USEFULL container is returned in 28 hours - no matter how long the allotted usage period is. So, you can feel safe knowing that if you embark on our reusable program, you never have to worry about overcrowding in your storage room or worse yet, running out of disposable take out containers entirely. Isn’t it time to save the earth….and space?

The Magic of Reuse: Space Saving