Couple weeks ago I got back from Prague and Vienna, and I need to talk about cups.
Not fancy cups. Not biodegradable, plant-based, third-party-certified, “engineered for end-of-life” cups. Just… glass. Regular, boring, reusable glass.
At street markets, beer gardens, and even a concert, vendors handed me an actual glass mug for my beer and an actual mug for my coffee. No flimsy paper dishes, No lid. No sleeve. No “please recycle responsibly” guilt trip printed on the side.
Just a glass pint, and a nod that said “bring it back.”
And here’s the wild part: everyone did. No one smashed them for fun. No one pocketed a souvenir mug collection. Thousands of people, hundreds of transactions an hour, and the system just… worked.
Commerce was booming and the trash cans were basically decorative.
Meanwhile in North America, we’re out here inventing cups that dissolve in the ocean, compost in 90 days, and require a PhD in materials science to manufacture — solving a waste problem with more engineering, when Europe solved it by just not making waste in the first place.
I work in packaging. I love good innovation as much as the next person obsessed with substrate specs.
But this trip had me wondering: are we sometimes so busy building a better mousetrap that we forget to ask if we even need one?
To be clear — single-use has its place. Airports, hospitals, festivals with 80,000 people and no dish pit. Not every problem is a “keep it simple” problem.
But some are. And Toronto, I think we could handle a few more mugs.
Would love to hear how other packaging folks are thinking about reuse models here. 🍺☕
