From Zero Waste Pioneer to Reusable Packaging Revolution: How Catherine Conway is Solving the £136 Million Plastic Packaging Problem

In this ground-breaking episode of Straight Talking Sustainability, host Emma Burlow sits down with Catherine Conway, the visionary founder of the UK's first modern zero-waste store and current CEO of Go Unpackaged. With over 20 years of experience pioneering reusable packaging solutions, Catherine has evolved from running a small unpackaged shop to leading industry-transforming research that could save the UK £136 million annually in packaging waste costs.

Catherine started Unpackaged in 2006, long before sustainability became mainstream, creating the template for what we now know as zero waste retail. Today, she leads Go Unpackaged alongside business partners Helen and Rob, working directly with major retailers like Aldi and Ocado to develop scalable reuse systems that challenge the fundamental assumptions of our throwaway economy.

This episode dives deep into the complex world of packaging policy, revealing why we're still putting billions of single-use items on the market despite decades of environmental awareness. Catherine breaks down the structural forces that have prevented large-scale change, from misaligned financial incentives to business models built on selling units as fast as possible (Fast Moving Consumer Goods literally has "fast" and "consumer" in the name).

The conversation centres around Catherine's ground-breaking infrastructure modelling work for DEFRA's Circular Economy Task Force, which analysed what it would take to achieve 30% reuse in UK grocery retail. Using their sophisticated end-to-end supply chain modelling tool, UnPack Analytics, they discovered that four reuse scenarios actually run cheaper than single-use systems, with online delivery returns being the most cost-effective option.

Catherine reveals the game-changing impact of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations, which create a 94% reduction in packaging taxes for reusable items compared to single-use alternatives. This policy framework finally aligns financial incentives with environmental benefits, making the business case for reuse undeniable.

Through candid discussion of the Refill Coalition project (funded by Innovate UK), Catherine shares hard-won insights about what actually works in reusable packaging systems, why collaboration beats competition, and how the logistics industry holds keys to optimizing circular solutions that most sustainability professionals never consider.

In this circular economy and plastic packaging episode, you'll discover:

• Why 20 years of sustainability awareness haven't solved our packaging problem and what's finally changing
• The four reuse scenarios that cost less than single-use packaging systems (with evidence to prove it)
• How Extended Producer Responsibility regulations create 94% cost savings for reusable packaging
• Why online delivery returns are more cost-effective than in-store collection for reuse systems
• The hidden costs of single-use packaging that have been socialized to taxpayers for decades
• How proper supply chain modeling reveals 95% reductions in carbon emissions and material use
• Why successful pilots often fail to scale and what's needed to move beyond "more pilots than Heathrow"
• The 13,000 new jobs that could be created through a 30% reuse transition in the UK

Key Circular Economy and Packaging Insights:

(03:25) The hard reality check: "I'm going to say I don't think we're winning yet and that's quite a thing to say having done it for 20 years... we are still putting billions of items of single use packaging on the market every year."

(05:09) The consensus myth: "I think for many years, we didn't have a consensus that packaging is a problem. I think across a lot of global brands and retailers, maybe we also don't have a consensus that packaging is a problem."

(08:08) The externalized cost problem: "There's this point that you privatise the gains of packaging and the profits and then you socialise the costs of disposal of it... the cost of disposal has been put on the public purse."

(16:03) The 30% reuse vision: "Imagine anyone walking around in a supermarket and a third of the items in their basket are in reusable packaging. That's a lot of items... so it's a step change."

(22:36) The EPR game-changer: "If you've got 30 uses out of your piece of reusable packaging, you've paid for it once and displaced 29 pieces of single-use packaging... It's basically a 94% reduction in EPR cost per item you switch to reuse."

(24:16) Learning from logistics: "If you want to learn how to do something efficiently, ask the logistics people, ask procurement and logistics how to do things efficiently because they absolutely know how to do that."

(27:48) The staggering environmental impact: "You're talking about a 95% reduction in packaging related carbon emissions and materials... it's the materials going in and the waste coming out a 95% reduction in materials because you're reusing things."

(40:06) Evidence-based solutions: "If you want to know the evidence, the evidence will tell you that for certain products, refill in store is your absolute winner in terms of cost and environmental benefits."

Connect with Catherine

Catherine Conway | LinkedIn

https://gounpackaged.com/infrastructure-modelling 

https://gounpackaged.com/refill-coalition 

Connect with Emma

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Emma Burlow - LinkedIn

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