New global map reveals 800 businesses trying to cut plastic waste

Free online database brings together refill shops, reusable packaging schemes and take-back services across 74 countries as alternatives to throwaway plastic spread worldwide

More than 800 businesses and organisations trying to replace throwaway plastic have been brought together in a new global database showing how everything from shampoo bottles to takeaway containers is being reused instead.

REUSE.IQ allows users to search companies involved in refills, reusable packaging, rentals, deposit-return schemes and other circular business models, with entries spanning 74 countries.

The database currently includes more than 810 organisations, of which 634 are listed as confirmed active, and allows them to be searched by country, category and business model.

Among them are UK companies including Bower Collective, which supplies household and personal-care products using reusable packaging, and Wild, whose deodorants use reusable cases and replacement refills.

Other examples range from French company 900.care, which sells refillable and waterless personal-care products, to Switzerland’s reCIRCLE, which operates a reusable food-packaging deposit system involving around 2,000 participating businesses.

The project comes as recycling continues to deal with only a fraction of the world’s plastic. The OECD estimates that about nine per cent of plastic waste was recycled globally in 2019, prompting growing interest in systems designed to prevent packaging being thrown away in the first place.

Each REUSE.IQ listing records information including where an organisation operates, what it does, when it was founded and its ownership status, with users able to browse the results as cards, a table or on a map.

Roger Sharp, trustee of the UK-based REUSE Foundation, which created the database, said: “For years, anyone trying to understand the scale of the global reuse movement has had to piece it together from scratch — there was no shared map of who is doing this work, where, and how. REUSE.IQ changes that.

“By putting a citable, verifiable database of reuse businesses into the open, we want to make it easier for researchers, funders, and policymakers to see this sector clearly, and easier for the businesses themselves to be found, compared, and supported.”

The database has initially been launched in beta and will continue to expand, with businesses and members of the public invited to suggest missing organisations or flag inaccurate information.

READ MORE: Meet the Earth Prize-winning teenager tackling the world’s microplastic crisis. Arya Satheesh, 18, has been named European winner of The Earth Prize 2026 for Eco Purge, a biodegradable plastic prototype designed to release enzymes that help break down existing microplastic pollution.

Do you have news to share or expertise to contribute? The European welcomes insights from business leaders and sector specialists. Get in touch with our editorial team to find out more.

_{Main image: Gaurav Ranjitkar via Pexels}