Instead of the single-use paper or plastic cups that Gearhard would usually line up for the barista slinging espresso, he’s passing over shiny new reusable cups that bear the slogan “Sip, Return, Repeat”. Customers who need their lattes to go can take the purple cups with them, then return them to one of 60 bins scattered across downtown Petaluma when they’ve finished. Each cup comes with a trackable QR code to help monitor results.
Generally the whole of Germany has the Pfand system, where you pay a 25¢ deposit when you buy a bottle that you get back once you return it.
Tuebingen did their re-usable cups and bowl stuff to tackle trash from one time packaging like burgers, paper cups and so on. The city imposed a tax on the one time stuff that then “soft-forced” people to adopt the returnable packaging.
Honestly, it’s not much different to the refillable water bottles people carry around. Now people hand over their boxes to the Dönermann to get their Dönerbox.