A reusable shipping bag with a deposit works in Belgian e-commerce: in the EVERPAX pilot, 80% of the bags came back. Do you sell online? The pilot shows the conditions under which reuse can become viable for your business too.
What is the EVERPAX pilot?
Between February and August 2026, eight partners tested a system of reusable shipping bags with a deposit, under the name Bring Me Bag. Torfs and Juttu offered the bag in their webshops and shops. bpost handled shipping and returns, and Twintag the technology and project management. ABC Packaging made the bags, the University of Antwerp carried out the research and VIL contributed logistics expertise. Vlaanderen Circulair supported the project.
How does it work? At checkout, customers choose between single-use shipping packaging and the reusable bag. If they choose the bag, they pay a deposit of EUR 3.95. They get the full amount back when they return the empty bag: in a red bpost letterbox, at a post office or in a Torfs or Juttu/A.S. Adventure shop. A unique QR code on each bag handles the refund and puts the bag back into circulation.
What did the pilot deliver?
In six months, the partners recorded 1,271 full cycles. The results were in line with or better than expected:
- 80% of the bags came back.
- The median turnaround time, from shipping to deposit refund, was 12 days.
- Only 0.5% of the bags needed cleaning or repair between two cycles.
- 40% of the bags were returned via a shop.
That last figure comes from the decision to make every participating shop a return point. Combined with bpost’s roughly 10,000 red letterboxes and 650 post offices, this worked well. And it helps retailers bring customers into their shops.
Visibility also matters a lot. When Juttu showed the reusable option in a pop-up, around 10% of customers chose it. Without the pop-up, that share dropped sharply, even though the option was still available. Preliminary results show that 28% of customers had not noticed the option. Most customers found the deposit reasonable. The University of Antwerp will complete the full analysis of the consumer research this autumn.
What does this mean for your business?
For online orders, packaging accounts for 10 to 30% of the CO₂ emissions of the delivery. Regulation is also changing, led by the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR).
The pilot shows that reuse in e-commerce works operationally. It isn’t profitable yet: the initial cost per bag was too high for the expected number of cycles and the return time. Returns via shops are the biggest opportunity to scale up. At the same time, reuse is not always the better option environmentally. How your product is used, and in what context, matters just as much.
Based on the pilot data, the partners built a scenario model. It identifies six levers that reinforce each other:
- Volume and process optimisation. More volume lowers the cost per cycle. Steps in the return flow can be combined, and sorting and handling become more reliable.
- Trust through the deposit. A smooth, automatic refund encourages use.
- Controlled flexibility. Standardise where possible, with room for the needs of retailers and product types.
- Automation. The pilot was largely manual. At scale, the bag fits into processes that are already automated today.
- A digital ID. A bag can leave from one retailer and come back to another, with the right customer getting a correct refund.
- An open ecosystem. A platform that every player contributes to and that new players can join easily.
Together, they form a hypothesis for the business case, which still needs to be confirmed at a larger scale. The open question: how do you share costs and revenues across the chain so that every party ends up with a workable balance?
How does Fost Plus help?
In the pilot, we contributed our knowledge of circular business models and the PPWR:
- We assessed the bag against the future PPWR requirements and design-for-recycling. In the long term, the bag isn’t yet fully compliant. We mapped out how it can get there.
- We calculated the costs and revenues per bag. This led to two choices: a different packaging supplier and a different return network, with all shops as return points.
- We advised on clear consumer instructions and on the commonly used Belgian reuse logo.
- We involved the sorting centres. They reported bags that still ended up in the blue bag, so we could closely monitor use.
The partners are now looking at a next phase, including with additional retailers. The platform remains available for new projects or consortia. We will keep putting our expertise into reuse systems that are viable at scale. And we want to better understand consumer behaviour so we can remove barriers.
Discover everything about the project on the REuseLab page
Source of the CO₂ figure: VUB Packaging Study (H. Buldeo Rai, 2024).