Adoption of Returnable Packaging Depends on Price, Deposit, and Material, with Spillovers from Recycling and Reuse

Bethan Thompson^*Faical AkaichiLuiza Toma

• Scotland's Rural College, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Policies to reduce packaging waste increasingly promote reusable formats. Evidence on consumer demand for returnable packaging remains limited. We present a nationally representative discrete choice experiment in the UK across a food (flaked corn cereal) and a non-food (household cleaner) category, varying price, deposit, prior uses, container material, and return location. Multinomial logit and latent class models are used to estimate preferences, willingness to pay, and heterogeneity in acceptance. Results show that higher prices and deposits reduce the likelihood of selecting returnable options, while glass is generally preferred to plastic. Prior uses only influence acceptance for the cleaner, and return location has little effect. Latent class models reveal two consistent consumer segments: cost-conscious sceptics, who are typically older and more likely to reject returnables, and open-minded adopters, who are younger, less price-sensitive, and already more engaged in refill behaviours. Secondary analysis provides evidence of behavioural spillovers: individuals reporting stronger engagement in recycling and reuse behaviours are more likely to adopt returnable packaging. By contrast, self-efficacy and environmental concern play a weaker and more context-specific role, particularly in the food category. This indicates that experience with circular practices may offer a stronger foundation for adoption than general pro-environmental attitudes alone. The findings suggest that deposit levels must be carefully calibrated, material choices aligned with product contexts, and adoption strategies tailored to consumer segments. Crucially, uptake may be enhanced where reuse and recycling behaviours are already established. To our knowledge, this is the first discrete choice experiment to quantify willingness to pay for returnable packaging across categories while explicitly testing for behavioural spillovers. The study demonstrates that spillover operates through transferable competencies rather than system-specific familiarity, that psychological constructs predict preferences context-dependently, and that established circular practices outperform attitudinal measures in predicting acceptance, providing robust evidence for behaviour-based intervention strategies.