A refillery is a retail store designed to help you reduce your single-use plastic consumption by offering the option to reuse and refill your own containers again and again with household and personal care products.
Just like how bulk food stores carry food in big bulk bins, refilleries also carry products in big bulk bins or jugs, but instead of food they generally carry household and personal care products in bulk.
However, refilleries are often more “zero waste” or circular-economy focused than your average bulk food stores and many refilleries actually return their empty bulk containers to the product manufacturers to be refilled again and again, i.e., creating a closed-loop packaging system.
The types of refillable products at a refillery can include anything from dish soap and laundry detergent to shampoo and conditioner, to face care products like moisturizers and toners too.
But they don’t just carry liquid products, you can also find powdered and solid products like powdered dishwasher detergent, bath salts, toilet bombs, and more in bulk! As well, they generally sell many zero waste accessories too, like bamboo toothbrushes, wool dryer balls, beeswax wraps, etc.
Why refilling is important
So, now that you know what a refillery is, why are they important and why is it important to refill your products?
Well, refilling reduces waste, specifically plastic waste, and in a time period where we are exponentially producing more and more plastics but are only recycling 9% of the plastic that we throw away, our whole production and consumption system needs to change.
But a simple start that you can do is to ditch the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mindset that mainly just focuses on recycling, and to switch to a “reduce, reuse, REFILL” mindset. By choosing to reuse your containers rather than recycling them or tossing them in the garbage we can save resources and energy.
The question then is: “how do we do this?”
And this is where refilleries come into play (like the one in this picture).
A large portion of plastic waste comes from single-use plastics and plastic packaging, like our household cleaner bottles or bath + body bottles.
For example, according to Johnson & Johnson, over 552 million shampoo bottles end up in landfills every year in the USA. After doing some quick math and assuming Canadians throw away about the same number of bottles per person, that’s ~63 million shampoo bottles filling Canadian landfills each year too.
And these numbers are not including conditioner, lotion, and body wash bottles or household cleaner bottles like dish soap bottles, laundry detergent jugs, etc.
So, we have all these plastic bottles and only 9% of plastics are recycled, what can we do about it?
Well, as mentioned previously we can stop focusing on recycling and start focusing on reusing and refilling by shopping at refilleries. With refillery shops and refill stations you can reuse your household and personal care product bottles again and again by refilling them from a bulk source.
This way instead of “recycling” (more like wish-cycling) over 615 million shampoo bottles across Canada and the USA, and hoping that the bottles will actually be recycled instead of thrown into landfills, we can change the system one bottle at a time so that no bottles are thrown out and create a closed-loop.
But how does shopping at a refillery work? Keep reading to find out!
How to shop at a refillery
Most refilleries work via a BYOC (bring your own container) program, however, some refilleries work by way of a returnable jar + deposit program, and some require you to purchase specific bottles that can then be refilled the next time you come in.
Before getting into how to shop at a refillery, it’s important to know about the different types of refilleries. The four main kinds include:
- a refillery store – which is a retail store with a physical location that is dedicated to refills. This also includes zero waste grocery stores.
- a mobile refillery that does pop-ups. You can find them at your local markets, etc.
- a mobile refillery that delivers refills to your home after you place an order for your refills via their online store.
- a refill station – select areas in various retail stores that have a small refill station. These are the stores that don’t always have a BYOC program set up and so they will require you to reuse specific bottles that you can purchase from their store rather than just any container from your home.
How to shop at a refillery with a BYOC program:
Step 1) BYOC (Bring your own containers)
Bring your own clean, reusable containers to the refillery. These can be any type of container (i.e., glass jars, glass or plastic bottles, etc.), as long as the containers are clean, undamaged, & sealable. And if you’re shopping for solid products, like bath bombs or toilet pucks, then you can even bring a bag as long as it’s also clean, undamaged & sealable.
*Some refilleries allow customers to bring containers that already have the same product in it and are therefore not empty; however, through our work with our directory, we’ve found the vast majority of refilleries require the containers to be clean & empty. The best way to know though is to just ask beforehand ?.
Step 2) Weigh your empty containers
When you arrive to the refillery you’ll need to have your containers weighed so that you can record the weight of your empty container, also known as the “tare weight”. Whether you weigh your containers yourself or the staff weighs them for you depends on the refillery, so just ask a staff member when you arrive how it works.
Side note: “Tare weight”, also called unladen weight, is the weight of an empty container. While, the verb “to tare” is to set the scale to zero after placing an empty container on the scale. This then allows you to add product to the container and the scale will only show the weight of the product, not the container.
Step 3) Fill your empty containers
Once your containers have been weighed you can start filling them up. However, it’s important to record the name of the product and/or the product number on either the container itself or on your phone’s memo app. That way when the cashier is ringing up your order, they know what products you’re buying. Otherwise, you’ll be like us, running back through the store to find the name/number of the product.
Step 4) Re-weigh & pay
Bring your filled containers to the cashier where they will re-weigh your filled containers & subtract the weight of the container from the total weight, so that you only have to pay for the product. This is where you can let them know what products are in which containers if you didn’t record it on the container itself.
Step 5) Enjoy & repeat!
Now you can enjoy your lovely, earth-friendly products, and when you’re running low, you can repeat the whole process without ever having to throw away a single bottle!
How to shop at a refillery with a pre-filled, returnable jar program:
Most refilleries that operate using a returnable jar program will either be those that are refilleries that deliver your refills to your home or those that have the option of local pick-up. In both cases you’ll be ordering your refills online and that’s why BYOC isn’t generally an option.
A very small number of refillery shops will have a pre-filled, returnable jar program available, so for our “how to guide” we’ll be focusing on online ordering.
