Remade in America: A Supply Chain Now Special Feature

Podcast: Supply Chain Now
Host: Scott Lewton, Deborah Dole
Release Date: February 4, 2026

Episode Overview

In this special feature, “Remade in America,” Supply Chain Now pulls back the curtain on the unseen world of reverse logistics—what happens to the nearly $1 trillion worth of products returned by American consumers every year. Host Deborah Dole explores the “blind spot” of the modern supply chain, where value, materials, and opportunity are slipping away due to fragmentation, lack of transparency, and a missing ecosystem. The episode questions the traditional narrative around “Made in America,” offering a provocative new lens: rather than making products from scratch, the future may lie in remaking, reusing, and recirculating what we already have.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Hidden Industry: Reverse Logistics

• Reverse logistics is massive (close to $1 trillion/year) but largely unknown, with no formal education or common language to describe it.
• Quote ([01:30] - Deborah Dole):
  “It's January 2026. I'm at a conference for an industry most Americans don't know exist... It quietly touches almost everything we buy. I came here with a simple question. What happens to all the products that we send back?”
• Returns create a chaotic, fragmented ecosystem with no household names—most processes are ad hoc.

2. The Myth of ‘Made in America’

• Modern products are built via complex global supply chains; “Made in America” is often a misnomer.
• Quote ([02:25] - Deborah):
  “When politicians talk about bringing manufacturing back, they're talking about reassembling an ecosystem that took 50 years to build everywhere else and was dismantled here piece by piece, skill by skill, and sent overseas.”
• Even something as “simple” as retail packaging is difficult to move onshore without a robust supporting network.
• ([05:25] - Steven Beard):
  “Something as simple as retail packaging... it is brutal. It is almost impossible to get the same quality out of a retail pack that comes out of China today.”

3. Economics and Scale of Returns

• Returns are about 30% of U.S. retail economy—nearly $890 billion is processed backward through fragmented channels.
• ([07:23] - Rich Bulger):
  “The retail economy in the US was $5.2 trillion. Unwanted returns cost $890 billion... taking their equipment back and then having to figure out what to do with it.”
• Secondary and liquidation markets are huge but poorly understood, valued at $800+ billion.

4. The Lifecycle of Returns

• The journey of a returned item is uncertain and opaque; value is often lost through poor triage and lack of systems.
• Quote ([10:16] - Deborah Dole):
  “The moment, what do we have and what do we do next is where most of the value is either created or destroyed.”
• Platforms and specialists (Bidpath, Trove, B-Stock) are working on optimizing this path, striving for higher recommerce and recovery.

5. Fragmentation and the ‘Invisible Industry’

• The sector remains fragmented, with few large players and little comprehensive data.
• ([12:46] - Tony Schroeder):
  “If you try to find multibillion-dollar players, they're not in our industry... where is this, let's call it $200-$300 million worth of returns going?... So it's invisible.”

Four Pillars for Rebuilding Reverse Logistics

1. Talent & Training

• No formal education, certification, or clear career paths in reverse logistics and circularity.
• Most current leaders are “accidental experts,” handed problems few others wanted to solve.
• ([14:15] - Rich Bulger):
  “There is no training on it. You're thrown in, and if you're lucky, you're shadowing with someone. And if you're really lucky, you're shadowing with someone. It was really good.”
• ([16:04] - David Watson):
  “Kids coming out of high school, college, whatever, they, they don't know that circularity exists... We need to educate. We need to shout as loudly as possible that you can pursue a career in circularity that can pay you a lot of money... Why is circularity not in that equation?”

2. Technology and Knowledge Capture

• Vast institutional knowledge exists in people’s heads; losing talent means losing years of hard-won expertise.
• New tools (software, AI-driven inspection, digital twins) are beginning to codify and transfer this tacit knowledge.
• ([20:25] - Yamin Nyerei):
  “A software like that that enables the operator... through, you know, image driven, like inspections and prompts... helps with that, you know, attrition.”
• ([22:10] - Toby Konick):
  “We build AI pipelines on how to identify products and how to assess their value and how to get them back onto the market.”

