Shoppers in Bedford encouraged to say goodbye to pointless packaging as award-winning campaign Refill expands
The Refill campaign which has already saved 100 million pieces of plastic from our oceans expands, to become the world’s first dedicated app to help people find locations to reuse and refill.
Refill will now help people in Bedford live with less plastic by making it easier to eat, drink and shop packaging-free.
Morrisons, LUSH and Costa amongst some of the brands signed up to the campaign.
Plastic pollution campaigning organisation, City to Sea are taking the award-winning Refill campaign to the next level. From today (1st October) people in Bedford will be able to use the free app to find places to refill their coffee cup, lunchbox, groceries and even cleaning products and toiletries, making it the world’s first dedicated app to helping people find where they can bring their own containers and refill – shunning single-use plastic for good. It will also highlight discounts available, rewarding consumers for reducing packaging.
Convenience at a cost
The launch of the expanded Refill campaign comes at a critical time for our planet following a tidal wave of single-use plastic in the wake of the global pandemic. It marks a game-changing moment that paves the way for much needed action on plastic in the hospitality and retail sectors.
In 2019 research revealed that 75% of the British public bought their lunch on-the-go each day generating a mind-blowing 11 billion items of packaging waste a year – that’s a whopping 276 items per person every year!
Packaging from take-away food and drinks is a leading villain in the fight against plastic pollution and items like coffee cups and take-away containers are consistently in the top 10 items found on beaches around the world. A global report launched in August revealed that food wrappers are now the most found item on beaches around the world overtaking cigarettes for the first time.
The pandemic has also seen many cafes and retailers temporarily stop the use of reusables and increase the use of single-use plastic, despite over 100 health experts stating reusables are perfectly safe to use. An estimated 1,290 tonnes of plastic could be prevented from entering the environment each year through the use of reusable food containers when purchasing takeaway food.
Rebecca Burgess, CEO of City to Sea said today: “The expansion of Refill marks a positive and significant step in tackling the mountains of avoidable single-use waste created everyday. Refill has already proven that buying habits can change. Last year the bottled water industry reported their first decline in sales (£34.2 million loss) after significant growth for the last 5 years. We’re advocating this trend to expand beyond water to other reuse options. We now need business and the general public to truly build back better and work together to make pointless packaging a thing of the past.”
Putting the power to reduce plastic in our hands
We know that public still care about plastic pollution and want to act. Research has shown 93% of the British public are still worried about plastic pollution, more than half say they are actively trying to buy groceries that are not sold in plastic packaging and 75% are willing to use refill services.
Less waste living made easy
The Refill app already connects people with over 30,000 locations for free drinking water, including over 20 in Bedford and now includes locations such as zero-waste shops, plastic-free retailers like local butchers, bakers and green-grocers and large chains such as Costa and Morrisons, which operate instore refill options.
Cory Walker, Community Lead for the Refill scheme in Bedford said “This is such an exciting refresh of the Refill campaign and I cannot wait for local businesses to be a part of a now bigger scheme which focuses on more than bottle refills.”
Along with thousands of forward-thinking independent businesses, including over 100 zero-waste and packaging free shops, there are several leading retailers and brands involved.
Costa: offering a 50p discount of hot drink refills
Morrisons: have launched increased their offering of loose veg and encourage their customers to bring their containers to the cheese, meat and deli counters.
1 Local zero waste shop
The expanded campaign was piloted in Oxford and Bristol earlier in the year, preventing an estimated 30,000 pieces of plastic.
Businesses can sign up as a Refill Station by registering for free on the app;.
