Ringkarp in Estonia is creating the change on packaging

RingKarp creates a network of reusable food and drink containers to avoid single-use packaging. Their clients are restaurants, event organizers and companies who care for the environment and don’t want to use single-use products.

The network of restaurants means that a client can get RingKarp reusables from any restaurant who has joined the network, but can also return the reusables to any restaurant that is in the network. Restaurants wash returned containers and give them out to their next clients.

RingKarp believes that there’s no need to transport reusables to be washed in central washing if restaurants have the capacity to do it. RingKarp reusables are free of charge for the end consumer, but the deposit for the box is €10, and just €5 for the cup. It’s important to ensure that reusables are neither thrown away nor forgotten. A high deposit motivates enough people to comply, so consumption habits change more quickly.

For bigger events, RingKarp offers washing the containers as well, but they always try to find local partners in order to avoid transportation costs. RingKarp also sells their reusables to companies who want to nudge their employees toward a greener lifestyle.

RingKarp’s CEO, Katarina Papp, explains, “For years we’ve been told that sorting waste equals a green lifestyle. When I understood how many problems Estonian waste management has, I understood that the only way to be greener is to avoid creating waste.”

“It’s not true that recycling takes away the need to consume as little as possible,” she added. “The other problem in the food industry is that biodegradable or compostable is marketed as an environmentally smart choice. This isn’t true either, because these packages need special industrial composting conditions, but in Estonia, there’s no capacity to do it.”

“It doesn’t matter what the material of single-use is; if it’s single-use, it’s not sustainable. RingKarp’s mission is to replace single-use packaging with reusables,” concluded Papp.

RingKarp has thought through different solutions for creating a network of reusables. They’ve chosen the current approach because it has the smallest environmental footprint (high quality dishes, minimal transportation, high returning rates thanks to high deposit, using the infrastructure we already have).

They’ve also done LCA analysis which shows the impact very well. They’ve consulted a lot with different reusable schemes around the world to get ideas and figure out their own model and only then started with a pilot project, with just a few restaurants in Tallinn. From there, they continued to grow the network.

Papp reveals, “I would say that the first 50 restaurants got on board quite easily. They’d been waiting for this kind of solution for a long time. At some point though it got harder, as we met more restaurant owners who don’t care about the environment at all – or owners who say that the solution is very needed and important, but they’re not joining us. By now we’ve understood that Estonians are very environmentally conscious but most of us are not ready to change our habits. How do we overcome that? We breathe in and out and wait for better times to come.”

RingKarp has restaurants in almost every county in Estonia and they are part of the European reusable network ‘reCIRCLE’, meaning that one can return containers also to other European countries as the deposit is the same everywhere. RingKarp says they understand that they, as a small company, have little impact and that regulations for banning single-use packaging are urgently needed if big and fast changes are to occur.

As Papp concluded, “I wouldn’t expect that people have as good knowledge in environmental topics as we do. Actually, this has led our team from RingKarp to create a zero waste exhibition called ‘Lähme Nulli’ (‘Let’s Go To Zero’), where we show people the problems of single-use and what the reusable alternatives are.”

‘Lähme Nulli’ starts on September 3rd at Salme Kultuurikeskus and Telliskivi yard, plus it’s all free of charge!”

Ringkarp links
Website: https://en.ringkarp.ee/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ringkarp