Day two of this year’s Zero Waste Week is all about “refill” for your grocery shopping.
As part of my research into refill in the UK earlier this year, I started a survey to see how many people use refill, what they refill and why. It also asked why people didn’t refill. It probably comes as no surprise that the main reason for using refill was to cut down on packaging for environmental reasons.
The most common reason for not refilling was the lack of opportunity. Is there anywhere to shop in refill near you?
Maybe I should clarify what I mean by shopping in refill. You either take your own container to a shop, fill it with product, use up the product and take the container again to refill it when you need more. Or maybe you get a container from a shop – which you are just borrowing, perhaps for a deposit. You might then fill the container at the shop or perhaps it has already been filled. Once you’ve used up the product and need more you take the container back to the shop so it can be refilled, and get your deposit back if you paid one. The container might be sent to be cleaned before being refilled, so you get a different container next time and the one you just gave back will be borrowed by someone else.
The opportunities for shopping in refill are growing. New stores dedicated to refill are popping up around the country, but not all of them are thriving. They need your support.
You’ve probably heard, too, about supermarkets trialling various forms of refill offerings. If everything goes to plan with some large coalition projects between the big brands and the supermarkets, refill should reach a store near you within the next couple of years.
However, we all know that supermarkets have a habit of taking over everything and shutting down the competition through undercutting of prices and ‘loss leaders’ – that’s the products they sell at a loss to get people’s attention and get them into the store, then of course, while you are there, you pick up a few other essentials and before you know it you’ve filled a trolley!
It is really hard for small businesses, especially those in High Street locations with expensive rental costs to compete with the supermarkets. Personally, I find that High Streets look so much more inviting when there are plenty of independent shops with their personality, colour and lack of packaging, so for many years I’ve supported independent businesses rather than supermarkets.
I do hear people saying they can’t afford to buy anywhere other than the budget supermarkets, and in the current situation with soaring energy and fuel prices which has a knock on effect to everything we buy, the number of people saying that is going to grow.
On the other hand, I think we should bust a few myths about everything being expensive in the Zero Waste and Refill Shops around the country. Yes, there will be items the Zero Waste shops can’t afford to sell as cheaply as supermarkets, but there are also opportunities to buy some things at much lower cost, mainly because you have the opportunity to buy only what you are going to use.
Any packaging free shopping is a really good way to lower your overall spend on your weekly shopping. If you need three apples, for example, when they are sold loose, you pick up and pay for three apples. If they are in a bag of 6 at a slightly cheaper price per apple, you are only going to save money longer term if you actually eat those extra apples.
At least apples keep for quite a long time, so you’d think most people would manage to eat the extra apples before they go bad, but for so many products that’s not the case. If you really look at the quantities you need, compared to the quantities you actually have to buy to get the cheap supermarket prices, you may find it is a great benefit to your finances to shop this way.
There are many products that are much cheaper to buy in the exact quantities you need them, and with a focus on the actual amount you need, you save money, as well as cutting down on waste.
You can shop in Refill in so many different ways now and every little helps you cut down on your use of resources. If you don’t have access to an independent retailer offering Refill and your nearest supermarket doesn’t offer any Refill options yet either, then look out for some of the alternatives.
Maybe there’s a delivery service, pop-up stall or school selling in refill in your area.
Day Two Challenge
Today’s challenge is to find one product (or one more product – if you already refill some things) in a location nearby or via one of the online refill businesses.
There’s not yet any definitive list that tells you where you can access refill. Don’t be put off by lists of “100 Refill Shops” that you see on the internet, and you don’t find one near you. I agree there’s nowhere near enough outlets to give nationwide access to a shop or market stall but the opportunities are already over a thousand, rather than a hundred. And there are possibilities for Refill through home delivery.
If you don’t like the idea of home delivery and you can’t see a store in the places you visit regularly, it might be possible to set up a buyer’s group in your community or via a local school. Many of the independent businesses even started this way.
Please don’t take today’s challenge as a message to go out and buy something you don’t need. All we’re asking is that you take it upon yourself to have a think about what you can buy in refillable packaging and find something suitable to refill into! Nothing fancy is needed as a container, any clean vessel previously used for a similar product is ideal. For dry goods in refill you can use margarine tubs, ice cream tubs, bread bags, takeaway containers and such like. It should be a container that previously contained food so you know it is food safe. People who refill for most of their shop will be raiding their friends’ and family’s recycling to build up their refill container stock.
