Why a network?
As a private person you can get your reCIRCLE BOX at a reCIRCLE restaurant. Are there no partners in your area? Then get in touch with us and tell us your favourite restaurant.
You can recognize partners by looking for the reCIRCLE beachflag or the door label at the entrance. You can also find them on our map. At those restaurants you can order your meal in the reCIRCLE BOX.
You pay CH 10.- for the reCIRCLE
BOX and enjoy your food wherever you like, at home, at work, at the park or even at the pool! After you finish your meal you just return your reCIRCLE BOX at the next partner and get either a refund or a new BOX - your choice. Or you clean the reCIRCLE BOX yourself, keep it as long as you want and just refill it over and over again. It`s that simple!
Damaged reCIRCLE BOXes can be exchanged for new ones at our partner restaurants. They are collected by our partners, returned to us, recycled directly by the producer and thus receive a new life!
Together we can save valuable ressources on an everyday basis: Use a reCIRCLE BOX once a week instead of a disposable container and you can already save 1,5 kg of Plastic waste per year.
Because sharing is more sustainable than owning.
Why reuse?
Or even better: Why use disposable containers if you can eat your delicious food out of a practical, chic and tightly closing reusable bowl?
More and more takeaway lovers are switching from disposable to reusable.
Our products can be washed hunderets of times and - if they are well taken care of - even longer than that.
Everyday 50`000 disposable contaiers are being replaced. That equals 1`500 garbage bags saved in only one day.
By washing instead of throwing away you can save valuable ressources. Using a reCIRCLE BOX seven times already makes it more environmentally friendly than disposable plates. Show the world that you care about the environment and the future of our planet.
You can even use the reCIRCLE BOX at home, as a lunchbox or on the road. Because the container and the lid are both separately stackable, they are very space saving.
Thanks to the reCIRCLE BOX you can even save food waste: Just take your leftovers with you and eat them later, when you are hungry again. You don`t need to throw them away with the disposable packaging.
So let us ask you: Why not reuse?
Why aubergine?
reCIRCLE is new. To achieve a change in behaviour, it must be made visible. Therefore we had to choose a colour that clearly stands out against existing packaging colours.
Any meal looks delicious in it! We want the focus to be more on the food than on the colour of the reCIRCLE BOX. All food colours match with the reCIRCLE BOX. Green salad, red tomatos, or yellow curry - all food colours go with the reCIRCLE BOX. A brighter colour would stain easily from heavy coloured ingredients like curcuma, beetroot or carrots.
Gender neutral! The colour had to be accepted by both men and women equally and so far experience shows that augergine is working.
Aubergine is conquering Switzerland as the colour of reusables!
There are places where the aubergine coloured reCIRCLE BOX is already a remarkable part of the city image. Its visibility thoughout the city - be it a cool woman or a nice guy, who is walking though town or queueing in front of a hip restaurant, eating delicious food - makes it attract more customers very quickly.
Why Plastic?
Believe us, we`ve spent a lot of time on this subject. We would like
nothing more than to have a material which is made of love and which
becomes love again after every meal. Unfortunately this does not exist
yet. Therefore we asked our different target groups what they expect
from a reusable packaging.:
The restaurants want something tightly stackable, fast-closing, shatterproof.
The hygienists want a container that can be washed and dried easily and cleanly and that is ventilated well while stacked so that no moisture can accumulate.
It is important to customers that it is leak-proof and must be dishwasher and microwave-proof - and affordable!
The logisticians and environmentalists want a container that can be used as long and as much as possible and that does not break when washed, stacked or dropped.
Cities and communities want a container that cannot contain any risk of injury, for example a shard of glass if it is broken.
We have analysed and tested the following materials:
Glass breaks quickly and tempered glass is not recyclable. Glass performs poorlywhen it comes to stackability and it becomes so hot that it can no longer be held. Due to temperature differences, a vacuum can form.
Aluminium or chrome steel can not be put in the microwave. That alone is a killer criterion. In order not to burn your fingers, the containerwould have to be double-walled, which would mean high costs, that would not be accepted by the customers. It is also difficult to seal the containers properly, because clips or silicone edges are not hygienic, because germs and bacteria can hide behind them.
Compostable materials are neither dishwasher proof nor durable! That also includes wood.
Click here to know more about our reCIRCLE materials!
The restaurants want something tightly stackable, fast-closing, shatterproof.
The hygienists want a container that can be washed and dried easily and cleanly and that is ventilated well while stacked so that no moisture can accumulate.
It is important to customers that it is leak-proof and must be dishwasher and microwave-proof - and affordable!
The logisticians and environmentalists want a container that can be used as long and as much as possible and that does not break when washed, stacked or dropped.
Cities and communities want a container that cannot contain any risk of injury, for example a shard of glass if it is broken.
Glass breaks quickly and tempered glass is not recyclable. Glass performs poorlywhen it comes to stackability and it becomes so hot that it can no longer be held. Due to temperature differences, a vacuum can form.
Aluminium or chrome steel can not be put in the microwave. That alone is a killer criterion. In order not to burn your fingers, the containerwould have to be double-walled, which would mean high costs, that would not be accepted by the customers. It is also difficult to seal the containers properly, because clips or silicone edges are not hygienic, because germs and bacteria can hide behind them.
Compostable materials are neither dishwasher proof nor durable! That also includes wood.
The production of bioplastics
from food makes no sense. Even plastics made from renewable resources
(palm leaves, bamboo or potato peels) are provided with additives and
are therefore no healthier than traditional plastics. Biodegradable is
not the same as compostable: bioplastics are often thrown into the
compost, which destroys the collection. Right now, bioplastics are more
of a problem, than a solution.
Why an app?
Fast, easy, contactless, deposit handling and customer loyalty with the new reCIRCLE App
The reCIRCLE APP is a modern, NFC-based smartphone application that digitizes the depot handling for reCIRCLE BOXes. This makes the payment process easier for our partners, they can handle the reCIRCLE BOXes more efficiently. The app also contains an overview map of all reCIRCLE partners and a loyalty points function to help you find our partners and increase customer loyalty.
All reCIRCLE partners are marked on the map with the aubergine pin.
App Supporter, where you can load your BOX onto the App, are marked with a green dot.
Points Supporter, where you can collect loyalty points, are marked with a yellow dot.
Please note that the app is brand new and therefore still prone to errors. If you notice a problem, please let us know!
(Your device must be NFC compatible.)
Life-cycle assessment
The following diagram illustrates, that the increasing spread of convenience products, which are often packaged in disposable containers and consumed in public places, causes various problems.
On the one hand, they consume a disproportionate amount of energy and resources compared to their life cycle. On the other hand, in many cases they are not disposed of properly, which leads to unclean streets and parks and in extreme cases even contaminates pastures.
So far, there are no possibilities to transfer these disposable containers to a recycling process, so they have to be thermally recycled.
With the life-cycle assessment it was determined that less than 10 washing cycles are required until the reCIRCLE BOX has a lower environmental impact than disposable containers*.
This is particularly true in the case of production, since the environmental impact of production can be broken down into the number of circulation cycles due to reuse for the 10 or 200 circulation cycles shown here.
*Containers were included in the comparison which are very common among the takeaways participating in the pilot project in Berne and which correspond approximately to the reCIRCLE BOX (then called "Bring Back Box") in their functionality.
