A new reuse icon is being rolled out by PR3: The Global Alliance to Advance Reuse, backed by a system that requires collection, transport, sorting, washing, and reuse. The mark arrives as only about 9% of plastic waste is recycled and reuse leaders argue recyc
When you’re holding a cold beer at a sold-out stadium, the moment feels simple. But behind the cup in your hand is a machine built for one job: getting that container back, cleaned, and ready for the next customer.
In a growing number of stadiums across the United States, beverage cups aren’t being treated as throwaway plastic. Instead, they’re built to be reused—handed back, washed, and circulated again. The move is already visible beyond the aisles. Coldplay served drinks in reusable cups during its Music of the Spheres World Tour. and Billie Eilish pushed the idea further in her tour rider. specifying refillable bottles and mugs for crew and water refill stations for fans.
Turning reuse into something that actually works at scale is complicated. It involves collection hubs, wash facilities, digital tracking, contracts, and standards most fans never see. Now. consumers will see a new icon identifying products as reusable—an attempt to make the system legible at a glance.
The symbol is being launched by PR3: The Global Alliance to Advance Reuse. It arrives as pressure mounts over plastic pollution and climate change. alongside a growing recognition that recycling alone can’t absorb the scale of the problem. Today, only about 9% of plastic waste is recycled, while the rest is landfilled, burned, or lost to the environment. Reuse tackles the problem by keeping packaging in circulation. which could reduce the production of single-use packaging and the carbon emissions required to make it.
PR3 cofounder and director Amy Larkin says reuse may be close to a tipping point. “I believe we’re close to a tipping point,” she says. For her, the crucial step is awareness—helping people understand that these systems exist and that they can participate.
A spiral designed to read like an invitation
PR3 didn’t hand over the icon design quietly. In 2025, it hosted an open competition to crowdsource reuse symbol concepts, drawing 236 submissions from 29 countries.
The winner came from Epigrama Studios, a creative practice in Bogotá run for nearly two decades by cofounders Juan Navarrete and Nicole Ascanio Rodriguez. Their design was selected after multiple rounds of jury review and market testing with roughly 1,275 people across 17 countries.
Epigrama learned about the competition through one of its own clients, Ciclo, a software platform that manages returnable packaging. That familiarity with returnable systems shaped the design work, including an understanding of the psychology behind getting people to bring products back.
At first glance, the symbol reads as a spiral. But on closer inspection, it’s also the letter R. Navarrete said the spiral is a tribute to the philosophy of the Global South. where time isn’t treated as a straight line but something that returns on itself. He contrasts that with consumer culture. which he describes as linear—pushing people to chase what comes next. with examples including new phones every two years. new cars. and new clothes each summer.
The spiral is meant to represent the opposite idea: that answers for the future may be found in older ways of living with materials. Navarrete also describes it as resistance to the status quo that consumer culture in the Global North has helped reinforce. He and his team studied the recycling symbol. admired its universality. and decided they didn’t want reuse to feel institutional or faintly shaming—“you recycle because you feel bad.”.
Instead. they wanted the reuse mark to read as an invitation. a visual cue that says “we’re in this together.” They also didn’t pitch reuse as a rival to recycling. “We want to be its evolution,” Navarrete said. In that spirit, the R nods to both reuse and recycle, tied together inside the same spiral.
Where the mark will show up first
The symbol is already appearing on reusable products. Larkin points to Solo. the cup brand. which built a reuse program with the Portland. Oregon-based operator Bold Reuse and is putting the new mark on its reusable cups. Stadiums are an early proving ground because venues don’t have to build the system themselves.
In practice, reuse service providers handle washing, pickups, deliveries, and inventory. They also run a shared digital standard to track cups across the chain. Larkin says, “It’s a very low lift for the venue, because service providers are managing the logistics.”
Looking ahead, Larkin expects reuse to spread to major sporting events such as NASCAR races and FIFA fan zones around international soccer matches. Concert venues are also expected to adopt the approach, especially as musicians advocate for reuse by writing it into their tour riders.
The symbol is being piloted across more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. Unlike a vague recyclability claim. the symbol is tied to criteria in PR3’s Marking & Labeling Standard. which is set to be published through the American National Standards Institute. The mark can appear only where there’s an actual system to collect, transport, sort, wash, and reuse.
The road reuse still must travel
Reuse has been promised before, and many pilots never grew beyond their early successes. Years ago. CupClub in London was described as engineered for 132 uses. tracked by radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips. with cups collected at points around the city before being run through industrial dishwashers and sent back out.
Around the same time, Loop—backed by Procter & Gamble and Unilever—promised brand-name shampoo, mouthwash, and condiments in sleek refillable containers. The design of those systems was described as elegant, but they never reached mass market.
Larkin argues the difference now is that reuse is being built with global effort around standards and logistics. PR3 has spent the past three years working on those foundations, convening a panel of more than 80 organizations. The group includes informal waste pickers, multinationals, plastic producers, cities, and environmental-justice advocates.
Larkin says three national governments are considering the standards for draft policy, and a certification program is coming. That program is anchored by a washing standard intended to ensure reusable containers are clean when they reach consumers’ hands.
For Larkin, tipping points don’t appear out of nowhere. “You open every door you can,” she said, “and then one of them opens, and overnight there it goes. A tipping point.” She believes the cultural moment is shifting as well. “After a long stretch of cynicism, people are looking for ways to do good,” she says.
Between a cup you hold in a stadium and a symbol stamped on its packaging, the work is already underway—quietly, operationally, and with strict requirements. The question now is whether the new icon can help reuse become something people not only notice, but reliably participate in.
PR3 reuse symbol reusable cups returnable packaging plastic recycling crisis stadium reuse programs Bold Reuse Solo cup brand Bold Reuse logistics marking and labeling standard returnable packaging tracking