The University of California, Riverside, has expanded its reusable takeout container program to seven dining locations, including national chains at its busiest campus food court. Early figures from program vendor Reusables.com put uptake at about half of takeout orders, twice what the university and the company had planned for.
Reusables.com began working with UC Riverside at one location in April 2025, after an earlier university-run effort struggled to gain traction. Anastasia Kiku, the company’s chief operating officer and co-founder, said the earlier approach made returns inconvenient, particularly when customers had to wait in line to get a deposit back.
“You simply tap your credit card or student card or mobile wallet at the time of borrowing the container,” Kiku said. “The system links the container to the borrower at checkout and requires neither an upfront deposit nor an app download.”
The September expansion brought Panda Express, Chronic Tacos and The Halal Shack into the program at the Highlander Union Building. There, a disposable container costs $1. Borrowers who keep a reusable container past five days incur a $5 charge, which is refunded if they return it within 30 days, according to the university.
Kiku put UC Riverside’s overall return rate at 95.4%, compared with a companywide average of 98.5% across nearly 2 million reuses. The company’s dashboard logged about 23,000 reuses at UC Riverside since the September rollout, she said.
“We don’t like to brag about this number because it’s relatively low to most of our installations,” Kiku said of the return rate. She pointed to UCLA, where the company reported a return rate above 98% and said about 80% of orders at participating outlets went out in reusable containers.
Reusables.com uses the transaction count to estimate how many disposables the program displaced, assuming each reuse took the place of one single-use container.
The expanded system has 10 checkout stations and 14 return bins, according to Reusables.com. Borrowers can return containers elsewhere on campus, including at bins open around the clock. UC Riverside Dining staff collect them for on-site washing and sanitizing, then redistribute clean stock to the restaurants that need it.
For instance, a container borrowed at Panda Express can come back to The Barn, a campus dining venue. Kiku said the dining team can see where returns are piling up through the company’s software and move containers between locations to keep inventory in balance. Screens mounted at return bins display return rates and reuse counts and update the return tally as containers come in.
UC Riverside Dining holds the contract with Reusables.com and runs the program for participating restaurants.
“Every time a container is unreturned, we charge for it, and we provide a replacement container,” Kiku said. “Universities can break even or spend less on reusables when they account for the cost of buying disposable packaging and hauling it away.”
The expansion followed the May 1 effective date of regulations implementing California’s packaging extended producer responsibility law, SB 54. The law sets a statewide target of cutting single-use plastic packaging and plastic food service ware by 25% by 2032. Producers contribute through a collective plan that can count shifts to reusable or refillable packaging toward source reduction, according to Cal Recycle.
Kiku said she expects the law to drive more investment in reuse, though its role in UC Riverside’s decision to expand remains unclear. Circular Action Alliance, the producer responsibility organization in California, has submitted a plan that proposes direct investment in reuse and refill infrastructure and bonuses for eligible programs.
Kiku noted recycling companies have experience moving materials and operating processing facilities, capabilities that could help them work with reuse providers. Therefore, she sees room for those companies to add collection services as reuse programs expand.
“Reuse is going to become its own category in the circular economy,” Kiku said.
