Anyone regularly using a no packaging shop?

[Cloo]

I've finally properly used our local one today - a refill of the shampoo I very experimentally bought there ages ago, and filled one of our empty laundry liquid bottles (we always have too many!). Price works out pretty well - not the cheapest but not very bpricey either. I'm going to try refilling my porridge oats there next time I run out and also I do have a refillable shower gel bottle, so will try that when I'm next out of soap. Interested to know what sorts of things people buy and has some managed to buy a fair amount of things regularly this way.

 

[iona]

Yes! There was a thread recently - Do You Use Refill Shops?

 

[lazythursday]

I have a local vegan shop that also has a lot of none-packaged stuff. I do my best, but I do find the rigmarole of remembering bottles for liquids etc quite challenging, and sometimes the refill process is a nightmare - takes an age for gloopy liquids to dribble out, and half of it goes down my jeans. I'd much prefer greater use of deposit schemes where you get money back for returning the packaging for reuse, it would make it more frictionless as a lazy disorganized shopper.

 

[Cloo]

Yeah, it is slightly faffy although the shop has an app that helps and remembers your containers when you want to reuse

 

[seeformiles]

Do these still exist? As a student I used to visit the “Scoopermarket” for cereal, flour, washing powder, etc. and would happily do so again. I think it closed due to hygiene concerns but I could be wrong.

 

[Cloo]

They've had a renaissance lately with quite a few popping up. On the other thread on these someone mentioned a van doing the rounds with non packaged stuff which sounds like a good idea, as even taking two big bottles home this week was quite heavy; I can't see myself being able to to more than 3 or 4 products at a time from there unless I maybe had a granny shopping trolley

 

[Looby]

I think I replied on the last one, I can’t remember.

In theory I think they’re a great idea but for various reasons (that feel like excuses) I don’t think they work well for us.

I’d have to drive to them and the nearest one is 4 or 5 miles away with shit parking.

I can’t use random toiletries or shampoos because of skin issues. I also only ever use fairy non-bio liquid and am scared to try anything else because of my skin.

Good for stuff like pasta, rice and cereal but honestly, I won’t make a special trip just for that and I’m not sure it’s in any way environmentally sustainable to do that. If I was passing I would definitely check one out and if there was one on our local high street I’d probably use it.

 

[Cloo]

Yeah, we're lucky this one is very local indeed. It's also by a tube station and on several bus routes, so it could be visited without cars by a lot of people. If I start picking more stuff up there I might have to consider that granny trolley

 

[iona]

I get that it makes sense to buy larger quantities if you're shopping for a family or can't get there so often, but one of the things I like about refill shops is that because you're paying by weight/volume you don't actually need to buy in bulk just to save money.

 

[muscovyduck]

There's two or three near me - mostly of the scoop and refill variety, which I don't trust for hygiene reasons. My mate worked in the other one and the people who owned it were vile to her so she left and it didn't make it past the 18 months mark. The stuff in there was too expensive and also there wasn't even enough stuff in there in the first place, an entire shop that could have been a tiny market stall. If you don't intend to buy anything they're still good to go to for inspiration for how you can reduce plastic at home or things to look out for when you shop elsewhere, and they can be good places to shop for interesting presents for other people too

 

[muscovyduck]

I get that it makes sense to buy larger quantities if you're shopping for a family or can't get there so often, but one of the things I like about refill shops is that because you're paying by weight/volume you don't actually need to buy in bulk just to save money.

I hadn't considered this. I'm trying to be more thoughtful about what I do and don't stockpile, which is difficult when you live on your own and stuck with prepackaged quantities. I've got pumpkin spice for decades!

 

[iona]

I hadn't considered this. I'm trying to be more thoughtful about what I do and don't stockpile, which is difficult when you live on your own and stuck with prepackaged quantities. I've got pumpkin spice for decades!

