RED-USE

Red-use's reusable bowls allow you to pick up meals at a restaurant without the need for extra packaging.

Red-use offers an alternative to disposable packaging for takeout meals. So customers can go and collect meals from their favorite restaurant with reusable bowls. The initiative comes from Danielle Ansoms of Roltex in Aalst, in collaboration with Durafest from Dendermonde.

The popularity of takeaway meals has risen sharply in recent months. Unfortunately, all those meals bring a lot of waste with them. Danielle Ansoms therefore came up with a solution: as the director of Roltex in Aalst, she came up with Red-use. Red-use is an app that allows consumers to use a reusable bowl for their takeaway meals.

The bowls are reusable, sustainable and can be melted down at the end of their lifespan to serve again as the basis for a new product. Roltex is working with Durafest, a start-up from Dendermonde that has been working on reusable packaging for some time. Moreover, production takes place in Wilrijk and the Red-use system is applied in Mechelen. As a result, the bowls are truly local products and transportation remains limited.

The app has been available since February 2021 and can be used in various Mechelen catering establishments such as Bavet, Graspoort and Carbon. Together with Mechelen Klimaatneutraal, a starter pack was distributed to the catering industry in Mechelen. Red-use takes care of the entire logistics process and washes the bowls itself. This means no extra work for the restaurants.

How does Red-use work?
When you place an order, you pay an extra deposit of three euros for the reusable bowl. After using it, you just rinse it clean, scan it into the app and bring it back inside the restaurant's drop box. Soon there will also be drop points outside the restaurants to bring the bowls back in. Then you get your deposit back through the PackBack.app. Red-use takes care of an industrial cleaning and afterwards brings the bowl back to the restaurant.