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Reusable packaging in supply chains: A review of environmental and economic

impacts, logistics system designs, and operations management

Article  in  International Journal of Production Economics · March 2020

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.107730

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 Reusable packaging in supply chains: A review of environmental and economic impacts, logistics
system designs, and operations management

Monirehalsadat Mahmoudi*
School of Packaging, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, Michigan, 48824, mahmou18@msu.edu

Irandokht Parviziomran
School of Packaging, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, Michigan, 48824, parvizio@msu.edu

*Corresponding authors

Abstract
The pivotal shift from single-use to reusable packaging has recently challenged the concept of packaging
ownership. Extant literature have studied supply chain systems using reusable packaging for bundling
(known as secondary packaging) or transportation (known as tertiary packaging) of products. Although
using reusable packaging for containing products (known as primary packaging) has been tested by more
than two dozen of the world’s biggest brands (e.g., Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Procter & Gamble), it has not
received much attention in studies concerning supply chain systems yet. In this paper, we aim to review the
extant literature in light of (1) the environmental and economic costs of reusable packaging, (2) the design
of reusable packaging logistics systems, and (3) the implications of operations management for reusable
packaging. Based on our analysis of existing studies, we then deliver insights and potential opportunities
for future research on reusable packaging.

Keywords: Returnable transport items, reusable packaging, inventory routing problem, life cycle
assessment, reverse logistics, RFID technology.

1. Introduction
1.1. Background
The pivotal shift from single-use to reusable packaging has recently challenged the concept of packaging
ownership. This shift has made a package an asset for the product company, and hence, the company is
motivated to make the package as long-lasting and durable as possible. TerraCycle is a small company that
has recently compelled more than two dozen of the world’s biggest brands such as Nestlé, PepsiCo, and
Procter & Gamble to begin testing reusable packaging for their products (Makower, 2019). TerraCycle has
unveiled a new circular delivery service for consumers called “Loop”, which is a circular shopping platform
that replaces single-use packaging with a durable, reusable one. Consumers can order goods from the Loop
website (or that of a partner) and have them delivered like traditional products ordered online. Customers
pay a small deposit for a package that has been designed for 100 or more use-cycles. When the container
becomes empty, customers place it in a specially designed tote for pickup or, in some cases, can bring it to
a retailer. They can choose whether they want that product replenished; if not, their deposit is returned or
credited to their account. The empties are sent to a facility where they are washed and refilled. The focus
of the Loop’s service is on the rotation of primary packages for basic products such as shampoo, toothpaste,
ice cream, etc. (the concept of primary packaging will be explained in the next paragraph).
Palsson (2018) classified packages based on their layer or functionality into three different categories:
(1) primary packaging which is the packaging that first envelops the product and holds it. This category of
packaging is in direct contact with the product; (2) secondary packaging which is an outer packaging layer
of the primary packaging and may be used to prevent theft or to bundle primary packages together; and (3)
tertiary or transit packaging which is used for bulk handling, warehouse storage, and transport shipping.
Tertiary packaging. StopWaste and Reusable Pallet & Container Coalition (2007) provided a list of virtues
reusable tertiary packaging brings to the system. Reusable transport packages improve workers safety and
ergonomics, because (1) their material and design reduce or eliminate injuries due to box cutting, staples,
and broken containers, (2) their ergonomically designed handles and access doors improve workers safety,
(3) their standardized sizes and weights reduce back injuries, and (4) they reduce the risk of slip and fall
injuries by removing in-plant debris. Reusable transport packaging also provides just-in-time delivery of
the finished products, because it provides standardized ordering quantities which can improve ordering
procedures and inventory tracking. In addition, it provides more frequent shipments of smaller quantities
and offers deliveries close to the time of consumption which can reduce the number of days that dollars and
inventory are nonproductive.
Secondary packaging. Reusable secondary packaging can have advantages that are common with the
tertiary option (see StopWaste and Reusable Pallet & Container Coalition, 2007). Both can reduce the
product damage, because the risk of packaging failure during the transportation is lower when using
reusables compared to when using single-use containers. They can also improve the quality of the finished
product delivered to the end user (consumer) as ventilated reusable containers increase shelf-life and
freshness. Furthermore, using these packaging systems for shipping products in a supply chain can make
substantial cost-savings since cost of reusable packages can be spread over several years. In addition, both
packaging systems can be beneficial from waste management perspective as they produce less waste to be
managed for recycling or disposal. Finally, one of the main reasons of using such packaging systems is
their environmental impacts. By using this type of containers, the need for building disposal facilities or
recycling facility centers is dampened. Using this type of containers for delivering products may also reduce
the greenhouse gas emission rates and overall energy consumption of the whole system.
Primary packaging. Makower (2019) listed three virtues for this category of packaging systems: (1) it
moves from disposal or recycling to reuse which is a huge environmental upgrade; (2) it moves from
relatively low value packaging materials to arguably luxury or game-changing packaging materials (e.g.,
from multi-layered plastic film to stainless steel, glass, or engineered plastics); and (3) it brings out new
features that could have never been experienced by disposable packages (e.g., a double wall stainless steel
container that keeps ice cream frozen for a number of hours after removing it from the freezer).
Different types of reusable packaging are observed with different terms in the literature. For example,
“returnable packaging materials” and “returnable transport items” are the terms used for reusable primary
and tertiary packaging, respectively (Carrasco-Gallego et al., 2012). Refillable glass bottles for beverages
(Goh and Varaprasad 1986, Del Castillo and Cochran 1996), gas cylinders (Kelle and Silver 1989a,b),
containers for chemicals, single-use cameras (Toktay et al. 2000), special packaging designed for
transporting medical equipments, wind turbine parts, and steel coils (Rubio et al. 2009) are some examples
of returnable packaging materials. Pallets, maritime containers (Crainic et al. 1993), railcars (Young et al.
2002), standardized vessels for fluid transportation, crates, tote boxes, collapsible plastic boxes, trays
(Duhaime et al. 2001), roll cages (Carrasco-Gallego and Ponce-Cueto 2009), barrels, trolleys, pallet collars,
racks, lids, etc. are some examples of returnable transport items being used in business-to-business settings.
Returnable transport items can be also used in business-to-customer settings such as supermarket trolleys,
baggage trolleys in airports and train stations, and wheeled bins arranged by local councils (Breen 2006).

1.2. Aims and contributions

Granted the aforementioned virtues for reusable packages, a company willing to adopt such a system for
their products should address the following questions before altering their current packaging system: (1) is
reusable packaging environmentally and economically feasible? (2) If so, what is the proper design for their
logistics system? (3) What are the implications of operations management for reusable packages? In Figure
1, we illustrate these steps schematically. In this paper, we aim to contribute to the literature by reviewing
existing studies in light of the foregoing three questions and identify potential directions/opportunities for
future research in this regard. To name a few, the future research could (i) incorporate environmental factors
(e.g., carbon taxes, environmental externalities, and eco-costs), consumers’ behavior, and packaging
designs in measuring costs, (ii) explore the impact of ownership and third-party logistics in the operations
of reusable packaging systems, (iii) analyze such systems under more complicated, and yet realistic, settings
(e.g., multiple sender-recipient pairs, variations in the quality of packages, asymmetric information between
third parties and senders/recipients), and (iv) consider inter-parties and product-demand-package
coordination in managing operations. For a comprehensive discussion regarding these items and many
others, one can refer to Section 6.

Step1: Step 3:
Step 2: Reusable packaging
Feasibility/viability Logistics system design operations management
• Measure environmental and economic costs • Design activities and responsibilities of • Inventory management
• Comparison of reusable against single-use participants in a reusable packaging system. • Routing and scheduling
packaging o Participants: sender, central agency, carrier, • Purchasing and repairing policies
and recipient • Performance measurements
Figure 1. An illustration for the aims of our review paper

It should be noted that the reusable primary packaging is a newer concept compared to
secondary/tertiary options. Therefore, the existing literature have primarily focused on supply chains using
reusable packaging with these options. As a result, we have observed the aforementioned research
directions and opportunities with respect to these types of reusable packaging. Nevertheless, given the scope
of our proposed research directions (e.g., costs, ownership, complexity of the system, quality of the
package, and symmetric information, etc.), all these opportunities could also be applied for a primary
reusable packaging option.
To the best of our knowledge, our paper is among the first studies reviewing the operations of reusable
packaging systems. Glock (2017) has recently provided a review on returnable transport items, albeit our
approach is different from the following standpoints: (1) as one of our classification schemes, we review
the literature based on both economical/environmental factors that would impact costs (or criteria to
measure these costs); (2) we consider the literature discussing various issues that might arise due to a
packaging ownership; (3) we analyze the literature based on various factors in the inventory management
of reusable packages, such as a planning horizon, a balance between the supply and demand of packages,
and the number of usage for a reusable package; (4) we shed lights on both quantitative and qualitative
studies on reusable packaging; and (5) we consider both peer-reviewed journal papers and conference
proceedings in searching for relevant studies in the literature.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents our review methodology. Section 3
provides a review of studies analyzing the impact of environmental and economic factors on reusable
packaging supply chains. Section 4 provides a review of studies on various designs for reusable packaging
logistics systems. Section 5 provides a review of studies on the operations management of reusable
packaging. In Section 6, we discuss various opportunities for future research and conclude the paper.

