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Premium e-bike and cargo bike brand Riese & Müller has unveiled plans to use reusable packaging to ship e-bikes and small components in the future.
The new, reusable packaging designs have been developed in recent months in cooperation with the German manufacturers circular logistics and rhinopaq and will be produced entirely in Germany.
It will initially be tested with selected dealers in September.
Moving forward, up to 60% of the e-bike packaging and up to 70% of the packaging for shipping small components will be switched to reusable materials by early 2024.
This will help Riese & Müller and its dealers to reduce their waste generation in retail by an estimated 905 tonnes of cardboard per year.
BikeBox from circular logistics, which Riese & Müller helped to develop, is made entirely of polypropylene, a material that is highly durable, resilient, easy to recycle and can be reused up to 30 times.
This saves around 80% of CO2 compared to conventional packaging.
The reusable BikeBoxes are the same size as the cardboard boxes used now. Once the e-bikes are removed, the BikeBoxes are quick and easy to fold down so that they can be sent back via the usual transport routes.
This reduces the accumulating volume of waste by 95%, which equates to around 880 tonnes of cardboard per year saved. The new packaging can be used on all European road freight routes, including in Switzerland.
Riese & Müller is one of the first e-bike manufacturers worldwide to establish this kind of reusable packaging system.
Reusable packaging will also be used when shipping small components in the future.
The packaging is foldable, and dealers can return it in bundles. The new packaging is made of 60% recycled materials and can be reused up to 20 times.
This will save around 25 tonnes of cardboard per year. The reusable boxes will be fastened using a hook-and-loop design to eliminate the need for additional adhesive tape.
