NORTHAMPTON — Amid the annual commemorations of Earth Day, Pioneer Valley eatery La Veracruzana is launching a new kind of takeout container meant to be given back after it’s used.

The restaurant, which is known for its Mexican cuisine and has three locations in Northampton, Easthampton and Amherst, officially launched the containers on Thursday together with POH-keh Bowl, a neighboring restaurant in Easthampton. The new green containers were designed by Ozzi, a manufacturer of reusable products that has also sold the containers to colleges and hospitals across the country.

“A customer pays $10 to enter the program, and that’s a one-time fee as long as they continue to bring back the container,” said Jess Cantone, a representative from Ozzi who was at La Veracruzana’s Northampton location to promote the offer. When the customer is finished using the container, they can bring it back to the restaurant to either exchange it for another one or receive a coin-shaped token that they can exchange for a container at a later date.

Also standing outside the restaurant on Thursday was Amber Schmidt, a zero waste specialist with Clean Water Action, a national environmental advocacy organization. Schmidt stood at a booth outside the restaurant, explaining to passers-by on Main Street about the programs and how it works.

“Only 9% of plastics that have ever been produced have actually been recycled,” Schmidt says, citing a statistic from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. “It’s really important that when we think about reducing waste, you’re starting at the top of that hierarchy, with the reuse and reduce as oppose to recycle and compost.”

Clean Water Action’s ReThink Disposable program, which expanded to Massachusetts thanks to a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had partnered with La Veracruzana to introduce the containers.

All three La Veracruzana locations have been given 100 of the reusable containers to start with, split evenly between large and small sizes. The POH-Keh bowl location in Easthampton received 50 large containers.

Giancarlo Osiecki, the manager for the Northampton location of La Veracruzana, said that the collaboration between the restaurant and the ReThink Disposable program had been in the works for several months, and the restaurant had done a soft launch of the containers last week.

“Last week we had the same setup, just getting flyers up and introducing the soft launch,” Osiecki said. “This is our first official day, everything is in our computer system and we’re all ready to go.”

Currently, the containers are only distributed when placing pickup orders. Those calling to place an order will be asked by the employee whether or not they would like to enroll in the program.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.