Next, find a refill opportunity close by, so you know where it is at a convenient point when you actually need it. Local neighbourhood social media groups are a good starting point.
A little tip I find handy is to look up refill shops on the websites of brands you know sell in refill. I regularly check out the SESI website to see if there’s a refill shop where I go on holiday. Then I google the shop name to see if they have a website or social media platform that tells me what they sell.
My daughter says she’s found lots of refill shops by following them on instagram then seeing who else they follow. She says they all follow each other for support so she finds it a good way to know where to shop when she’s away from home.
It would be great if you do happen to shop in refill today to post on social media about it. Or if you find a refill opportunity as you are out and about or browsing the internet, please tag #zerowasteweek in a post to help others find it too.
We’ll be monitoring the social media channels and reposting anything we see.
So what if you only shop in a supermarket and it doesn’t yet have a refill section? There are still things you can do. Look out for Prefill and Refill, or Prefilled returnable packaging. There are now thousands of products that you can buy in lightweight packaging that you use to top up your own or a previously purchased higher quality, more durable container. Almost all the big brands are looking at this route as a way to reduce plastic packaging. Many of us who are trying to reduce our waste – the stuff that goes to either landfill or incineration – hate this format. It is replacing a perfectly easily recycled container that’s picked up with your kerbside recycling collection with a flimsy bit of mixed material. You then have to throw the refill pack in the bin or find one of the very limited collection schemes that are available though organisations like Terracycle that specialise in down-cycling or upcycling hard-to-recycle plastics and mixed materials. The number of collection outlets is woefully inadequate compared to the number of retail outlets selling such products. It is marketed as a recyclable product, but it is certainly not an ideal scenario. This is not a circular economy, as it is not a way to turn packaging back into the same packaging. But it is none-the-less worth consideration, given that some brands suggest they are saving 60% of the plastic through the Prefill /Refill system when compared to the use of the single-use plastic vessels we have seen for many years now.
Another popular option is to buy in bulk. For some people this works well as they use a standard bottle – maybe a nice looking container that they refill from a large container they can store somewhere other than the kitchen or bathroom.
Taking the example of personal care or cleaning products that are widely available in 5 litre formats, that you then recycle once empty, you’ll save around 25% plastic compared to single-use 500ml containers.
If you are buying from a company that takes the bulk containers back for refill, obviously you’ll save much more plastic – so this is worth checking out as the 5 litre containers can potentially be refilled 100s of times. It’s just that some companies have made the effort and paid the set up costs for a circular packaging economy. Others haven’t done this. Of course it is cheaper and easier at the moment for companies to stick to single-use packaging and if they don’t have the environment high on their agenda, then why should they invest in a circular economy until they are forced?
Oh, hang on? We’re the customers. How about we do a bit of the forcing. As soon as companies worry about losing market share, they will change.
An important message is that any easily accessible Refill model that doesn’t have you driving out of your way to get to it is going to be a worthwhile contribution to reducing your waste and carbon footprint, but you might be interested to know that driving an extra mile to refill a product means you need to refill it it many more times before you reduce your carbon footprint compared to single-use as this research from David Fawkes illustrates.
Image credit and research, thanks to David Fawkes.
The charts illustrate that if you’d have to drive further to Refill, then your carbon footprint would be lower going to your nearest shop and sticking to single-use plastic.
Of course, if you’re making the journey anyway for another reason, then that’s a good time to explore refill options further afield if you have nothing nearby and it is also an opportunity to check out different products available in different stores. Of course, the more products you refill in that trip, the more cost/carbon footprint effective your journey will be. But always remember, the beauty of Refill is about right sizing your shop and buying only what you will use.
It is worth bearing in mind that in 2022 we’re probably in an interim period of refillable packaging. In order for it to take off and really show carbon footprint reduction and benefits to people and planet, we may have to go through a few years of imperfect and marginal refill scenarios, while we adjust from the current single-use packaging system that we’ve adopted with fervour for the last half century.
We’ve got a long way to go to really make refill fast, efficient and accessible to all. But we have to find ways to reduce our use of resources and we have to start somewhere.
Shopping in refill, in whatever form works for you, will help us reduce our dependence on single-use packaging and help us turn off the tap on plastic pollution.
There will be more about that tomorrow. See you then.