Yeah one thing it's really good for is certain spices. Anything I use regularly is cheapest buying the massive 99p bags from the asian supermarket, but for something I rarely use it's much better to buy a tiny bit and not be paying ££ mostly for all the packaging. Same for snacky stuff where if I buy bigger amounts I'll just end up eating more in one go

 

[Cloo]

The local one is very small but squeezes a lot of stuff in; think it's got quite a sensible selection of things people are likely to need. I'll definitely look at getting more household and toiletries stuff there, I need to look closer at what grains, pulses etc they have. Spices is a good thought, actually - I haven't looked at what they've got, but I should. We get through lots of paprika and cumin.

 

[oryx]

We seem to have to rely on tiny businesses to do this. While I'd like to support them I've found their opening times really inconvenient - e.g. the last time I went to try and get handwash bottles refilled at the nearest zero waste shop, they were closed, on a normal weekday afternoon.

It's time the supermarkets stepped up and had stations for refilling stuff like handwash, shampoo, washing liquid, washing-up liquid etc. Let's be honest, they're probably where most people do their shopping.

Once again, this is an example of consumers making an effort while big business just continues to incessantly flog stuff in plastic bottles.

 

[Cloo]

Our local one is 11-6, except Mondays (which is a more sensible timing for local shop than closed Sundays). Just bought body lotion and shower gel there and the value is good,I was pleased to see.

 

[lazythursday]

What really shocks me these days is the toiletries aisle in supermarkets - all that plastic being used for products often of dubious value. Loads of it (shampoo, shower gel, hand gel etc) could be in solid bar format. But it's increasingly hard to even find basic soap.

 

[muscovyduck]

I've been using wood toothbrushes for a few years now and I found the idea of them a bit ick to begin with, but now I look at the plastic ones and they seem ridiculous

 

[Cloo]

My sister got me a nice bodywash with a reusable metal bottle last year, so took opportunity to refill that yesterday, and an empty lotion pot from Lush. Value works out well especially for the body lotion. Getting the hang of the shop app now and thinking about what else I can refill. About to run out of shower scrub so I think that jar is going to get reused, ditto the bottle of conditioner.

 

[newme]

Way too rural for this to be useful, I do bulk buys instead so at least the delivery has been worth it. Plus everyone else here seems to do the same so they pack a lot into one area at a time. I saw on tracking the van was 2 streets away and I was number 9 on the list.

 

[campanula]

One across the road from me but so ridiculously expensive and obviously targeted to a certain class of consumer, it is laughable. A long while ago, this was more of a thing, with stuff like breakfast cereal in huge tubs. Never fancied it myself as stuff was often stale and I honestly din't want anything for sale. This one near me sells overpriced washing up liquids, fantastically pricy coffee beans, not very nice honey...think it is basically a very middle-class sort of thing (although as I live in the muesli belt, it is par for the course). To be fair, there has been a wholefoods shop doing this for years and years which I used whenever I felt rich (and had small offspring) but until the pricing is more competitive, shops like this are basically just virtue shopping for those with a lot more £££ than I have. A sort of hipster Asda...with added smugness. Also sells 'vintage' clothes, which are hideously spendy (and generally a horrible mish-mash of 80s polyesters). Old and baffled (me, that is).

If packaging is an issue, there are more effective ways of avoiding this - shopping from market stalls, smaller shops (butchers, greengrocer, bakery), making a lot of things from scratch (biscuits for example), carrying your own packaging. It seems a whole lot more feasible to do a weekly veg shop from the market rather than buying 4 apples, complete with cellophane and polystyrene trays from Tesco. Cheaper too. We cannot buy our way out of environmental degradation. Or offset our consumption by paying some spurious company to plant a tree. There are a lot of dreadful problems coming down the line...but corporate greenwash and trendy shopping habits are not any sort of answer. Apols for the sceptical snark but feeling perfectly shitty about what looks like a blatant con which plays on customer's conscience while enptying their pockets. Unimpressed with the latest incarbation of so-called ethical shopping.

 

[lazythursday]

The washing up / laundry liquids etc in my local one aren't cheap, but the non-chemical environmentally friendly ones never are. But the food products - rice, lentils, spices etc - tend to be cheaper than supermarkets on the whole. And the no-waste shop in the next town is forever spamming the local Facebook group with price comparisons proving they are cheaper than the supermarket. So I don't think these shops are always a rip off, though am sure many are!