Projects

Since its incor­po­ra­tion as a trade asso­ci­a­tion in 1999, RPA (for­merly RPCC) has brought lead­er­ship, sig­nif­i­cant change, and a wealth of deliv­er­ables to its mem­bers and the indus­try at large. The fol­low­ing is a selected list of those accomplishments. 

RPA encour­ages all mem­bers to pro­pose new projects.  To pro­pose a new project please down­load the RPA Project Request Form v2 (2) and return it to jwelcome@reuseables.org. 

Projects are reviewed for indus­try rel­e­vance and if approved are for­warded to the appro­pri­ate RPA com­mit­tee for fur­ther action. 

2011 Scope of Projects by RPA Committees

Mem­ber­ship Committee

• Retain exist­ing mem­ber­ship and add 10–12 new reg­u­lar mem­bers
• Develop and final­ize plan to expand new end user par­tic­i­pa­tion in the RPA
• Pro­vide a mem­ber­ship recog­ni­tion plaque for mem­ber to dis­play in their offices and at trade show show­ing they are RPA mem­bers
• Con­duct out­reach vis­its to key new mem­ber prospects

Mar­ket­ing Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee

• Improve inter­nal and exter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions by cre­at­ing a quar­terly newslet­ter to pro­mote the pro­grams and ser­vices of the orga­ni­za­tion
• Cre­ate a data­base of member’s staff, end users, key pol­icy influ­encers, edu­ca­tors and oth­ers groups and indi­vid­u­als inter­ested in pro­mot­ing reusable pack­ag­ing solu­tions
• Web­site man­age­ment — con­tinue to expand the func­tion­al­ity and con­tent made avail­able on the RPA web­site
• Con­tinue to do media out­reach to pro­mote RPA, its mem­bers and the indus­try
• Iden­tify new oppor­tu­ni­ties to brand RPA pro­grams and ser­vices and to pro­mote the value of mem­ber­ship in all our mes­sag­ing
• Iden­tify and eval­u­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties for the RPA and its mem­bers to inter­act with cus­tomers by devel­op­ing a reusable indus­try cal­en­dar of key mar­ket­ing events and pro­vid­ing mem­bers with new and inno­v­a­tive ways to reach cus­tomers through our new RPA Pavil­ion con­cept or other meet­ings and events dur­ing the year
• Com­mu­ni­cate the value of doing busi­ness with RPA mem­bers through new mem­ber mar­ket­ing plat­forms such as an enhanced elec­tronic mem­ber direc­tory, and printed Resource Guide for dis­tri­b­u­tion at meet­ings and events and par­tic­i­pa­tion in key trade events
• Pro­vide com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mar­ket­ing sup­port for the work of other committees

Indus­try Rela­tions Committee

• Engage indus­try experts by cre­at­ing new work­ing rela­tion­ships with acad­e­mia, pub­lic pol­icy and indus­try experts to pro­mote reuse as a core sus­tain­abil­ity strat­egy in the years ahead – form work­ing relationships/partnerships with pro­grams and thought lead­ers at Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity, IoPP, EPA, FDA and USDA
• Lever­age the new RPA Gen­eral Coun­sel to iden­tify and report on key legal, leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­tory issues which impact on RPA mem­bers busi­ness
• Build indus­try alliances to pro­mote envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nomic sus­tain­abil­ity through the use of reusables – specif­i­cally, develop strong work­ing rela­tion­ships with influ­en­tial indus­try and gov­ern­men­tal groups that drive the demand for reusable prod­ucts and ser­vices such as Wal-Mart SVN, MHIA, GMA and FMI and packaging-related groups such as RIPA
• Con­tinue to sup­port RPA’s efforts to curb the loss of reusable assets through the work of the Asset Loss Work­ing Coali­tion
• Expand the Stop­Waste con­cept – by sup­port­ing the Stop­Waste EPA appli­ca­tion for a grant to expand its work­shop pro­gram through­out the US

Edu­ca­tion Committee

• Cre­ate a Reusable Pack­ag­ing Indus­try Con­fer­ence Pro­gram at PACK EXPO in Las
Vegas in Sep­tem­ber 2011
• Final­ize the remain­ing three phases of the reusable cur­ricu­lum
• Eval­u­ate new eco­nomic & envi­ron­men­tal mod­el­ing tools such as EPA Warm Model and other tools to help build mar­ket growth
• Pro­mote the new project selec­tion process work with Mar­ket­ing & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­mit­tee to build inter­est in this ini­tia­tive to add new value added projects in 2011, solicit and eval­u­ate new sug­gested prod­ucts for imple­men­ta­tion
• Work with the Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­mit­tee to build a library of pre­sen­ta­tions, case stud­ies and other vehi­cles that pro­mote the value of reusable pack­ag­ing
• Work to pro­vide more reli­able eco­nomic and mar­ket data about the reusable indus­try and mar­ket­place

Recent 2010

One of the key ini­tia­tives for 2010 has been the rede­vel­op­ment of the RPA www.choosereusables.org web­site. The goal of this project is to present a bet­ter view of the indus­try, facil­i­tate bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tions of RPA activ­i­ties with its mem­bers and the pub­lic, and cre­ate a more high-impact and func­tional site to pro­mote reusable packaging.

RPA joined U.S. Tech­ni­cal Advi­sory Group to ISO TC 122/SC 4 to work on world­wide stan­dards for reusable packaging.