2. Review methodology
To identify studies that have focused on reusable packaging in supply chains, we conducted a structured
literature review based on the methodologies of Tranfield et al. (2003), Cooper (2010), Mayring (2010),
and Cooper (2015), which is comprised of four steps: material collection, bibliometric analysis, content
analysis, and material evaluation. While we discuss the first two steps in this section, the latter two cases
will be explained in Sections 3-5 and 6, respectively.

2.1. Material collection

The following inclusion criteria were defined before searching the literature:
1. Studies that shed lights on considerations/implications that should be made when deciding to shift
from single-use to reusable packages.
2. Studies published in peer-reviewed academic journals or conference proceedings.
3. Studies written in English.
Our methodology of the literature review, which resulted in the selection of 86 studies, can be
summarized as follows (see Table 1 for more details):
 1. We applied keywords such as “reusable packages”, “reusable packaging”, “reusable packaging
material”, “returnable packaging material”, “returnable containers”, and “returnable transport
items” to the online scholarly database Scopus. We added those papers to our sample with at least
one of these keywords in their title, abstract, or list of keywords. This search led to a sample of
2,857 studies.
2. Based on specific information in the title, abstract, or keywords of these papers, we shrank the
sample to 128 relevant papers.
3. We then read these papers completely, and based on their relevance, 62 papers remained in the
sample.
4. All references of the studies in our sample (from step 3) were checked (forward snowball search).
This led to an additional 34 papers, out of which 10 were found relevant and added to the sample.
5. All studies that cited those of the sample (from step 3) were checked (backward snowball search).
This led to an additional 21 papers, out of which 14 were found relevant and added to the sample.

2.2. Bibliometric analysis

After analyzing the sampled studies in detail, we classified them into three different categories: (1) works
that evaluate the feasibility/viability of reusables in terms of environmental and economic factors, (2) works
that provide information for the design of a logistics system adopting reusable packages for their product,
and (3) works that provide information on the operations management of reusables in supply chains.
Figure 2 illustrates the number of research studies under these categories.

Table 1
Review protocol.
Refine type Description No.
• Studies are identified through database Scopus search along with a forward/backward snowball search.
• Studies that focus on considerations that should be made when shifting from single-use to reusable packages.
Inclusion criteria • Studies written in English. ---
• Studies published by February 2019.
• Studies published in peer-reviewed academic journals or conference proceedings.
“reusable packages”, “reusable packaging”, “reusable packaging material”, “returnable packaging material”,
Defined keywords ---
“returnable containers”, and “returnable transport items”
Online database Scopus with the defined keywords: studies that include at least one of these keywords in their
Keyword search 2,857
title, abstract, or list of keywords.
Filtering I Checking relevance of content by reading the title, abstract, and keywords of the paper. 128
Filtering II Checking relevance of content by reading the whole paper. 62
Forward snowball
All references of the studies from filtering II were checked. 10
approach
Backward
All works that cited studies from filtering II were checked. 14
snowball approach
Final sample size 86

25

20
Number of studies

15
By 2000
10 2001-2010
2011-2019
5

0
Environmental and Logistics system Operations
economic impacts design management

Figure 2. The number of studies under three categories.

 Among these categories, we further classified categories (1) and (3). Indeed, we differentiated studies
on the feasibility/viability of reusable packages into two sub-categories: works that have discussed either
factors affecting environmental and economic costs of reusables or criteria for measuring these costs.
Furthermore, we differentiated studies on the operations management of reusable packages into four sub-
categories: works that have studied inventory management of reusables, scheduling and routing of
reusables, reusables’ repairing and purchasing policies, and performance measurements of reusables.
Regarding the inventory management of reusables, we further differentiated the studies into three sub-sub-
categories: works that have studied factors affecting inventory management of reusables (e.g., time
horizon), mathematical modeling for inventory management of reusables, and tracking technologies for
managing the inventory of reusables. Figure 3 shows this classification. To this end, we also present the
number of studies conducted per content category in Table 2. Operations management, environmental and
economic feasibility/viability, and logistics system design constitute 65%, 31%, and 4% of these studies,
respectively.
Reusable
packaging

Environmental
Logistics system Operations
and economic
design (§4) management (§5)
impacts (§3)

Criteria Inventory Repairing and Performance

Scheduling and
measuring management purchasing measurements
routing (§5.2)
impacts (§3.1) (§5.1) policies (§5.3) (§5.4)

Factors affecting Factors impacting

inventory management
impacts (§3.2) (§5.1.1)

Mathematical
modeling of inventory
management (§5.1.2)

Tracking technologies
for managing
inventory (§5.1.3)

Figure 3. Classification of reusable packaging studies based on three main categories.

Table 2
Number of studies on reusable packaging based on three main categories and corresponding sub-categories (see Figure 2 for this
classification)
Topics No. of studies
References
Environmental/economic factors In total: 27
≤ 2000: Dubiel (1996), Van Doorsselaer and Lox (1999)
Criteria for measuring 2001-2010: Ross and Evans (2003), Singh et al. (2006)
8
environmental and economic costs 2011-2019: Menesatti et al. (2012), Goudenege et al. (2013), Goellner and Sparrow
(2014), Katephap and Limnararat (2015)
≤ 2000: Kroon and Vrijens (1995), McKerrow (1996), Rosenau et al. (1996), Twede
(1999), Van Doorsselaer and Lox (1999)
2001-2010: Ross and Evans (2003), Gonzalez-Torre et al. (2004), Lee and Xu
Factors affecting the environmental (2004), Twede and Clarke (2004), Mollenkopf et al. (2005), Tsiliyannis (2005a,b),
21
and economic costs Grimes-Casey et al. (2007)
2011-2019: Levi et al. (2011), Palsson et al. (2013), Accorsi et al. (2014), Carrano et
al. (2015), Zhang et al. (2015), Katephap and Limnararat (2017), González-Boubeta
et al. (2018), Bortolini et al. (2018)
≤ 2000: Lützebauer (1993), Kroon and Vrijens (1995)
Logistics system design In total: 3 2001-2010: Hellström and Johansson (2010)
2011-2019: ---
 Operations management
Inventory management
Scheduling and routing
Repairing and purchasing policies
Performance measurements
In total: 56
≤ 2000: Schrady (1967), Florez (1986), Kelle and Silver (1989a,b), Bojkow (1991),
Dejax et al. (1992), Crainic et al. (1993), Rosenau et al. (1996), McKerrow (1996),
Holmberg et al. (1998), Cheung and Chen (1998), Buchanan and Abad (1998),
Brewer et al. (1999), Shayan and Ghotb (2000)
2001-2010: Duhaime et al. (2001), Choong et al. (2002), McFarlane and Sheffi
35 (2003), Lampe and Strassner (2003), De Jonge (2004), Minner and Lindner (2004),
Angeles (2005), Vijayaraman and Osyk (2006), Foster et al. (2006), Johansson and
Hellström (2007), Thoroe et al. (2009), Ilic et al. (2009), Hellström (2009),
Carrasco-Gallego and Ponce-Cueto (2009)
2011-2019: Maleki and Meiser (2011), Mason et al. (2012), Kim et al. (2014), Kim
and Glock (2014), Glock and Kim (2014), Cobb (2016a), Hariga et al. (2016)
≤ 2000: ---
2001-2010: Leung and Wu (2004), Karimi et al. (2005), Di Francesco et al. (2009)
10
2011-2019: Soysal (2016), Ech-Charrat and Amechnoue (2016), Ech-Charrat et al.
(2017a,b,c), Sarkar et al. (2017), Iassinovskaia et al. (2017)
≤ 2000: Kelle and Silver (1989a,b)
5 2001-2010: ---
2011-2019: Atamer et al. (2013), Limbourg and Pirotte (2018), Yang et al. (2018)
≤ 2000: ---
2001-2010: Chew et al. (2002), Chonhenchob and Singh (2003), Twede and Ckarke
8
(2004), Breen (2006), Chonhenchob et al. (2008)
2011-2019: Maleki and Reimche (2011), Glock and Kim (2016), Cobb (2016b)

Finally, we note that the majority of the literature falls into journal articles in the field of operations
research, transportation, and packaging. Table 3 summarizes the list of top 5 journals where studies on
reusable packaging systems have been published.

