Why Refillable Cleaning Products?
Refilleries are popping up everywhere in the United States. This is not a new concept — other countries (such as Europe) have had zero waste or low waste refilleries for decades. Also, when you look at history — that’s what grocery shops used to be: a shop with raw goods, without disposable packaging. It wasn’t until the modern industrial revolution that we started to move into single use plastics and packaging.
Scale that up over our lifetime and multiply that by the 8 billion people in the world and we’ve got an environmental problem. Single use plastics are filling up our landfills. According to the EPA, packaging makes up a quarter of our refill waste. Yikes.
When I first ideated the concept for The Tidy People products, I initially thought to build the traditional kind of cleaning products. You know, the kind that comes from a cleaning product aisle, in a plastic bottle. Once done with that bottle, it gets thrown away. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. The more I investigated into the harmful impacts that single use plastics does to the earth, the more I began to realize the environmental impact…and the difference that we can make together to reverse that harm.
Just because something’s traditional, doesn’t mean it’s the right way or the best way. Zero waste refill shops are popping up everywhere and there’s a reason for it. The demand for innovation is here.
So, why go refillable?
You’ve Got Options
In 2024, there’s a refillable product available for almost any type of household or personal care product. As demand increases and as brands are prioritizing a social/environmental responsibility, there are a number of innovative products that are now available on the market.
Each refill accounts for a single use plastic that would have otherwise gone into a landfill.
Types of refillable home and personal care products might include: all purpose spray, deodorant sticks, dish soap, hand soap, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lip balm, facial cleanser, and so on.
It’s More Tidy + Efficient
Refillable products typically come in minimal packaging…and take up a minimal amount of space. For a more tidy restock storage area at home, tidy experts recommend removing packaging from their containers, anyways. This frees up room to store bulk refills of your favorite products. Ordering in bulk can reduce overall cost, visits to the store, and also lessens the headache of running out of your favorite products.
For example, storing 9 refills of The Tidy People All Purpose Spray takes up much less room than storing 9 bottles of cleaner.
Reduces Carbon Emissions
Size and weight matters when shipping products. By increasing packaging and water, this increases the weight and amount of shipments with shipping carriers. Some refillable products can reduce carbon emissions by taking the water out of the shipping process.
It’s Travel Friendly
Depending on your lifestyle or career, this may or may not apply to you. Refillable DIY mixed cleaning products adds a unique perk for those on the go.
For example, if you run a cleaning operation and are a person on the go — you can easily refill cleaning products when traveling. A tiny refill bottle is compact + easy to carry when traveling. This was proven to be transformative and innovative for The Tidy People cleaning team when we switched from a pre-mixed refill station to concentrated refills on the go. This reduced the amount of visits to our office headquarters to refill cleaning bottles. It gave our team their time back, so they could go home to enjoy their evenings after their last job of the day.
If you’re new to the concept of refillable cleaning products or refillable self care products, try searching for the term ‘refillery’ on your local google map or search Yelp. Likely, your city or a neighboring city has already opened its first refillery. To find The Tidy People refillable products at refilleries and stores closest to you, check out our store locator.