RPA con­tin­ues its work on the Wal-Mart Sup­plier Value Net­work (SVN) rep­re­sent­ing the industry’s inter­ests in expand­ing the use of reusable trans­port pack­ag­ing sys­tems through­out the Wal-Mart sup­ply chain system.

The RPA is host­ing the first ever Reusable Pack­ag­ing Pavil­ion at PACK EXPO in Chicago, Oct 31 – Nov 3, 2010. The Pavil­ion will fea­ture 13 RPA mem­bers exhibit­ing a wide array of reusable prod­ucts and ser­vices for the mar­ket­place. RPA will also host a work­shop at the show high­light­ing a basic intro­duc­tion to reusable pack­ag­ing for those inter­ested in learn­ing more about how reusable sup­ply chain solu­tions might fit into their busi­ness model.

The RPA’s Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee is work­ing on devel­op­ing a new com­pre­hen­sive reusable pack­ag­ing cur­ricu­lum designed to help end users adopt a reusable strat­egy from project con­cept incep­tion through project refine­ment. This four-phase cur­ricu­lum is slated to be com­pleted by the sec­ond quar­ter of 2011 and will be made avail­able in var­i­ous for­mats for instruc­tional purposes.

RPA is sup­port­ing efforts by StopWaste.Org to win a grant from the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) to expand the partnership’s efforts to bring infor­ma­tion about the ben­e­fits of reusable pack­ag­ing to a wider audi­ence through­out the U.S.

RPA formed a work­ing task force to look­ing into the prob­lem of theft of reusable assets. This effort is in coop­er­a­tion with the Amer­i­can Bak­ery Asso­ci­a­tion, the Amer­i­can Bev­er­age Asso­ci­a­tion, Inter­na­tional Food and Dairy Asso­ci­a­tion and other inter­ested par­ties to develop a com­pre­hen­sive approach to deter­ring the theft or mis­use of reusable assets in the marketplace.

RPA cre­ated a work­ing task force to look into the issue of cost-effectively recov­er­ing reusable assets in less-than-a-truck-load sce­nario. Low-volume users is a promis­ing new mar­ket for reusable solu­tions, but the cost of recov­er­ing these assets can make devel­op­ing this mar­ket costly and could impact the future growth of the indus­try. The task force is look­ing into ways to address this issue for all affected members.

2009

The RPA com­pleted the most sweep­ing field trial of its kind in a ground-breaking study on RFID. Fol­low­ing on the heels of lab­o­ra­tory tests, the eco­nomic ben­e­fits and enhanced sup­ply chain vis­i­bil­ity that can be achieved through RFID tech­nol­ogy and multi-use tags in reusable trans­port pack­ag­ing was stud­ied and doc­u­mented with mul­ti­ple sup­ply chain partners.

RPA con­tin­ued its part­ner­ship with Alameda County, California’s StopWaste.org to bring reusable sup­ply chain solu­tions to local and national busi­ness enter­prises. In 2009, the

RPA and StopWaste.Org spon­sored two work­shops to con­vert busi­nesses in the Bay area to reusables; this part­ner­ship is the model for other munic­i­pal­i­ties across the country.

RPA hosted it’s first-ever Choose Reusables Con­fer­ence at PACK EXPO in Las Vegas, NV. The pur­pose of the con­fer­ence was to help build a greater aware­ness of the role of reusable trans­port pack­ag­ing for a diver­si­fied pack­ag­ing audience.

Past (Prior to 2008)

The new RPA was offi­cially launched with booth, press con­fer­ence, and cel­e­bra­tory recep­tion in May 2008 at the United Fresh/FMI con­ven­tions in Las Vegas.

The 2008 RPA Edu­ca­tion Forum was held Sep­tem­ber 24-25^th at the Water­front Hotel in Oak­land, CA.

Label Stan­dard­iza­tion Guide­lines for track­ing and track­ing RPCs were developed.

50 State Tax Sur­vey on Statutes and Pro­vi­sions favor­able to Reusable Con­tain­ers and
Pal­lets was completed.

Spon­sored study/article writ­ten by three aca­d­e­mi­cians on Envi­ron­men­tal Ben­e­fits of Reusables. The arti­cle was pub­lished in an inter­na­tional jour­nal and peer-reviewed. (The arti­cle was based on an inde­pen­dent envi­ron­men­tal study com­mis­sioned by RPCC and con­ducted by Franklin Associates.)

Two-year ground break­ing study on envi­ron­men­tal “cra­dle to grave” results of energy usage com­par­ing reusables with one-way cor­ru­gated pack­ag­ing with 10 dif­fer­ent appli­ca­tions was com­pleted. The Life Cycle Inven­tory data con­cluded: reusables require 39% total energy; reduce green­house gas emis­sions by 29%; and pro­duce 95% less solid waste.

RTP San­i­ta­tion Guide­lines developed.

RTP Meat and Poul­try Indus­try Guide­lines developed.

Mixed Load Com­pat­i­bil­ity Test­ing completed.

RPA and Twin Cities formed the first-of-its-kind part­ner­ship between a gov­ern­men­tal agency and a trade asso­ci­a­tion to con­duct a cam­paign to con­vert busi­nesses to reusables.

CA Guide­lines on Ship­ping Stone Fruit completed.

Major state leg­isla­tive tax vic­to­ries in CA, FL, GA, NJ and other states for reusable trans­port packaging.

For more infor­ma­tion about RPA projects please con­tact jwelcome@reusables.org
 

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