Table 3
Top 5 journals published studies on reusable packaging systems
No. Journal’s name Number of papers
1 Packaging Technology and Science 10
2 International Journal of Production Economics 9
3 Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review 5
4 International Journal of Production Research 3
5 International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management 3

In concluding this section, we note that, as part of our review methodology, we discussed material
collection and bibliometric analysis in Sections 2.1-2.2, whereas content analysis will be discussed in
Sections 3-5, and material evaluation will be discussed when delivering research opportunities in
Section 6.

3. Reusable packaging: Environmental and economic impacts

Reuse strategies are known to reduce the demand for raw materials and decrease the quantity of waste to
landfill. However, such strategies have been criticized by decision makers due to their potential link to other
types of resource consumption, environmental, and economic factors that are less tangible but not less
important. More vehicles, added weight, reverse logistics costs, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy to
clean packages and totes are the tolls of using reusable packaging. In this section, we review studies on
environmental and economic impacts of reusable packages for all three types of packaging.

3.1. Criteria for measuring environmental and economic costs

Several studies have defined criteria for measuring environmental and economic costs of reusable
packaging. For example, Van Doorsselaer and Lox (1999), Ross and Evans (2003), and Singh et al. (2006)
have considered the total energy consumption as a criterion in this regard. Ross and Evans (2003) showed
that the energy consumed during transportation is negligible in comparison to the overall energy
consumption of the system. This finding is on the contrary with this notion that transportation emissions
are perceived to be the main reason for not utilizing the reusing option. The studies conducted by Dubiel
(1996), Ross and Evans (2003), Singh et al. (2006), Menesatti et al. (2012), and Katephap and Limnararat
(2015) measured the environmental costs of reusable packaging by quantifying the waste produced by using
these packages in different industries. Goudenege et al. (2013) defined investment/transportation costs and
carbon dioxide emissions as relevant criteria measuring the economic and environmental costs of reusable
containers, respectively. The study conducted by Goellner and Sparrow (2014) measured the environmental
impacts of single-use and reusable containers in transportation of pharmaceutical and biological materials
by quantifying greenhouse gases generated from employing these packaging systems. The results of this
study showed that, compared to single-use packaging containers, reusable options emit less carbon dioxide
and have less potential to generate acidification, eutrophication, photochemical ozone, human toxicity, and
postconsumer waste. In addition, this study confirmed that reusable containers are about half the mass of
the average single-use packaging containers since a single-use container includes materials for insulation,
gel packs, gel bricks, and corrugate, while a reusable container contains vacuum-insulated panels, thermal
isolation chamber, phase change media, and outer corrugate. This, in turn, results in lower transportation
emissions despite extra trips that a reusable container needs to make.

3.2. Factors affecting the environmental and economic costs

There are several studies in the literature that have focused on factors affecting the environmental and
economic costs of reusable packaging. For example, Rosenau et al. (1996) incorporated methods used for
calculating costs (e.g., payback period, accounting rate of return, the net present value), ownership (i.e.,
who owns the containers?), and the percentage of the use of a reusable container. Twede (1999) showed
that the capacity of the industry seeking for eco-friendly packaging in providing the storage space (for
empty containers), labor and space (to sort containers), and washing and repair operations is the most
important factor affecting the economic viability of using these containers. Furthermore, Van Doorsselaer
and Lox (1999) showed that breakage rate of glass bottles plays an important role on justifying reusable
packaging in the beer industry. The authors claimed that if the breakage rate remains below 5%, using
reusable glass bottles can be environmentally and economically justifiable. The study conducted by Ross
and Evans (2003) revealed that the geographical location of certain processes can significantly affect the
environmental costs of a packaging system. Gonzalez-Torre et al. (2004) showed that factors such as size
of the sectors, distribution system design, and demands of the foreign market result in different
environmental impacts and reverse logistics policies in European bottling and packaging companies.
Lee and Xu (2004) showed that factors such as weight of package, length of service life, degree of
recyclability, total number of reusable parts used in the package, and total amount of products being
transported per trip can affect both economic and environmental costs of reusable containers. Mollenkopf
et al. (2005) showed that some factors such as the size of reusable containers, average daily volume of
product to be transported, delivery distance, cycle time, total number of units per container (pack quantity),
and fluctuation in peak volume can affect costs of reusable containers. Mollenkopf et al. (2005) showed
that reusable containers are more economically justifiable if larger containers are involved, and/or the
average daily volume of product to be transported is high, while single-use containers are more
economically practical when delivery distance, cycle time, pack quantity, and/or fluctuation in peak volume
increases. The study by Tsiliyannis (2005a) showed that factors such as annual reuse frequency, lifetime,
maximum number of reuse trips, amount of packaging present in the market, annual production and net
trade imports, recycle rate, reuse rate, and consumer discard rate affect the environmental impacts of
reusable packaging systems. Tsiliyannis (2005b) demonstrated that the conventional recycling rate fails to
reflect environmental performance of a packaging system with recyclable or reusable containers. They also
found that reuse rate, total number of trips using reusable containers, and lifetime of reusable containers are
not enough to evaluate the environmental performance of a packaging system. This study introduced a new
index that is the total amount of material used for packaging to deliver the product from the manufacturing
plant to the consumer’s door to reflect the immediate improvements of performance of a packaging system
from an environmental perspective.
 Among all studies that have analyzed the impacts of various factors on the environmental and economic
costs of reusable packages, Grimes-Casey et al. (2007) is the only study that analyzed the impact of
consumers’ behavior on the economic impacts of reusable packaging. The authors showed that, although
refillable bottles seem to be more economical in the long run, it is wiser to set incentives for refillable
bottles only if consumers’ return rate is high. Those consumers that keep or dispose refillable bottles, or
those consumers that reduce their demand in response to the return incentive drive costs up and force the
whole system to use disposable bottles instead. As a result, the authors concluded that the optimal strategy
for choosing a bottle packaging is totally dependent on the level of consumers’ cooperation. Palsson et al.
(2013) analyzed the effect of factors such as packaging refill rate, packaging material, transport, materials
handling, waste handling, and administration on the environmental and economic costs of reusable
packaging in a case study at Volvo Logistics Corporation. Surprisingly, the authors showed that, in this
specific industry, a single-use packaging system is more attractive from both economic and environmental
perspectives, and as a result, reusables are not always superior from a sustainability standpoint. Accorsi et
al. (2014) showed that several factors such as containers’ service life, washing rate, waste disposal
treatment, as well as network geography can affect the environmental and economic costs of reusables.
Several studies have focused on the impacts of management strategies on the environmental and
economic justifiability of reusable packaging. For example, Kroon and Vrijens (1995) showed that reusable
containers are justifiable only if several parties participate in the logistics system. McKerrow (1996)
concluded that reusable containers work best under the following circumstances: (1) when a single party is
responsible for determining the standards associated with the quality of new containers to be purchased or
used containers to be maintained (while meeting all parties’ expectation); (2) the whole system is controlled
by a single authority; (3) the containers are monitored from the beginning to the end of distribution process;
(4) reusable containers ownership is more appreciated among parties; and (5) the authority’s objective is to
minimize the collection process of empty containers, maximize the containers’ utilization, and satisfy all
drop points’ requirements and preferences.
Another example of the studies that have analyzed the impact of management strategies on the
environmental and economic costs of reusables is the study conducted by Twede and Clarke (2004). The
authors presented two case studies, the U.S. automobile manufacturing industry and the U.K. supermarket
industry, and showed that in the former, reusable packaging can reduce purchase and disposal costs.
However, the operational cost can become a challenge if the logistics of containers are not well-managed.
Inefficient allocation (getting the right number of right kinds of empty containers to the right place at the
right time) and ineffective tracking increase the number of containers needed in a system, and thus, the total
cost of the system. The authors showed that the best solution is to involve a third-party logistics (a
transportation service provider) to manage the containers flow. Twede and Clarke (2004) also showed that
reusable packaging in the supermarket industry can reduce purchase and disposal costs only if the containers
remain in the custody of one company.
Carrano et al. (2015) is the only study in the literature that has analyzed the environmental impacts of
reusables under different management strategies over various phases of their life cycle. The management
strategies considered in their research include (a) single use, (b) reusage by purchasing reusables by the
user, and (c) reusage by leasing reusables by the user. The life cycle of a reusable is also divided into five
phases: (1) raw material sourcing, (2) manufacturing, (3) transportation and use, (4) refurbishing, and (5)
end of life disposal. Carrano et al. (2015) found that during phases (1)-(2) and (3), strategy (c) and (a) result
in the lowest carbon emission, respectively. During phase (4), depending on the service condition (i.e.,
whether the reusables are loaded with light loads and/or subjected to a good handling environment) the
emission rate may vary. For the case of reusage (strategies (b) or (c)), the emission does not vary
significantly by the handling condition if the pallets are loaded with light loads. However, when servicing
heavy loads, strategy (b) and (c) provides the lowest emission if reusables are subjected to a good and a
rough handling environment, respectively. During phase (5), strategy (a) is the worst one.
Zhang et al. (2015) is another example of studies that have assessed the economic (transportation and
inventory) costs of reusable containers under different management strategies. The management strategies
considered in that research are dedicated and shared modes. The study showed that in the shared mode, the
cost saving is negatively correlated with the number of package categories. In an extreme case, each supplier
needs unique packages, and therefore, shared mode does not make sense. The paper concluded that the
shared mode could be more practical for the networks with balanced demands where there is a small gap
between the demand of two areas. In addition, if the ratio of the packages that are not returned to the supplier
(because they are broken, lost, or stolen) is high, shared mode could be beneficial to reduce the cost. The
authors also proved that, since in the shared mode the long-distance trips of empty packages are replaced
by short-distance trips, time savings and subsequently, cost reduction should be expected.
Finally, Katephap and Limnararat (2017) analyzed the operational, economic, and environmental costs
of reusable packages under different reverse logistics managements, i.e., the single-, round-, and multi-trip
arrangements. The authors found that the multi-trip arrangement is the most viable option from both
operational and environmental perspectives, while the single-trip arrangement is the most favorable option
from an economic perspective. This is because its payback period is the shortest among other arrangements.
Table 4 summarizes the studies that have focused on factors influencing the environmental and economic
costs of reusable packaging in various supply chain systems.

