Parish council joins refill revolution

Councillors in Anwick have got on board with an environmentally-friendly company focused on reducing the amount of plastic waste involved in household detergent products.

The parish council has announced it wants to support the community and help protect the environment by running a pilot project where residents can go along to the Community Centre on River Lane and refill their own containers and bottles with a range of widely used laundry, household and body cleansing products from large drums.

The council says the prices will be significantly lower (up to 40 per cent less) compared to equivalent brands.

They explain: “The products on sale will be supplied by Fill, an independently run family business in Northamptonshire. All products are made at their factory, combining biodegradable ingredients to create modern and effective environmentally responsible products with no dyes, no harsh chemicals and no waste."

As part of the pilot, members of the parish council have even tested the products themselves in advance.

Initial products on sale will be laundry liquid, fabric conditioner, hand soap, washing up liquid, all purpose cleaner, body wash and scrub powder. The emptied drums are returned to the factory to be refilled and sent back to the stores.

To begin with, the refill shop will open 10-12noon on the first Saturday of each month and fortnightly on Wednesdays, with the first day of opening on Wednesday, April 9.

The council explains that we urgently need to shift from a disposable, single-use culture to a more sustainable, circular future, with reuse and refill at the centre.

"We create more than 300 million tonnes of plastic every year and half of this is single use. Globally less than two per cent of packaging is reusable and less than 10 per cent of the plastic we use has ever been recycled, “ they said, adding that thousands of marine mammals, turtles and sea birds are affected by plastic pollution annually.