Let’s cut back on pointless plastic – It’s time to Refill more…

• Use the app to identify and locate the nearest venues that offer what you want. 
• Take along a clean, appropriate, sealable container of an adequate size. 
• The venue will refill it with your chosen drink, meal, food item or toiletry. 

• Some businesses may offer discounts for bringing your own container – if so, the app will flag this up. 

You can refill appropriate reusable bottles and containers with water, hot drinks, food (takeaways and loose items), toiletries and groceries.

The selection will depend on where you are – at this stage, we are just trialling the app, so some venues will only offer a limited choice. Currently, if you’re in one of our pilot areas the app will show you which Refill services are available at each Refill Station.

To start with, we are trialling the pilot Bristol and Oxford. For the launch, we’ve signed up over 200 Refill Stations in Bristol and Oxford. They cover the full range of services, so if you’re in the area do try them out and log your Refills to let us know how you got on.

Yes please – logging your Refills in the app, will help you see how much impact you’re making in the fight against plastic pollution. And it will also help us measure the success of our pilot to see if we’ll be rolling this out across the UK.

Simply open the Refill app. The screen will let you know if you’re in a pilot area. Then just tap the icons to select the kind of Refill service you want, and the map will refresh to show only the Refill Stations that offer your chosen service.

During the trial period, which runs from early November until February you’ll be able to find Stations in Bristol and Oxford that offer the additional Refill services. As well as the usual water Refills, they will also offer Refill services for hot drinks, food and household goods.

When you take your own containers to a pilot Station, you need to make sure they are clean, sealable, size-appropriate and fit for purpose. If you’re buying hot food or drinks, for example, don’t take a container that is only suitable for cold food. Also, when refilling at your local zero waste shop, you’ll need to make sure the containers you’re using are like for like, so, for example, don’t use an old cleaning product bottle for food or beauty refills.

If you’re a current Refill Station in Bristol or Oxford and would like to get involved, simply email [email protected] to update your station details and let us know that you can offer more than tap water. 

You need to be able to offer some or all of the following: takeaways in coffee cups, lunchboxes and food containers; refills for toiletries or household goods; and unwrapped groceries.

In your email, tell us the name of your business, what you offer, and whether you offer a discount for people using their own containers. We’ll do the rest. 

We’re looking for Refill Stations that offer refills for tap water, hot drinks, food takeaway meals or loose grocery products and household goods, including toiletries.

We understand that there are some concerns around hygiene, that’s why we’re encouraging people to only bring clean containers to be refilled. If you don’t feel happy to refill due to cleanliness or hygiene, then it’s your place to refuse to refill.

If you are concerned that a customer’s container is inappropriate, dirty, unhygienic, too fragile or generally not fit for purpose, you are quite entitled to refuse it.

Compostable bioplastics have been touted as the solution to our single-use, throw-away lifestyle, allowing consumers to enjoy takeaway coffees guilt-free. Turns out, it’s not that simple. The issue of bio-plastics is complicated – not only for consumers but for also for many small businesses who have been trying to do the right thing by making the switch from plastics to bioplastic alternatives. Although interpreted and sometimes marketed as such, compostable plastic takeaway packaging wasn’t actually designed to be the solution to plastic pollution. Instead, it was designed to tackle food waste being contaminated with plastic packaging.

To be called a bioplastic, a product has to be either biodegradable or made from plant-based materials. But being made from a plant doesn’t mean a product will degrade like a plant, and being biodegradable doesn’t mean a product will break down with food waste in the kitchen.

In reality, most bioplastics need to be composted at very high temperatures over a period of several weeks in an industrial composter, and not at home in our garden compost as many of us think. We don’t currently have the right infrastructure to compost bioplastics in the UK. Find out more in our disposables guide.

Many of your staff will be concerned about the amount of plastic pollution in our oceans, so showing them that the management is also concerned will reassure and motivate them.  

On a practical level, it will also reduce waste (and the cost of waste disposal) in your workplace, as fewer containers will be thrown away at lunchtimes.

Make sure your container is sturdy, sealable, and the right size for the amount of refill you want. It also needs to be clean; some locations will refuse to do refills if they are concerned about poor hygiene or cross contamination.

Once you’ve collected your Refill, log it by selecting the corresponding onscreen icon and tapping Refill.

Your Refill will appear on your Account page, where you’ll now be able to see all the different kinds of Refills you’ve done.

We’ll be running the pilot from November 2019 until February 2020, when we’ll be reviewing the impact to assess if the pilot has been a success and outline plans to update the app and share the extended campaign across the UK.