4. Reusable packaging: Logistics system design

Before implementing reusable packaging for packing of basic products, it is crucial to design different
components of the system and define activities and responsibilities of different stakeholders. For example,
if a company decides to partner with TerraCycle, then who is responsible for damages on refillable
packages? What will be the role of consumers in this loop? Who will be in charge of shipment and collection
of these packages in such a hyper-local delivery/pickup (i.e., requiring frequent delivery/pickup)? In this
section, we review studies that have analyzed the logistics system design of reusable packaging. It should
be noted that, compared to our discussion on environmental/economic factors (Section 3) or operations
management of reusables (Section 5), logistics system design of reusable packaging has been addressed in
a handful of studies. In particular, all instances found in the literature have focused on a tertiary packaging
option.
Table 4
A list of papers studied the factors affecting the environmental and economic impacts of reusable packages.
Factors
Reference Industry Factors in details
Management Technological Process
Kroon and Vrijens General (any logistic
✓ Management strategies
(1995) system)
General (any logistic
McKerrow (1996) ✓ Management strategies
system)
The method being used for calculating costs,
Rosenau et al. General (any logistic
✓ ✓ ownership, the percentage of use of a reusable
(1996) system)
container
Capacity of the industry seeking for eco-friendly
General (any logistic packaging in providing the storage space for empty
Twede (1999) ✓ ✓
system) containers, labor and space to sort containers, and
washing and repair operations
Van Doorsselaer
Beverages ✓ The breakage rate of glass bottles
and Lox (1999)
Refrigerators and
Ross and Evans
freezers ✓ Geographical location of various process steps
(2003)
manufacturing
Gonzalez-Torre Size of the sectors, distribution system design, the
Food and beverages ✓ ✓ ✓
(2004) demands of the foreign market
Weight, number of reusable parts, number of
Lee and Xu
Food (yogurt) ✓ ✓ transported pottles per trip, service life, and
(2004)
recyclability
Automobile Cost of purchasing new containers, containers’
Twede and
manufacturing and ✓ ✓ ✓ strength, standardization, cycle time, empty miles and
Ckarke (2004)
supermarket industry extra handling, ergonomics, management strategies
Size of reusable containers, average daily volume of
Mollenkopf et al. Automobile product to be transported, delivery distance, cycle
✓ ✓
(2005) manufacturing time, total number of units per container (pack
quantity) and fluctuation in peak volume
 Annual reuse frequency, lifetime, maximum number
Tsiliyannis of reuse trips, amount of packaging present in the
Beverages ✓ ✓
(2005a, b) market, annual production and net trade imports,
recycle, reuse, and discard rate of consumer
Grimes-Casey et General (any logistic Companies’ incentives for using eco-friendly
✓
al. (2007) system) packaging
Automobile Weight of the container, total cycle time, containers’
Silva et al. (2013) ✓ ✓
manufacturing lifetime
Packaging fill rate, packaging material, transport,
Palsson et al. Automobile
✓ ✓ ✓ materials handling, waste handling, and
(2013) manufacturing
administration
Accorsi et al. Lifespan, washing rate, waste disposal treatment,
Food and beverages ✓ ✓
(2014) network geography
Management strategies, number of package
Zhang et al. Automobile
✓ ✓ ✓ categories, gap between the demand of two areas,
(2015) manufacturing
ratio of failed containers, logistics system design
Carrano et al. General (any logistic
✓ Management strategies
(2015) system)
Katephap and General (any logistic
✓ Management strategies
Limnararat (2017) system)

Designing a return logistics system is mainly based on reusable containers’ ownership and the
responsibility of managing, cleaning, controlling, maintaining, and storing these containers. Kroon and
Vrijens (1995) provided a comprehensive discussion about potential designs based on the study conducted
by Lützebauer (1993). In this regard, return logistic systems are categorized as switch-pool systems,
systems with return logistics, and systems without return logistics.
Switch-pool systems: They are referred to systems where every participant has its own portion of
containers and is responsible for cleaning, controlling, maintaining, and storing. A switch-pool system can
be designed as a sender-recipient or sender-carrier-recipient system. In the former, the sender is responsible
for managing the return flow of containers. In the latter, an ownership switch takes place at every exchange
of containers among participants, and the carrier is responsible for managing the return flow of containers.
Systems with return logistics: They are defined as the third-party’s ownership in which a central agency
owns the containers and is responsible for the return of the containers after they have been emptied by the
recipient. In this system, the recipient bundles empty containers and stores them until a sufficient number
of containers has accumulated for cost-effective collection. Regarding the role of the central agency in this
supply chain, systems with return logistics can be designed as a transfer system or a depot system. In the
transfer system, the central agency is only responsible for return of containers from the recipient to the
sender, and the sender is fully responsible for tracking, management, cleaning, maintenance, storage, as
well as stock level of containers. In the depot system, the idle containers are stored at depots by the central
agency. The central agency cleans the containers (if necessary) and maintain them at the depot to be used
for next shipments.
There are two different designs for depot systems: with booking and with deposit. In depot system with
booking, the sender has an account with the central agency. When containers are delivered to the sender,
the corresponding quantity is debited in the sender’s account. Similarly, when the sender sends the
containers to a recipient, the corresponding quantity is credited in the sender’s account, and debited in the
recipient’s account. The sender should submit the necessary data to the agency for each shipment. This
allows the agency to control the flows of the containers. In the depot system with deposit, the sender pays
the agency a deposit for the number of containers delivered to his site. The deposit equals at least the value
of the containers. The sender debits his recipient for this deposit, who does the same with his recipient, and
so on. The moment the containers are delivered to the final destination, they are collected by the agency.
Then, the agency refunds the deposit to the party from which the containers were collected. The deposit
finances the shrinkage of the containers. The refundable deposit encourages quick return of empty
containers and prevents the empty containers being stocked in one plant for a long period of time.
Systems without return logistics: Here, the central agency owns the containers, the sender rents the
containers from the agency, and the sender is fully responsible for return logistics, cleaning, control,
maintenance and storage.
 Hellström and Johansson (2010) introduced a new variation of logistics system design based on the
foregoing proposed categories by Kroon and Vrijens (1995). Based on their classification, there are three
types of control strategies for managing reusable containers: switch-pool system, transfer system, and depot
system. In the switch-pool system, a fixed number of reusable containers are assigned to each participant,
and when loaded containers are delivered to the recipient, the recipient must give the sender the same
number of empty containers in return. In the transfer system, the sender is fully responsible to track,
manage, maintain, and store containers, while in the depot system, containers are maintained and stored in
depots by a main agency. In the depot system, the sender sends fully loaded containers to the recipient, and
then, the depot collects and returns the empty containers from the recipient. Depot systems can be coupled
with deposits, where the sender pays the central agency a deposit for every single container used. Then, the
deposit is refunded when the container is returned to the depot. Table 5 summarizes various logistics system
designs of reusable packaging.

