Heather Watkins · August 2026
We recently hosted a webinar walking through our 2026 Reuse Benchmark Report, and I want to put the findings in writing for the people who make these programs actually work: venue operations leaders, sustainability teams, C-suite decision-makers, and the foodservice partners running the floor every event day.
This report is the result of interviewing hundreds of fans across our customer base, from Kansas City to San Francisco, to Seattle and Portland, and operators across our client base.
Four findings held up across every conversation:
Fans want reuse, and satisfaction is high.
Operations teams are proud of these programs, not burdened by them.
The economics work, and improve as programs mature.
Regulatory pressure is accelerating, and reuse is increasingly the compliant, lower-risk choice.
Here's what backs each of those up, and what it means depending on where you sit in the stack.
Fan demand for reuse is measurable, not anecdotal
For any operator weighing a service change, the first question is usually "will guests accept this?" The data says yes, decisively.
83% of fans reported high satisfaction with reusable cup programs.
0% reported a negative experience.
72% want to see reuse expanded to more venues and event types.
89% rated waste reduction as important to their venue experience; 67% rated waste reduction as 5 on a scale from 1-5 (5 being the most important)
Nearly half of fans said they'd accept a small fee to participate, though we don't recommend deposit fees in the spirit of frictionless experiences with reuse.
At Rip City Reuse inside the Moda Center, our longest-running large-scale program, guests have been surveyed over the last three and a half years. Guest satisfaction has held at 93%, with 88% saying it's clear where to return their cup. That's the number that matters most to sustainability teams building a long-term case: this isn't a launch-week honeymoon effect.
What fans want improved:
clearer signage indicating a cup is reusable
more visible return bins
larger cup sizes
refill capability where local regulation allows it.
Those are all fixable, low-cost operational adjustments, not structural barriers.
What operations and foodservice teams told us: effort versus reward
This is the section I think matters most for anyone managing day-of execution, whether that's an in-house operations team or a contracted foodservice partner.
100% of venues in our customer base would recommend reuse to a peer venue.
100% reported year-over-year improvement in program performance.
57% reached a smooth operational rhythm within one to three months.
86% rated the effort-to-impact ratio as moderate effort, strong reward. Zero venues rated it high effort, low reward.
For foodservice partners specifically: the labor impact is smaller than most RFPs assume. Collection is largely a reallocation of existing janitorial and concessions time, not a new labor line. Back-of-house sorting adds a task to an existing workflow rather than creating a new on. And because we hold most inventory in our own warehouses and deploy it as needed, the space constraints that come up in older venues are less of a factor than operators initially expect.
Our own history at Soldier Field is a useful case study in what the ramp actually looks like. In our first game with the Bears, our bowl-pick team didn't separate cups properly, and we lost product. We fixed the process, and by our third season, Soldier Field consistently holds an 80–85% return rate and is now one of the stronger-performing venues in our network. The lesson: expect a rough first few events, not a rough first year.
→ Read our reuse implementation playbook for operations teams
Return rate benchmarks by venue type
Return rate is the single number that most directly determines ROI, and it varies predictably by venue category and sort method. The pattern across every venue type: return rates improve over time as signage improves, fans get familiar with the system, and operations mature. Every venue that started below the 71% economic viability threshold in our benchmark data moved above it within one to two seasons.
The financial case for reuse in venue and foodservice operations
For the C-suite and finance stakeholders in the room, here's where the numbers land.
Half of the venues in our survey were previously using compostables, one of the most expensive single-use categories on the market. Another 12% were using aluminum cups. For those venues, reuse is cost-competitive from day one.
In one modeled arena example (9,000 cups per event, 150 events per year), single-use with compostables, labor, and hauling ran approximately $367,000 annually. Reuse came in lower starting in year one. Because reuse contracts typically lock in multi-year rates while single-use costs climb with inflation and rising EPR compliance fees, that cost gap widens every year the program runs.
71% of operators reported measurable cost reductions. Savings show up in three places: reduced hauling costs, reduced purchasing costs, and, as programs mature, reduced labor overhead.
Sponsorship: an underused revenue line
$125K is the highest single-venue sponsorship value in our current data, and 57% of venues say they see sponsorship potential they haven't yet activated.
Two examples not accounted for in the $125K sponsorship value: Skanska, a global construction firm, sponsored the Portland Timbers and Thorns reuse program at Providence Park because it matched their sustainability positioning. McMenamins signed Straight Away Cocktails as a summer-long sponsor within a week of the first conversation, covering nearly half a million cups across two venues. Neither was a traditional beverage-brand sponsorship — both were regional businesses that saw brand value in being associated with the program.
For foodservice partners building client proposals, sponsorship potential is a differentiator worth surfacing early: it can offset program cost for the venue and create a co-branding opportunity that doesn't exist with single-use.
Regulatory pressure is accelerating faster than most teams expect
For sustainability and compliance teams, this is the section to bring back to leadership.
7 states currently have EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) laws in effect.
6 more states have a high probability of passing EPR legislation soon.
California SB54 takes effect January 2027, targeting 25% total plastic reduction by 2032, with 10% required to come specifically from reuse and refill models, backed by $500M annually in state funding.
New York, New Jersey, and Tennessee all have reuse-related legislation moving through their respective systems.
Oregon has already begun collecting EPR fees and is starting to deploy that funding toward local waste reduction infrastructure. The direction across every state we track is the same: single-use costs are going up, not down, and reuse increasingly sits on the compliant, lower-risk side of that shift.
→ Track EPR legislation by state — Upstream Solutions
From "does this work" to "how do we get started"
Based on this year's data, the first question is answered. Fans embrace reuse. Operations and foodservice teams find it manageable and increasingly efficient. The economics hold up and are trending further in reuse's favor. Regulatory pressure makes the case more urgent every year.
The real question now is where to start, and that looks different depending on your role:
Operations and sustainability leads: we'll walk your team through a live program and connect you with current customers running comparable venues.
C-suite and finance stakeholders: we'll build a venue-specific financial model with you, using your actual event volume and current single-use costs.
Foodservice partners: we'll work with your team to scope a pilot that fits inside your existing labor model and client contracts.
→ Download the full 2026 Reuse Benchmark Report
→ Build your reuse business case with our team
Thank you to everyone who joined the live session, and to everyone who sent in such thoughtful questions. If you have more, please reach out to us and let’s get started.
— Heather Watkins, Co-founder, Bold Reuse