Step 1) Browse through the refillery’s online store
The first step will be to visit your local refillery’s website and to browse through their online store to find the products you’re looking to buy.
Step 2) Add your desired products to your shopping cart
The next step will be to add your desired products to your shopping cart. Since you’ll be ordering online, most of the time you won’t be able to order any amount you want like if you were shopping in-person with a BYOC program, rather there’ll be a list of options, such as 250mL, 500mL, 1L, for example.
When you add the products to your cart a deposit amount will be added for each reusable jar that’ll be required to fill your order. The deposit amount is generally between $0.50-$2.00 per jar. But don’t worry, you’ll get the deposit back when you return the jars.
Step 3) Check out & pay
When you check out, depending on how the online store is set up, you`ll have the option of one or more of the following: in-store pick-up, curbside pick-up or delivery to your home. Once you choose one of the options and pay for your products, you’ll be set to enjoy your unpackaged, earth-friendly purchase.
Step 4) Return & repeat!
Once your jars are empty you can return them to the refillery and get your deposit back.
How to shop at a refill station that doesn’t allow BYOC and doesn’t have pre-filled, returnable jars
Sometimes some stores that have refill stations do not allow you to bring just any container from home nor do they have pre-filled, returnable jars available.
Instead, for refills these stores require you to purchase a specific product bottle from their shop that can then be refilled the next time you come in.
For example, the first time we ever went to a store that had a refill station we bought The Bare Home dish soap. At the time, the store didn’t have a weighing station set up and so they required customers to purchase one of their The Bare Home glass bottles for the refills. This way they knew the exact amount of product that would be in the bottle and could charge their customers accordingly.
The steps to shop this way are the same as the way you shop BYOC other than the fact that you have to use a specific container (normally a specific glass bottle) and there’s no weighing involved.
A very important factor to look for in your local refillery: closed-loop packaging
When shopping at a refillery there is a very important factor that you want to consider for the bulk products sold: closed-loop packaging, i.e., a 100% reuse system.
What is closed-loop packaging?
Closed-loop packaging means that the refill product manufacturer actually takes back the bulk packaging to be refilled at their own facility before sending it back to the refillery, closing the loop and taking us one more step on the path to a circular economy.
Pure, a company that makes biodegradable household and body cleaning products, is one example of a refill brand that functions as a closed-loop system. Their refillery partners “benefit from a 100% zero waste delivery service. Each 20L container, once used, returns to Total Fabrication to be sanitized and put back into circulation.”
The other day we were talking to Bruna, the owner of The Village Refillery in Orangeville, Ontario, and she had some refill jugs from Pure that had been reused and refilled for the past 16 years!
Why don’t all refilleries carry closed-loop packaging refill products?
You might notice that some refill shops don’t function as a closed-loop packaging system.
Some shops don’t function this way because they are just starting out and need to see what products their customers like before they put in a big order for the closed-loop products.
In some cases, shops might not even realize that there’s the option to participate in a closed-loop packaging system.
Finally, some shops might not have the ability to sell closed-loop refill products due to their location and which refill brands are closest, the cost of the products, or for many other reasons.
But if you shop at a refillery that doesn’t function as a closed-loop system, simply reach out to the owner and see what can be done. Maybe they just don’t know that there’s a better option or maybe they’re planning on switching once they’ve become more established. Maybe you’ll need to reach out to the refill brands instead to get them to switch over.
Where to find a refillery
If you live in Canada or the USA, search our directory to find a refillery near you! And if you know of a refillery that’s not listed, let us know or add it yourself here.
(P.S., it’s free to add listings to the directory and you don’t need to be the business owner to add a listing because we’ll make sure to review everything before publishing it. Thank you in advance for helping to grow the directory!).
At the time of writing this blog post we have over 400 refillery shops on our website ranging from full-on zero waste refilleries to refill stations to mobile refilleries. Here are some of the refilleries on our website and you can click below to find one near you!
What to do if you don’t have a refillery nearby
If you’re interested in reducing your plastic waste but you don’t have a refillery nearby (or you just don’t want liquid products), don’t worry, there are a few options!
First off, you can buy solid products in-store or online that either come unpackaged or plastic-free. Some common solid products to buy in place of liquid refills are laundry strips, shampoo + conditioner bars, lotion bars, dish soap blocks, toilet cleaner pucks, etc.
You can also purchase large volumes at a time, i.e., you can purchase products in the original definition of “bulk”. For example, when shopping for hand soap you can buy the large bulk plastic jugs rather than the smaller ones and use the large jugs to refill the small bottle that sits on your bathroom counter.
What about zero waste foods?
Well, in the definition of “refillery” that we at Let’s Go Zero Waste go by is that a refillery sells non-food items. However, we’re not saying that refilleries don’t sell food items too.
Many refilleries actually sell bulk loose-leaf teas & coffee beans, and some sell many more bulk pantry items, including beans, nuts, pastas, grains, dried fruits, and more. However, for our directory, once a refillery starts selling bulk foods they either are a “refillery & bulk food store” or a “zero waste grocery store”.
So, when searching on our directory if you’re looking for bulk foods it’s best to search for “bulk food store” or “zero waste grocery store” or to use the advanced search options (the cog icon) & choose a specific product to search.
Now it’s time to reduce, reuse, & refill!
So, now that you know what a refillery is and how to shop at one, search our zero waste directory to find your local refillery, mobile refillery or refill station! And if you see that your local refillery isn’t on the map, let us know in the comments so that others can also find it! Or just give a shoutout to your favourite refillery!
Cheers,
Courteney 🙂