Table 5
Various logistics system designs of reusable packaging.
Logistics system Cleaning Managing, maintaining, &
Participants Ownership References
design responsibility storing responsibility
Kroon and Vrijens
Switch-pool
Sender-recipient All participants All participants Sender (1995); Hellström and
systems
Johansson (2010)
Switch-pool Sender-carrier- Kroon and Vrijens
All participants All participants Carrier
systems recipient (1995)
Systems with Kroon and Vrijens
Sender-central
return logistics; Central agency Sender Sender (1995); Hellström and
agency-recipient
transfer system Johansson (2010)
Systems with Kroon and Vrijens
Sender-central
return logistics; Central agency Central agency Central agency (1995); Hellström and
agency-recipient
depot system Johansson (2010)
Systems without Sender-central Kroon and Vrijens
Central agency Sender Sender
return logistics agency-recipient (1995)

5. Reusable packaging: Operations management

Reusable containers are loaded at the sender’s plant to transport products to the recipient’s site.
Concurrently, empty containers are returned from the recipient to the sender. The exchange occurs at the
recipient’s site. Returned containers are inspected to decide whether they are in a condition to be used for
the next shipment or not. Containers that meet the pre-defined criteria are sent for loading products.
Damaged containers are transferred to the repair department to determine whether or not they are repairable.
If not, they are sent for disposal. Repaired containers are sent for loading products. If the total number of
containers is not enough to satisfy the demand, the sender purchases or rents new or used containers. Based
on this premise, Figure 4 presents the flow of reusable containers between a sender and a recipient.

Picking up empty Inspection No No

Repairable? Disposal
containers (Reusable?)

Yes Yes
Recipient

Yes Adding parts,

Safety stock level
cleaning, or
(enough?)
sanitizing

Delivering full
containers No

Purchasing or
renting containers

Figure 4. The flow of reusable containers between a sender and a recipient

 Operations management of reusable containers is one of the main concerns of companies who are
willing to adopt reusable containers for their own business. For those willing to adopt reusable packages
for basic products, managing the operations of reusable packages is more critical and complicated due to
the high volume and frequency of deliveries/pickups (i.e., hyper-local deliveries/pickups). The existing
literature on the operations management of reusable packages can be categorized as follows: studies
focusing on (1) managing the inventory of reusable packages at warehouse storages, (2) the scheduling and
routing of reusable packages, (3) determining optimal disposal, repairing, and replacement policies for
reusable packages, and (4) measuring the performance of reusable packaging systems. In the following
sections, we will review studies corresponding to each of these categories.

5.1. Inventory management

5.1.1. Factors impacting inventory management
One of the factors affecting the inventory management of reusable packages is the length of planning
horizon. Despite various studies analyzing the impact of planning horizon on the production planning and
control of a product, very few studies have focused on the impact of planning horizon on the inventory
planning and control of reusable packages. Florez (1986) is among first studies investigating the impact of
this factor on managing reusable containers. Surprisingly, this study showed that sensitivity of optimal
solution of containers allocation and distribution decision to the length of planning horizon is negligible.
However, the study clearly stated that this conclusion cannot be generalized to other cases as the length of
planning horizon may vary upon the concentration of activities in the network.
Contrary to the finding by Florez (1986), the study conducted by Crainic et al. (1993) showed that the
length of planning horizon is critical in determining the optimal solution of containers allocation and
distribution. The authors showed that having information about the future supply and demand of containers
is necessary for determining the length of the planning horizon. Dejax et al. (1992) explicitly showed that
the planning horizon should be long enough (to consider the set of arrivals and departures of coming trips)
and yet short enough (to include the labor contracts, safety regulations, and other practical considerations).
The study conducted by Holmberg et al. (1998) showed that the planning horizon should be longer than the
longest transportation time in the system to lower the shortage level of empty freight cars. Cheung and
Chen (1998) concluded that a longer planning horizon does not necessarily provide better solutions, while
the study by Choong et al. (2002) showed that a longer planning horizon encourages the system to use
cheaper and slower transportation modes. Choong et al. (2002) also found that the effect of planning horizon
length on empty containers management may vary upon the number and location of depots. One of the most
recent studies by Carrasco-Gallego and Ponce-Cueto (2009) presented a dynamic regression model for
forecasting the returns of reusable containers in closed-loop supply chain systems to determine the length
of planning horizon.
Aside from planning horizon, there are studies in the literature analyzing the impact of other factors on
the inventory management of reusable packaging. For example, the study conducted by Bojkow (1991)
assessed the impact of the trippage number for reusable containers on the inventory control of reusable
packages. The trippage number is the total number of times a container is reused as part of its life cycle.
Bojkow (1991) derived a formula for calculating the average number of trips made by a reusable container.
The study developed a simulation model that generates a random data for average trippage number of
reusable containers considering the total number of lost and existing containers in the system. Another
example is the study conducted by Duhaime et al. (2001) in which they analyzed the impact of the balance
between the inventory of supply and demand locations on the inventory control of reusables. Duhaime et
al. (2001) studied the use of reusable containers between Canada Post and its large business customers to
determine whether the out-of-stock issue is truly due to the shortage of containers. The authors developed
a minimum-cost-flow model and showed that Canada Post has enough containers to satisfy demand, and
the periodic shortage is due to the inventory imbalance between supply and demand locations.
5.1.2. Mathematical modeling of inventory management
Several studies have focused on mathematical modeling of the inventory management of reusable packages.
Kelle and silver (1989a) is the first study that presented a mathematical framework in this regard. Their
model considered several assumptions to simplify the model (such as zero lead time). Buchanan and Abad
(1998) also formulated the inventory management of reusable containers and simplified their model by
assuming that the probability of a container being returned is independent of the age of the container. The
age of the container is the time since the container was last issued. To the best of our knowledge, no research
study has incorporated this factor into the modeling of the inventory control of reusables. Developing a
mathematical model in which the probability of a container’s return would be dependent upon its age,
considering this assumption that the age-mix of the containers remains stable from period to period, is one
of the subjects that can be further explored.
Kim et al. (2014) is the first seminal study that have explored the inventory control of reusable
containers when they are used for transporting perishable products. The authors assumed that the return
lead time of the containers is stochastic, and the product being shipped by these containers deteriorates if
delivery is late. Their model has some assumptions that could be improved by future research. First, the
containers’ capacity and return lot size could determine the production lot size of the supplier. Second, the
return quantity of containers is assumed to be deterministic, while in practice, this return has a stochastic
nature due to the possibility of getting lost or being damaged during transport. Finally, one could consider
this fact that, once being repaired, damaged containers can be of inferior quality than new ones. This might,
in turn, impose limitations on their usability.
Glock and Kim (2014) is among the first studies considering different logistical costs associated with
the use of reusable containers and interactions between reusable containers and the distribution of finished
products in an inventory control model. The model proposed by Glock and Kim (2014) has some
assumptions that can be improved by future research works. The first one is that in their model, the
inventory cost of a container is independent of its capacity/size, while in practice, larger containers require
more storage space and consequently impose higher inventory costs. The second is that the authors assumed
a supplier can freely choose the size of containers, while in practice, the supplier has limited options to
choose from (e.g., the restrictions imposed by the transport service provider). The last one is about the
objective of the model which is to minimize the total number of containers in the system. By choosing this
objective, only as many containers are kept in stock as are needed to ship the largest batch quantity, while
another strategy can be to increase the total number of containers such that the supplier would be able to
ship a second batch before the containers return shipment of the first batch is received. Hariga et al. (2016)
is another study that considered the interactions between reusable containers and finished products in a
logistics cost model. Hariga et al. (2016) presented a model for single supplier-single retailer using reusable
containers for shipping finished products, in which the supplier has the option to rent reusable containers
from a transportation service provider if the return of empty containers is delayed.
Cobb (2016a) is the first work that has presented an inventory control model of reusable containers in
which containers are continuously returned by multiple retailers to the single manufacturing facility. In the
model presented by Cobb (2016a), inspection and repairs occur at a constant, finite rate over time. Before
Cobb (2016a), prior models were implemented in a single-supplier, single-retailer supply chain, and
containers were collected by the retailer and returned to the supplier in a batch fashion. In Cobb (2016a),
return rate and the percentage of returned containers that are repairable are random variables. One of the
assumptions of the study by Cobb (2016a) is that the inspection and repair runs begin simultaneously, while
scheduling of these functions under various arrangements may reveal that alternate types of inventory
processing schedules can be also cost-effective. In addition, in this paper, the demand and repair rates are
assumed to be deterministic. Future research on this subject can continue to focus on situations where inputs
to the problem are random.

