REUSE Foundation Launches REUSE.IQ, the First Global Database of Reuse Businesses Fighting Plastic Waste

Free, research-grade database catalogues more than 800 reuse and circular-economy organisations worldwide, giving researchers, investors, and policymakers a single source to track the businesses working to prevent single-use plastic waste

LONDON — 25 August 2026 — REUSE Foundation, a UK-registered charity dedicated to scaling reuse as an alternative to single-use plastic, today announced the launch of REUSE.IQ^TM, a free, publicly searchable database cataloguing more than 800 reuse and circular-economy businesses operating around the world. Available now at reuse.iq.reusefoundation.org, REUSE.IQ is the most comprehensive open dataset of its kind, tracking reuse operators, consumer goods innovators, and circular business models working to prevent plastic from ever becoming waste.

Global plastic production continues to rise even as recycling struggles to keep pace — the OECD estimates that only about 9% of the plastic produced worldwide was recycled in 2019 and expects it to rise only slightly through 2040. REUSE Foundation was founded to shift the focus beyond recycling that cannot solve the plastics crisis, to reuse — refillable packaging, reusable containers, rental and take-back models, and similar approaches — that underpin a circular economy and can prevent plastic waste.

REUSE.IQ was built to give this emerging sector the same kind of shared, citable data infrastructure that more mature industries take for granted.

“Super exciting to see a comprehensive dataset of reuse activity across the globe! REUSE.IQ provides a vast array of reuse businesses making it easier for the business and research community to access and engage with the reuse ecosystem, a step forward in advancing a circular economy.”

— Simran Talwar, Research Director and Circular Economy Lead at the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures

Each entry in REUSE.IQ records an organisation's location, business model, primary category, year founded, ownership status, and other verified details, drawn from public sources and cross-checked by the Foundation's research team. Users can search and filter the database, browse results in a card or table view, and a map view gives a geographic perspective.

"This database makes an incredible start to map reuse solutions, which, over the next few years, as DRS and EPR are rolled out, will prove to be really useful to businesses looking for solutions to reduce single-use plastic, and embrace the circular economy. At Action on Plastic UK, our mission is to build a movement taking action on plastic, and we're certain that this database will help to achieve this."

— Greg Hewitt, Chair of Action on Plastic UK

REUSE.IQ launches in public beta, and the Foundation is treating it as a living, community-verified resource rather than a finished product. Visitors can suggest a new organisation for inclusion, report a correction to an existing listing, or express interest in contributing to an in-depth case study. The Foundation says it expects the database's coverage and depth to grow substantially as more organisations and members of the public contribute.

"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. This launch is a beta and a beginning — we're inviting the whole reuse community to help us make it more complete."

— Roger Sharp, Trustee, REUSE Foundation

REUSE.IQ is available now, free of charge, at REUSE Foundation’s website. Organisations that believe they should be listed, or that wish to correct an existing entry, can submit details directly through the site.

About REUSE Foundation

REUSE Foundation (charity number 1207464) is a UK-registered charity working to scale reuse for consumer goods as a pragmatic alternative to single-use plastic. Under the banner "A smarter future for plastic starts with REUSE," the Foundation runs research and field programmes. These include its Sponsor a Village campaign supporting a project launching later this year to test village-scale reuse systems in rural India, and its Bottles for Good campaign, a UK initiative that supplied free reusable bottles to refill stores to seed reuse. Bottles for Good has been succeeded by a National Lottery funded effort to test whether community hubs, food banks, clubs and similar centres can host affordable refills of everyday household and personal care products.

REUSE Foundation also publishes analysis and position papers as well as a monthly newsletter tracking the global transition to reuse. Learn more at reusefoundation.org.

Media Contact

Roger Sharp, Trustee, REUSE Foundation

[email protected]