When the first Refill Day took place in the UK in 2018, the main impetus was simple: the organisers' main focus was on plastic water bottles. The organisers calculated that UK residents use an average of 150 of these disposable bottles per year. A lot, isn't it? Imagine all those plastic bottles on the floor of your home - not a pretty picture!
The focus of World Refill Day is broader today. The campaign is generally about avoiding the waste that inevitably results from using packaging only once when eating, drinking and shopping. Everyone is called upon to do this. First of all, we as consumers. You know the steps: use reusable packaging whenever possible for coffee or lunch. Drink water from your own bottle (if you live in Europe, chances are you can get it from the tap, it's not worse than the one in the supermarket). Buy beer, soda and the like in returnable bottles.
World Refill Day is not only aimed at consumers, but also at companies. It is their social responsibility - and incidentally also in their interest - to avoid waste.
We at Soeder don't want to pat ourselves on the back, we too have to question our consumption habits. But with our network of refill stations and our refillable glass bottles, we have created a cycle that effectively avoids waste. For every refilled bottle, we save ourselves - and we don't mean us, the company, but all of us - the production of a new one.
WHY REUSABLE MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
The "Overall Environmental Impact", i.e. the total environmental impact of a product, is reduced by about 30% each time a bottle is reused, as researchers at the ZHAW have calculated on the basis of the impact balance of our Natural Shampoo. The use of a refill station therefore has a very concrete ecological value. Whether a soeder bottle or another container is filled is, of course, less important.
Fora refill station to work well, as many people as possible must participate, otherwise the contents of the container will become obsolete. Our customers are joining in and proved it clearly on Refill Day! The campaign call to bring us all kinds of containers for refilling was heard. In total, we filled 370l of soap, shampoo, lotion, deodorant and hand sanitizer in our own shops on this day, in a wide variety of containers, from mayo jars to soda bottles. This amount would fill almost 1500 250ml bottles, which were thus saved. That's something to be proud of!
Another number that makes us happy is 4778. That's how many times bottles were refilled with our most popular soap Herbal Garden at one of our Soeder Refill Stations last year. This means, among other things, that we have avoided the production of 4778 glass bottles and the corresponding number of cardboard boxes.
! If we add the amount of our other soaps that were refilled last year, as well as the amount of other products and the refills of all our partner stations, we arrive at an impressively high number. But we still have to find out exactly!
Thenetwork of Soeder Refill Partners is now not only close-knit, but also far-reaching! In Switzerland we already have 129 stations and abroad the first locations have already been established. And only in this way, with the support of our partners, can Refilling unfold its full effect. Many thanks to all those who participate, operate stations and diligently refill.
We have a lot more planned for Refilling in the coming years, so please stay tuned, fill up and join in!
(Would you like to build a Refill Station? Get in touch.