How a reusable cup loop works at the Big House — and why it only covers the suites

Michigan Stadium — capacity over 100,000 — became the first venue in Michigan to run a reusable cup programme on September 5, 2026. It is a useful case study because it shows both how simple a reuse loop is on paper and how much of the difficulty sits in logistics.

Bold Reuse (a Portland reuse-infrastructure company) runs it with SOLO (cups and return bins), Michigan Athletics, Learfield and Levy Restaurants.

1. Distribute. Reusable SOLO cups go out to suites and clubs before each home game.
2. Serve. Levy pours drinks into them as normal.
3. Collect. Guests drop used cups into SOLO return bins.
4. Wash. Bold Reuse trucks cups to an industrial washing facility and cleans them to food-safety standards.
5. Return. Clean cups come back for the next game.

Reusable cups produce "a fraction" of the footprint of single-use or compostable cups.

No return rate, tonnage diverted or carbon figure has been published. "A fraction" is not a number.

• Coverage. Suites and clubs only — a small share of game-day attendance, and the part of the stadium where staff already handle glassware.
• Washing. Facility location and capacity are undisclosed, so transport distance and water/energy use are unknown.
• Return incentive. No deposit is described. Without one, crowd-scale return rates tend to fall.
• Self-reported satisfaction. The claim that 100% of venues would recommend the programme comes from Bold Reuse's own customers.

General admission means 100,000+ cups in a few hours: on-site or nearby washing capacity, fast turnaround between home games, and a deposit or scan-to-return system. Venues that have done it — mostly in Europe — rely on deposits.

The programme is a real step beyond one-off pilots and part of a wider SOLO–Bold Reuse rollout across speedways, festivals and campuses. The number to ask for at season's end is simple: cups issued versus cups returned.