5.1.3. Tracking technologies for managing inventory

In closed-loop systems, two parties exchange the full and empty reusable packages among themselves.
Therefore, there is a slight chance of packages getting lost and probably being stolen (due to the one-to-one
exchange). But, when we talk about open-loops, there is little to no control over these packages. When a
party receives fully loaded reusable packages, he takes the products and put the reusables out back. The
reusables are held until somebody comes and picks them up. Either somebody comes automatically to pick
them up or the party holding empty packages must notify the party that is responsible for collecting empty
packages that the packages are ready to pick up. In warehouse storages, there is often no security for these
assets making them vulnerable to theft. Every year, several thefts of reusables are reported throughout the
U.S. (e.g., Department of Justice, Central district of California, 2018). Asset tracking offers many benefits
to supply chain participants, including reusable packaging and carried products location and recovery,
product movement and speed, inventory management, possession, loss and damage accountability, and
process improvement.
There are potential benefits of asset visibility on costs associated with supply chain systems using
reusable packages for shipments. Rosenau et al. (1996) and McFarlane and Sheffi (2003) showed that asset
visibility can optimize the containers’ configuration and fleet size. McKerrow (1996) and McFarlane and
Sheffi (2003) showed that asset visibility can increase reusable containers’ availability. McFarlane and
Sheffi (2003) showed that asset visibility can provide the feature of automatic handling as well as historical
repair data collection, and hence, reduce the repair and maintenance costs of reusable containers. The study
conducted by Angeles (2005) showed that asset visibility can decrease rental charges and deposits. Brewer
et al. (1999) and Shayan and Ghotb (2000) concluded that having asset visibility can provide better
performance resulting in less transportation costs. Shayan and Ghotb (2000) also showed that asset visibility
can reduce transportation costs by reducing erroneous shipments. Vijayaraman and Osyk (2006) showed
that asset visibility can decrease the use of warehouse space, enable automatic sorting and handling, and
allow automatic cleaning procedures, and therefore, lower transportation costs.
There are various technologies that have been developed to improve the automatic identification and
tracking of reusable containers. In the study conducted by Maleki and Meiser (2011), five different
technologies were introduced to improve this identification/tracking in supply chains: barcode, passive
radio-frequency identification (RFID), active RFID, Wi-Fi, and global positioning system (GPS). The
authors found that barcode systems are more economical compared to other auto-ID technologies. In
addition, barcode systems have relatively low requirements for manual labor and are more compatible with
the current inventory systems. However, there are still several disadvantages in using barcode technology
for tracking reusable containers. For example, as each container must be manually scanned, the process can
become quite tedious, time-consuming, and susceptible to errors. Also, barcodes must be visible and
reachable to be scanned, and any damage to the barcode can cause it to be unreadable. Finally, barcode
systems do not provide information about real-time location of the containers. For further information about
existing technologies for tracking reusable containers, one can refer to Maleki and Meiser (2011). De Jonge
(2004) compared RFID tags to barcodes, and here are the list of RFID tag’s privileges: they can be read
faster since they can be read simultaneously; they should not be necessarily visible to be read; they can deal
with rough and dirty environments better since tags can be integrated into the packaging materials; they can
be automatically read, and therefore, no labor cost is added to the system; and finally, information can be
changed if needed, while in barcode systems, a new label is required if information is needed to be changed.
In this paper, we mainly focus on studies that have analyzed an RFID as a technology used to track
reusable packages in supply chains. Angeles (2005) introduced an RFID technology and provided several
case studies and implementation guidelines for managers based on published reports. Several research
works have focused on the implementation of RFIDs in managing containers such as Lampe and Strassner
(2003) for managing beer kegs, Foster et al. (2006) for managing containers in automotive industry, and
Johansson and Hellström (2007) for controlling the wooden pallets and plastic containers.
A number of studies have also focused on the impact of the RFID technology on inventory models. For
example, Thoroe et al. (2009) studied the impact of this technology for tracking reusable containers in an
inventory model with deterministic inputs. The authors adopted their inventory control model from the
basic models proposed by Schrady (1967) and Minner and Lindner (2004) and analyzed the changes on the
optimum inventory control policy due to the implementation of the RFID technology for tracking reusable
containers. The authors extended the base model by introducing additional variable costs and examined the
effect of this change on profitability of implementing the RFID technology in reusable containers’ tracking
systems. Kim and Glock (2014) studied the impact of the RFID technology for tracking reusable containers
where the fraction of containers that are returned to the supplier is stochastic. Kim and Glock (2014) found
that, if using of the RFID technology can improve the predictability of containers’ flow and encourage
recipients to return empty containers quicker, the use of an RFID would be justifiable from economic
perspective. The authors also found that the average return rate of containers and the reparability of
containers are positively correlated with the reservation price of an RFID-tagged container.
Ilic et al. (2009) studied the impact of the RFID technology on a high-volume and low-value reusable
containers management model and particularly quantified the impact of this technology from a financial
perspective, i.e., cost savings in the trip fee and asset investment. The authors showed that cost savings in
the trip fee are mainly due to the transferal of loss costs and cost reductions in data management, while cost
savings in the asset investment is mainly due to the overall performance improvement of reusable
containers’ cycle time. By increasing the visibility and measurability, customers will also pay more
attention to avoid unnecessary penalties caused by loss or breakage, and therefore, the whole system
becomes more efficient.
Despite its wide application, the RFID technology has also received pushback. To this end, De Jonge
(2004) is among the first studies in the literature that have discussed the issues associated with the
implementation of this technology: standardization, legislation concerning ultra-high frequencies, physical
characteristics of an RFID, and maturity of available technology and lack of knowledge and experience.
Furthermore, Mason et al. (2012) discussed the issues associated with the RFID technology used for the
inventory control of gas cylinders in the packaged gas industry.
Considering both positive and negative aspects of the RFID technology for tracking reusables,
Hellström (2009) studied how and why companies should implement the RFID technology for tracking
reusable containers, and under which circumstances the benefits of implementing this technology outweigh
the costs. We note that the model proposed by Hellström (2009) is only applicable for closed-loop supply
chains and cannot be applied for open-loop systems. In open-loop supply chain systems, the implementation
of an RFID requires some levels of information sharing as well as incentive alignments among supply chain
parties, which makes the model more complicated.

5.2. Scheduling and routing

Leung and Wu (2004) is the first study that addressed the scheduling and routing of reusables by proposing
a mathematical model for the maritime repositioning of empty containers. The authors proposed a multi-
scenario time-extended optimization model with stochastic demands for empty containers. Later, Karimi et
al. (2005) presented a linear programming model for routing and scheduling of multi-product tank
containers being widely used for transporting fluid chemicals. Their model was designed to minimize the
cost of transportation and cleaning of tank containers. Moreover, Di Francesco et al. (2009) conducted a
research study to address the containers maritime-repositioning problem. In this research, several
uncertainties associated with future supplies and demands, residual transportation capacity of the vessels,
and maximum number of empty containers that can be loaded/unloaded on/from vessels were considered.
Soysal (2016) is the first study that proposed a mathematical model for the routing of reusable
containers in a closed-loop supply chain with respect to different factors such as fuel consumption, demand
uncertainty, and shipping multiple products. The authors showed that introducing the emission factor into
the model can better show the trade-off between economic and environmental benefits of reusable
containers. Ech-Charrat and Amechnoue (2016) and Ech-Charrat et al. (2017a, b, c) are among the studies
that also present mathematical models in which the objective is to minimize the managing cost of reusable
containers with respect to emission constraints.
Sarkar et al. (2017) is among the first studies that proposed a mathematical model for scheduling and
routing of reusable containers in which a third-party logistics transports the containers loaded by finished
products to the retailers and collects empty containers to the supplier. The results obtained from solving
their model provided the optimal planning horizon, order quantity of the retailers, size of the containers, as
well as optimal shipment schedule for different retailers. An extension of this seminal work would be to
consider stochastic returns and random demand pattern when the third-party logistics is the sole responsible
for transporting containers. Another extension of this work could be to incorporate random defectives with
rework in the production line since the model proposed by Sarkar et al. (2017) assumes a perfect production
system.
Iassinovskaia et al. (2017) is the most recent study proposing a mixed-integer programming model for
the inventory routing of reusable containers with time windows and simultaneous pickup and delivery in
closed-loop supply chains. In their model, the supplier is responsible for collecting empty containers from
retailers’ locations. Each retailer has a preferred delivery time window. Each participant has a storage
capacity. In addition, transporting empty and/or loaded containers are performed simultaneously through a
set of homogenous vehicles. All inputs in their model are assumed to be deterministic.

