Kvatt collaborates with UK clothing brand for reusable e-commerce packaging trial

UK packaging start-up Kvatt has partnered with fellow British clothing brand Toast to trial reusable e-commerce mail bags, aiming to reduce single-use packaging waste. 

Gianfranco Bächtold, founder at Kvatt, says: “Through our service, a Toast item is delivered in a returnable mail bag with instructions. You attach the prepaid label on the back, drop the empty packaging in any post box around the country, and it returns to our system.

Toast says that after arriving at Kvatt’s facility, the packaging is sorted, cleaned, and reused up to ten times. When the bags, named Charlie by Kvatt, reach the end of their life, they are sent to a third-party partner who transforms them into road cones.

The pilot program currently only allows Toast orders with two or fewer items to be sent in reusable packaging, but the clothing retailer is looking to continue its collaboration with Kvatt. 

“When you start thinking about reuse, there’s an opportunity around the quality of what we can create,” says Bächtold.

Reuse responsibly

In 2023, the UK accumulated around 5.4 million metric tons of paper and cardboard packaging waste, alongside approximately 2.3 million metric tons of plastic packaging, according to Toast.

Bächtold says: “Single-use packaging is optimized for function and cost, whereas we have much greater freedom with the design of our product. It’s higher quality because of its nature and needs to be renewed”.

Toast indicates that it aims to change the definition of packaging as not just something that carries an item to its destination but valued as something that “signals meaningful change.” 

Consumers and the industry are placing more emphasis on packaging reuse systems to curb single-use plastic waste.

Recently, Duo UK collaborated with Oxfam Ireland to bring reusable sugarcane-based mailing bags to Ireland’s e-commerce market. Meanwhile, DS Smith released the GoChill Cooler, a recyclable and reusable cooler that aims to reduce reliance on plastic and styrofoam substitutes.