Shifting purchasing habits can be a challenge to get started, but it is one worth taking! Our top selling refillable products are the easiest to tackle first. We all hate having to toss yet another container into the recycle bin for laundry, dish and hand soap yet we need it. Let’s reuse and refill those containers until they can’t be reused again!
Refilling is not a new concept, it’s one we’ve all done for years, maybe not for household cleaning products though. Refilling our everyday products reduces waste, supports small businesses, and contributes to a healthier planet.
How do I refill my laundry, dish and hand soaps?
Start off by finding your local refill store! Save the containers you already have, clean them out, and take them into your local refill store. There you can decide which product and scent speaks to you and refill your container. We weigh your container, fill with however much or as little as you need (note you don’t have to fill the container all the way, this is a great way to test out a product), and we weight it again and that’s all you pay for!
Reusing your container is the best option. This helps to dramatically reduce waste going into the waste stream. Second best option is to take one of the donated and sanitized community jars from our jar cart and use that to refill. If you’re looking for your forever bottle, we have some to purchase as well. These are meant to be refilled over and over. 😉
Why choose our soaps over the big box store?
When we shop, we are also voting and sending a message to larger companies about what we want to see. The more people who choose products that are closed-loop with clean ingredients that don’t harm us or the environment and are made by smaller companies, the more we all get to benefit from high quality products.
For example, our liquid laundry soap is EWG certified, made by Root and Splendor, a California woman-owned small business that gives back to her community. It works incredibly well at cleaning your laundry, getting the funk out, and keeping your clothes soft without having to use toxic fabric softeners. This is also greywater safe, if you have a laundry to landscape setup, this is perfect! Root and Splendor is also one of our many closed-loop partners. The larger containers we receive the product in are sent back to them to be sanitized and reused again and again.
The alternatives at a big box store can be toxic to you and our environment. It truly shouldn’t be this way but large companies tend to choose profit over people and the environment. This also makes the product very cheap to manufacture and for consumers to purchase. The large companies also don’t take any responsibility for their packaging and leave that to the consumers to handle along with their local recycling facilities.
That big orange container of laundry detergent, the company produces plastic bottles filled with not so great ingredients and the orange plastic is more difficult to recycle than clear or white containers. Recycling is a business, orange doesn’t blend as well as clear or white does to make other colors…which leaves it less desirable to purchase from the recycling facility to create recycled plastic products. Reuse and refill are better options!
Our liquid hand soap and dish soap are also made by a woman-owned small business and are our closed-loop partners. Those plastic squeezable dish soap containers are so great to refill! It helps keep glass out of the kitchen area where things might slip and break. Same thing with the plastic hand soap bottles, perfect for refilling!
Let’s reuse what we already have and keep giving them a few more lives until we send them off to be recycled!
click the map to find your local refill store!
Transitioning to refilling is easy!
Step one is to find your local refill store. Then start small with one or two products. We like to have a backup bottle, one of the free jars works great to use to fill up your favorite container and take back and forth to the refill store. This way you don’t have to wait until you run out of the dish soap before refilling.
Step two, make it a habit. You’ve filled up your dish soap container and your backup bottle is empty. Leave it by the door or with your reusable bags to help remind you to go to the refill store the next time you’re out and about! We offer local delivery too which makes it easy for you to order online and have the soap delivered right to your door and you can leave your empty jar to be sanitized and used again on the community jar cart!
Step three, enjoy knowing that you are contributing to a reuse economy and a local economy and supported multiple women-owned small businesses. You also showed the large companies that you don’t want to buy their containers full of nasty ingredients anymore!
We encourage you to find your local refill store, check it out and ask what their top selling refill items are and try them out! Being part of the refill and reuse movement is being part of a more sustainable future. If everyone refilled just one item, think of how many containers would be saved from the waste stream! Together, we are making a HUGE impact!
