REZIP - EU Circular Packaging Infrastructure

The eCommerce sector has been on the rise for many years. The amount of packaging material needed to transport the huge number of products being sold has reached a staggering level. In 2020, around 131,000,000,000 eCommerce related small parcels were shipped globally. This potentially amounted to 131 billion pieces of single-use packaging used for transport packaging, equivalent to 4,160 parcels per second, for which some kind of transport packaging would be wasted after delivery.  

In 2020, the total number of eCommerce parcels in Europe was estimated to be around 20 billion, with the UK and Germany accounting for almost half of the total European parcel shipments - 5 and 4 billion parcels respectively. Denmark is estimated to account for around 180 million parcels a year.  

In 2022, a Zero Waste Europe report estimated that cardboard boxes account for 86 % of the total single use packaging in Europe by weight, with a total of 2,495.4 ktonnes of material used a year. Cardboard boxes are 6-7 times heavier than the average plastic bag.  

The number of parcels is expected to double within five years according to current growth patterns, creating an even bigger waste problem, and leaving certain countries and areas with no other choice than to burn or dump massive amount of waste materials. 

RE-ZIP is a small Danish company providing circular packaging solutions for eCommerce mail delivery. RE-ZIP has developed a circular packaging concept, creating added value to all parts of the value chain loop. By introducing an infrastructure for circular eCommerce packaging, the same packaging can be re-used up to 30 times. Only when the packaging has lost its structural strength, is it sent for recycling. 

The overall goal of the RE-ZIP project is to establish an efficient return infrastructure that in time will be able to circulate reusable eCommerce packaging at a lower cost than the cost of producing single use packaging today, thereby moving the entire eCommerce industry away from single-use packaging.  

The RE-ZIP circular packaging concept is already working effectively in Denmark and, during the this project, the financial and environmental sustainability of the RE-ZIP concept will be tested and further improved in Romania, Poland, France and Italy, as a trial for a full roll-out of a pan-European network.  

During the project, RE-ZIP will provide partners in each country with the required logistical software solutions, circular packaging designs, and the documentation needed for establishing and running local cleaning hubs where circular packaging is received, processed and redistributed. By using the RE-ZIP software, partners can use their existing parcel infrastructure to efficiently process the circular packaging and, by building on their existing customer relations, they will ensure a fast rollout in the market.  

The infrastructure to be tested and validated includes: 

PUDO and mail system (WP4) - PUDO – Pick Up Drop Off point aka parcel shop, parcel lockers 

Parcel shops/lockers and parcel system 

Potential combination of both infrastructure 

The project’s specific objectives are to: 

Implement and validate the RE-ZIP concept in several Member States 

Prepare the RE-ZIP concept for roll-out on an industrial scale 

Reach a return rate of RE-ZIP packaging above 75 % 

Demonstrate the potential of the RE-ZIP concept in other sectors and setups 

The project’s expected results are to: 

Put more than 120 million reusable packages into circulation 

Save 17,000 tonnes of cardboard and plastic waste 

Reduce CO₂ emissions by 18,000 tonnes  

Reduce water consumption by 12,000m3 

Create more than 300 jobs at the return hubs, where packaging is cleaned and redistributed