Especially with the rise of e-commerce, there’s no reason why most consumer products couldn’t be delivered in reusable glass containers.
Perhaps with standardized containers and regional distribution centers? Sort of like the old-school beverage bottling plants, but for all variety of consumer products, and not tied to just one brand or class of product. I've no idea how you'd get such a thing bootstrapped, though.
https://wastelandrebel.com/en/the-first-zero-waste-bulk-stor...
But I just don't see how waste reduction can be neatly reconciled with e-commerce. The typical situation seems to be that things are packed in retail-style packaging, then plastic wrapped, then placed in a plastic padded mailing envelope or placed in a cardboard box along with some plastic air pillows, and then shipped 2day, which, if it's not coming from Amazon, likely means jet fuel is being burned.
I'll say that for Amazon, they at least did an impressive job reducing the fuel waste inherent in ecommerce. It's too bad they're so happy to let the counterfeiters ruin it for us.
Sure, foodstuffs. But why can we not refill our soaps, chemicals, etc. Laundry detergent? There is no need to wash those with water.
I suspect that the real problem with packaging reduction is that it favors a consolidated product stream. One of those bulk "fill your own containers" of shampoo probably took up the same amount of space as 6 or 8 different products in individual packaging. Which in turn means that you can't offer your customers a dizzying variety of scents and textures and customizations for your hair type and brands and varying levels of organic or biodynamic or being insert_ingredient_here-free or whatever.
And everyone buying the same shampoo - making it effectively a commodity - probably does a number on your ability to boost profits through price discrimination, too.