5.3. Optimal repairing and purchasing policies

There are very few studies in the literature focusing on determining optimal disposal, repairing, and
purchasing policies for reusable packages. One of these studies is the study conducted by Kelle and Silver
(1989a) in which they presented a stochastic model for the optimal purchasing policy of new reusable
containers. The authors conducted another study (Kelle and Silver, 1989b) to find the optimal purchasing
policy for reusable containers in a logistics system, where various forecasting procedures are considered
based upon different amounts of information. The information includes the total number of containers being
issued and/or returned. The authors found that, even if the demand pattern is known, the system may need
to purchase new containers from time to time, because sometimes the inventory level of containers is too
low compared to the demand during the containers’ replacement lead time. Since the system does not want
to face an unexpected drop in containers’ inventory level, the demand should be forecasted, and an estimate
of the accuracy of the forecast should be calculated.
Atamer et al. (2013) derived optimal price and production strategies for finished products when
reusable containers are used for shipping products. The authors showed that the return quantity depends on
two main factors: the refund paid by the manufacturer to the customers and the customer demand. They
examined their model on a logistics system with un-capacitated and capacitated production setting. Their
results showed that in an un-capacitated production setting, a manufacturer always utilizes reusable
containers, even if they cost more than the brand-new containers. Whereas, in a capacitated production
setting, the manufacturer’s decision about using reusable containers may vary depending on the system’s
parameters. This seminal paper has some assumptions that can be improved by future research works. For
example, the authors considered optimal pricing and production decisions for finished products in a single
period setting which can be extended to a multi-period one. Another extension could be to relax the
simplifying assumption of perfect correlation between the demand and the return rates. The authors also
assumed that the resource utilization of returned and brand-new containers is identical, which can be relaxed
as well. Finally, their model focused on transporting products by reusable containers, while adding
disposable containers as an alternative option to satisfy customer demand can be interesting to explore.
The recent study by Limbourg and Pirotte (2018) investigates the effect of the price of the new
containers on the collection rate and resale price of existing containers in the system. The authors discussed
that each reusable container leaves the logistics system due to theft, loss, or irreparable damages. Depending
on how the container leaves the system, it may impose different costs (e.g., disposal cost, recycling cost)
or provide some revenue (resale revenue) for the company.
Recently, Yang et al. (2018) proposed a myopic purchase policy for reusable containers and employed
a simulation method to show the sensitivity and robustness of their results. The authors analyzed the value
of recovery information for reusable containers obtained from sensors in the environment of internet of
things (IoT). IoT is a network of physical objects, e.g., reusable packaging, each equipped with a unique
identifier and internet connectivity that allows for the communication and transfer of data between objects
and other internet-enabled devices (Reusable Packaging Association, 2019). The recovery information
dynamically tracks the recovery status of containers and provides a reliable estimate of return rate. At the
end, we summarize the existing papers in the literature proposing mathematical models for operations
management of reusable packages in Table 6.
 Table 6
A summary of existing optimization models for operations management of reusable containers.
Sender-
Reference Objective Included costs Stochastic and deterministic inputs
recipient
Stochastic inputs: demand and return rates;
Kelle and Optimizing replacement time and Single- Purchase cost of new containers,
deterministic inputs: stock level at the beginning
Silver (1989a) quantity single inventory cost
and end of each period
Stochastic inputs: demand and return rates;
Buchanan and Optimizing stock level and Single- Cost of replacement, penalty of deterministic inputs: stock level, total number of
Abad (1998) replacement quantity single shortage containers, total number of removed containers
from the system at the beginning of each period
Cost of purchasing brand-new Stochastic inputs: demand and return rates;
Atamer et al. Optimizing replacement quantity and Single-
containers, cost of using brand-new deterministic inputs: stock level at the beginning
(2013) refundable deposit single
and used containers, sales price of each period
Stochastic inputs: return time; deterministic
Cost of recipient's order and sender's
Kim et al. Single- inputs: demand and return lot sizes, finished
Optimizing return lot size setup, inventory cost, cost of
(2014) single product lot size, transport capacity, and
production shortage, sales price
production rate
Optimizing cycle time, total number Cost of recipient's order and sender's
Glock and Single- Deterministic inputs: demand, number of
of required containers, shipment setup, inventory cost, replacement
Kim (2014) multiple recipients, and production rate
sequence and containers' capacity cost, transportation cost
Cost of non-tagged and RFID-tagged Stochastic inputs: return and repair rates;
Kim and Optimizing cycle time, repair lot, Single-
containers, inspection cost, repair cost, deterministic inputs: demand and stock level at
Glock (2014) and replacement quantity single
cost of replacement, inventory cost the beginning of each period
Optimizing the stock level
Single- Inspection cost, repair cost, Stochastic inputs: return and repair rates;
Cobb (2016a) considering the idle time for the
multiple replacement cost, inventory cost deterministic inputs: demand
inspection operation
Optimizing finished products and Cost of recipient's order and sender's Stochastic inputs: return time; deterministic
Hariga et al. Single-
containers lot sizes, as well as setup, replacement cost, inventory inputs: demand, production rate, and
(2016) single
number of trucks for shipment cost, transportation cost transportation capacity
Purchase cost of brand-new Stochastic inputs: demand, return, repair, and
Yang et al. Optimizing replacement order’s Single- containers, inventory cost of reused rates, supply and repair lead times;
(2018) cycle time and quantity single containers, holding cost of products, deterministic inputs: stock level at the beginning
and punishment cost of lost sales of each period

5.4. Performance measurements

In this section, we review studies that have measured the performance of reusable packages in supply chain
systems. Chew et al. (2002) developed several performance measurements to evaluate the operation of the
gas cylinders belonging to an industrial gas manufacturer in Singapore. The manufacturer produces
different gas products and sells its products to different industries. A gas cylinder as a reusable container is
used in each product sale and supposed to be returned to the manufacturer after consumption. After the
cylinder is returned, it will be refilled with the same gas product to get ready for the next order. Inventory
management of the cylinders is crucial as they constitute a considerable portion of the investment and
storage cost of the company. Moreover, the revenue obtained by each sale is relatively small in comparison
to the cylinder’s investment cost. Therefore, it is vital to own an accurate number of cylinders to support
the business operations while ensuring that the payback period is not elongated. In comparison to other
reusable packages such as beverage bottles, kegs, or plastic containers, gas cylinders are quite durable, and
the chance of getting lost or being stolen is quite low. Therefore, the manufacturer only purchases a new
cylinder if the company’s market share increases. In this regard, four performance measurements were
introduced: how frequently the cylinders are used; how long they are kept by each customer; whether they
are effectively utilized; and how much safety stock is considered.
Chonhenchob and Singh (2003) compared the protective performance of single-use boxes (corrugated
boxes) and reusable plastic crates based on measures such as bruising and heat transfer levels during
shipping and handling mangoes. Twede and Ckarke (2004) discussed two ergonomic factors, i.e., hand
grips and package weight, to measure the efficiency and safety of handling materials by reusable packages.
Chonhenchob et al. (2008) conducted a study to compare the protective performance of packaging systems
with reusable plastic containers, single-use paper corrugated containers, and plastic foam containers. The
authors evaluated the impact of different packaging systems and fruit orientation on bruising and pre-
cooling time of pineapples during distribution. Bruise damage, pineapples flesh decay during storage for
five days, bruise volume and changes in color, firmness, and several other factors are considered to measure
the protective performance. The authors found that corrugated containers have the best protective
performance for pineapples, while plastic foam containers have the worst. Also, the corrugated containers
with paperboard partitions showed the lowest damage levels among other packaging systems. Finally, the
results showed that the highest pre-cooling rate is obtained by using reusable plastic containers, while the
lowest rate is related to using single-use paper containers.
Glock and Kim (2016) is another research that studied safety measures of reusable containers used for
shipping products from a supplier to a retailer. In their paper, they assumed that the return times of the
reusable containers are stochastic and may result in delays of the next shipment from the supplier to the
retailer. Consequently, the retailer may face the product shortage from time to time. To prevent from this
issue, the authors suggested a reusable containers’ safety return time, safety stock, and a combination of
both measures as safety measures. The authors found that implementing either a reusable container’s safety
stock or a combination of both measures works better than the one where no measure is adopted or only a
safety return is implemented. The authors also found that using a safety stock or a combination of a safety
stock and safety return time gets more important where the uncertainty level of lead time is high and/or the
shortage of the finished product is costly for the retailer. The authors concluded that for the high-risk
situations, a combination of both measures is recommended.
In the study conducted by Cobb (2016b), cycle time and return time were used as performance
measurements of a logistics system that uses reusable containers for shipping finished products. To improve
the cycle time, the author provided the following suggestions: setting more frequent collection from
retailers’ site and adjusting the filling schedules when cycle time is longer than the desired target. To
improve the return rate of reusable containers, the author suggested that the suppliers define a reasonable
deposit system and employ GPS tracking on randomly selected containers.
Breen (2006) conducted an explanatory analysis into industrial practices with business-to-business and
business-to-customer relationships in which reusable containers operate for shipping the products. The
author found that there are several options available for companies to improve the performance of reusable
containers such as communication, incentives, introducing contracts, enforcement, reminding customers
about their corporate as well as moral and legal responsibility, asset management, and outsourcing logistics.
All options are applicable for both business-to-business and business-to-customer relationships except
corporate responsibility and outsourcing which may not be practical in business-to-customer environment.
Future theoretical and empirical research analyzing the effects of collection and production schedules on
the cycle time and return rate would be interesting to pursue. The relationship between deposit systems and
ownership contracts between manufacturers and customers on the return rate would be also worth
examination.
The study conducted by Maleki and Reimche (2011) proposed three managerial recommendations to
improve the performance of reusable containers in the whole supply chain: improving the communication
and information flow between senders and recipients by improving the communication capacity of the
existing supply chain networks; implementing liability contracts between senders and recipients via
incorporation of a legal statement in the bill of lading to reduce the number of lost or damaged containers;
and incorporating an automatic identification technology to help with tracking the containers. To this end,
performance measurements of reusables may vary from one supply chain system to another. Studying the
performance, protection, and safety measurements of reusable packages in different supply chains has not
received much attention and could be worth examination. Table 7 summarizes the measurements used in
previous research to analyze the performance of reusable packaging systems.
Table 7
A summary of previous research on performance measurements of reusable packaging systems.
Reference Industry Performance measurements Performance measurements in details
Protection Ergonomics Efficiency Reliability
Chew et al. Industrial gas Containers’ cycle time, return time,
✓ ✓
(2002) manufacturing and safety stock
Chonhenchob
Bruising and heat transfer levels along
and Singh Fruits ✓
shipping and handling
(2003)
Automobile
Twede and manufacturing
✓ Hand grips and package weight
Clarke (2004) and supermarket
industry
Bruise damage, flesh decay during
Chonhenchob storage for five days, bruise volume,
Fruits ✓
et al. (2008) changes in color, and firmness of the
fruit
Glock and Containers’ safety return time and
General ✓
Kim (2016) safety stock
Cobb (2016b) General ✓ ✓ Containers’ cycle time and return time
Breen (2006) General ✓ ✓ Containers’ return time
Maleki and
Reimche General ✓ ✓ Containers’ return time
(2011)