3. Physical Infrastructure

• The work requires skilled manual labor for repair, reconditioning, and refurbishment—AI and automation can only help so much.
• Existing infrastructure is patchy; many repairs happen in small, specialized ‘mom and pop’ shops.
• ([25:04] - Yamin):
  “Everybody specializes on a very specific repair type. And so when you have to scale programs like that, it becomes really difficult to actually increase the volume... If everything was in one place instead, you would cut additional costs and inefficiencies.”
• ([27:44] - Corey Demme):
  “How do we create the conditions where we have the capabilities and the capacity to do it right? So creating the infrastructure for collection, testing, refurbishment, repair, recovering materials, and the incentives that go along with that.”

4. Economic Viability

• For sustainability to scale, unit economics must work; it must make business sense without relying solely on goodwill or subsidy.
• ([28:55] - Steven Beard):
  “You got to find a way. And the most green solutions, solutions are actually high ROI and good for the environment.”
• Value is often lost in systems optimized for speed, hiding or destroying value in returns.
• Material scarcity (rare earths, critical minerals) is an urgent reason to recover and reuse materials domestically; “urban mining” is the next frontier.
• ([31:19] - Steven Beard):
  “There is not enough rare minerals on the planet to replace the cars in the United States... We’re not just going to dig holes and find enough rare earth to build the next generations of lithium ion products. It’s not possible.”

Memorable Quotes & Moments (w/ Timestamps)

• Scott Lewton ([00:00]):
  “We’ve got quite a show for you here today… Deborah and friends journey into the hidden world of reverse logistics to discover a fragmented industry, a missing $200 billion in value, and critical materials that were absolutely letting slip away.”

• Yamin Nyerei ([11:45]):
  “Every time that we had to, like, step into the return corner, we were just like, trying to, like, get away very quickly because you didn’t want to show them what was going on... It was honestly a pity, you know, like, it was really heartbreaking to see that that was happening.”

• Tony Schroeder ([17:46]):
  “I was a happy-go-lucky sales guy... One day I was called into the senior offices at Philips... And I was told we have a returns problem, we need somebody to fix it. You’ve been picked… I didn’t know shit about returns except it was a number on my P and L every month.”

• Corey Demme ([32:13]):
  “There’s about 650,000 metric tons of electronics going through R2 certified facilities. You compare that to 62 million metric tons of e-waste being generated every year—you know, it’s a small fraction... We've got to extend the life of the products that we've already made.”

• Rich Bulger ([33:20]):
  “The material that we're going to use to build tomorrow's products are going to come from the things that we're using today or we used yesterday.”

The Big Idea: Remade in America

“We can't make products in America at scale anymore, but we can remake them. $850 billion flows backward every year. The materials are already here. The industry already exists. It's just invisible. What if Made in America isn’t the answer? What if Remade in America is?”
— Deborah Dole ([34:51])

Closing Thoughts & Forward Look

• The supply chain’s “reverse” is not just a cost center or afterthought, but a cornerstone for future economic and resource resilience.
• Critical raw materials and recirculated products are a new American resource base—urban mining and reuse can be a strategic and economic imperative.
• For “Remade in America” to thrive, talent, tech, infrastructure, and economics need to align—and visibility is key.
• The episode closes by suggesting that the coming economic pressures will force recirculation to the forefront, and challenges listeners to imagine, build, and scale the systems required.

([35:15] - Rich Bulger):
“Deborah, I’m really inspired by your Remade in America mantra... You’re fearless in pursuing the message and finding solutions to hard problems.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------- | ---------- | | Introduction to Reverse Logistics | 01:19–02:25 | | Global Supply Chains and ‘Made in America’ | 02:25–06:50 | | Economic Scale of Returns | 07:19–08:00 | | Lifecycle of Returns | 08:00–10:16 | | Fragmentation and Transparency | 12:46–13:33 | | Talent and Training Crisis | 14:15–19:09 | | Technology and Knowledge Transfer | 20:14–23:20 | | Physical Infrastructure Challenges | 24:14–27:35 | | Economics, Materials & Urban Mining | 28:35–34:51 | | Call to Action—Remade, Not Just Made | 34:51–35:33 |

Summary

“Remade in America” reframes the current wave of supply chain innovation, bringing vital attention to how the U.S. can build resilience and create value—not just by making things from scratch, but by recirculating, remaking, and revaluing what we already possess. With captivating storytelling from industry leaders and practitioners, this episode is an urgent call to invest in reverse logistics as the next great American industry—one hiding in plain sight.

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