Closed-loop supply chains of reusable articles: a typology grounded on case studies

Reuse practices contribute to the environmental and economical sustainability of production and distribution systems. Surprisingly, reuse closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) have not been widely researched for the moment. In this paper, we explore the scientific literature on reuse and we propose a definition for reusable articles and a typology integrating different categories of articles (transportation items, packaging materials, tools) under the term 'reusable articles'. Our definition shows how reusable articles are different from other types of recovery, such as remanufacturing or recycling. We also point out specific research needs for those articles. We have based our results on a set of case studies developed in real industrial settings, which have also been contrasted with cases available in the existing literature.