6. Future research opportunities and conclusion

Reusable packaging systems replace single-use packages with reusable ones which are used for several
times in supply chain systems. In this paper, we have conducted a systematic literature review on works
that provide information for decision making to shift from single-use to reusable packaging systems. We
differentiated these works into three categories: those studying (1) the feasibility/viability of reusable
packaging systems in terms of environmental and economic factors, (2) various designs of a logistics system
using reusable packages, and (3) operations management of reusables. Based on our observations from the
extant literature, we also delivered several relevant research opportunities for future research.
Research opportunities: feasibility/viability of reusables. Future research needs to have more
environmental and economic orientation towards the cost of reusables. For example, emission factors have
been incorporated into optimization models for reusable packaging in a handful of studies (see, e.g., Soysal,
2016; Ech-Charrat and Amechnoue, 2016; Ech-Charrat et al., 2017a,b,c; and Bortolini et al., 2018).
Although environmental and economic factors could be considered simultaneously via a multi-objective
optimization model (to the best of our knowledge, this route has not been addressed in the literature),
converting environmental impacts into economic drivers (e.g., carbon taxes, environmental externalities,
and eco-costs) would be another viable option to better understand the trade-off between such factors.
Another instance of economic factors is to analyze the impact of consumers’ behavior on the cost of
reusable packaging. Indeed, one can focus on the level of consumers’ cooperation on the financial success
of reusable packaging (see, e.g., Grimes-Casey et al., 2007). The design (i.e., shape and dimensions, and
material selection) is another aspect of reusable packaging with economic and environmental implications
(as one study incorporating the design in an optimization model, one can refer to Glock and Kim, 2014).
Finally, we note that research can explore social dimensions of reusables (e.g., ergonomics of material
handling) and their roles in developing decision support systems (see, e.g., Twede and Clarke, 2004). This
can further contribute to an efficient execution of diverse reusable packaging practices.
Research opportunities: logistics system design. Future research should focus on issues that might arise
due to the ownership of reusable packages, albeit in two different capacities. First, the main assumption in
the majority of existing works is that such packages are owned by the sender, while in practice, they are
often leased or rented (see, e.g., Ray et al., 2006; Carrano et al., 2015; Hariga et al., 2016). More
importantly, the structure of renting contracts for reusable packages, which could lead to various renting
periods, payment schemes, and claim management is the subject that has not been investigated in the
literature (to the best of our knowledge). Second, the role of third-party logistics in shipping loaded
packages and collecting empty ones needs to be explored more; see Kroon and Vrijens (1995) and Elia and
Gnoni (2015) as some examples in this regard. To this end, the selection of an appropriate third-party
logistics is an important practical question that is worthy of further research consideration. This could, in
turn, lead to another research avenue, in that the issues of bidding by third-party logistics and proposer
selection problem by the central agency are dealt with.
Research opportunities: operations management. Compared to the foregoing two domains, we have
found more research opportunities under the operations management of reusable packaging. We
acknowledge that some of these avenues can have overlaps with the earlier domains. Nevertheless, we
summarize our suggestions as follows:
(1) Underlying assumptions. First, to the best of our knowledge, the majority of literature have considered
a supply chain with a single sender and a single recipient, while we typically observe more complex supply
chains in practice (see, e.g., Glock and Kim, 2014 and Cobb, 2016a as a few instances considering a single
sender and multiple recipients). Of note, it could also be worthwhile to investigate the impact of RFIDs on
how they could contribute to the management of such complex systems. Second, another common
assumption is the condition of reusables considered as binary parameter (i.e., whether it is usable or not).
However, the condition may indeed vary from new (perfect condition) to minor scratches (not needing
repair) to a condition where repair is needed. This raises another question about the quality of packages and
imposes limitations on their usability (i.e., damaged packages can be of inferior quality to new ones).
Therefore, appropriate models could be developed to explore the question on how to select such packages.
Third, third-party logistics are assumed to have full information about the cost parameters of both senders
and recipients (e.g., Glock and Kim, 2014). In addition, these parties are assumed to be willing to cooperate
in this process. However, lack of cooperation could result in misaligned incentives between various entities.
Therefore, a viable research direction is to explore and devise incentive mechanisms that could facilitate
this alignment. One last note about the assumptions is directed to the probability of a returned package,
which is assumed to be independent from the package’s age (e.g., Buchanan and Abad, 1998). Developing
a mathematical model, in which this probability depends on age would be another direction with real-world
implications.
(2) Coordination. This stream can be dealt with from two perspectives. First, coordination of a supplier’s
production cycle with a third-party’s delivery schedule and recipients’ returning cycles has not been
addressed in the existing decision support systems, while in practice, such coordination is a must. Also,
considering the safety stock of a finished product along with that of reusables into an inventory management
model would help us to protect the system against stockouts and make it more flexible in adjusting its safety
measures to the cost parameters of the system. Second, future research can focus on a coordination between
the lot sizes of packages, production, and consumer’s demand. To the best of our knowledge, Kim et al.
(2014) seems to be the only work assuming that return lot size and capacity of reusables determine the
production lot size. However, we note that such assumptions could result in unfruitful outcomes if not
taking stochastic factors into consideration. Indeed, stochastic factors such as production process, return
time and quantity, and demand for the finished products (which often has random and seasonal components)
could lead to a more realistic picture of supply chains observed in practice.
(3) Industry/application. Concerning the applicability of developed optimization models under the
operations management, we realized that a few papers have only developed their models based on a specific
industry (see, e.g., Kim et al., 2014; Hariga et al., 2016). The operations management of reusable packaging
and their characteristics may vary from industry to industry, and thus a general model may not work well
for a specific industry. Future studies can also go further by reporting industry-related case studies and the
lessons learned from them.
(4) Deposit systems. Another research avenue can be to study deposit systems in which a sender can induce
recipients to return packages earlier and more reliably. See Grimes-Casey et al. (2007) as a study analyzing
how to design a deposit system for reusables.
In concluding our research opportunities, it should be noted that we have observed the foregoing
research directions and opportunities from the extant literature with respect to secondary and/or tertiary
packaging options. As we also mentioned in Section 1, the reusable primary packaging is a newer concept
compared to secondary/tertiary options; however, given the scope of our proposed research directions (e.g.,
costs, ownership, assumptions on complexity of the system, quality of the package, and symmetric
information, coordination, deposit system, etc.), all these opportunities could also be exerted for a primary
reusable packaging option.
Our review has some limitations: (1) as our inclusion criteria, we limited the literature to those works
published in English and in peer-reviewed academic journals or conference proceedings, and did not include
relevant resources such as technical notes, book chapters, books, patents, etc. (granted that our choice of
journal/conference papers would form a huge body of literature). (2) Although we use a reasonable mix of
keywords in our review via forward and backward snowball searches (e.g., “reusable packages”, “reusable
packaging”, “reusable packaging material”, “returnable packaging material”, “returnable containers”, and
“returnable transport items”), this review can be enhanced by including new terms such as “reusable plastic
crates”, “reusable plastic containers”, and “reusable totes”. (3) Due to the nature of some studies, where
extracting the focus/orientation of that study could be equivocal, their classification becomes a subjective
act (as is the case in any review paper). Thus, future reviews may employ different classification schemes,
and hence, their findings might be different from ours in this study. Finally, we note that this review can be
enhanced by future research on reusable packaging systems (through research opportunities mentioned
earlier in this section).

Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees for providing valuable and constructive comments on
earlier versions of this paper that helped to improve the paper significantly.

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