As we enter the midway point in 2022, we find as a nation our focus drifts to the sunny weather we are beginning to experience. We at Alliance Online, however, would like to raise awareness of June 16th which has been dubbed “World Refill Day”. We appreciate you may be asking what this day is and why should you care, allow us to elaborate.
World Refill Day
The day falls on the 16th of June and is aimed at increasing the awareness of refilling containers opposed to throwing old ones away. The main purpose is to try and reduce plastic pollution in an attempt to try and educate people to live a less wasteful life. With a focus on choosing to reuse opposed to throw away and buy anew, people can save millions of pieces of plastic from being introduced to the waste process. The long-term goal of the day is to reduce the amount of plastic (mainly single use plastic) which ultimately ends up damaging our environment.
Why is this day needed?
The initial question which will come to most of our minds is “why do we need another world day to raise awareness of something environmentally related?”. It is a good question and amongst the various Google doodles we see daily which draw attention to some of the more mundane and nonsensical world days, the World Refill Day is one we should all aim to take note of. Modern society benefits from so many technological advancements, some of which aim to help reduce humanity’s impact on our planet.
However, despite this there is still a huge volume of plastic waste generated every year and although the focus on World Refill Day may be domestic, there are many measures commercial businesses can take as well.
The Refill-volution
For everyday households the central point of the refill-volution is very much reusing water bottles by filling them up with tap water and using your own shopping bags. At Alliance Online though, we want to focus on what businesses can do to adopt a refill mentality within their daily operations.
SmartDose
The SmartDose range of products from Diversey promote a refill culture by selling large bottle concentrates which are then diluted and used to fill spray bottles. This process makes cleaning not only better for the environment but also easier on a business’s budget. The best part about SmartDose though is that because it has been designed for solution mixing, the large concentrate bottles have a dosing pump action meaning you get an exact amount needed when mixing with a 750ml bottle. For more information on SmartDose, read our blog article on it here.
Divermite
Much like SmartDose, the Divermite range offers users a refill option by way of a wall-mounted dispenser and concentrate pouches. The pouches contain a super concentrated solution which when inserted into the dispensers release a predetermined amount of solution into a Divermite refill trigger spray bottle. The benefits of both Divermite and SmartDose is that they both require minimal training, they maximise safety due to their ability to omit spillages, they reduce your costs as a business whilst reducing your environmental impact.
Diversey in fact have calculated that using the Divermite system can reduce your plastic waste by up to 80% when compared with traditional 5L containers.
Refill Reduction Costs
Another great initiative to consider is offering customers a reduced cost if they have their own drinks container. Admittedly this is already an established model within coffee shops, but it can be rolled out across the hospitality sector. You could advertise that any hot drinks served have two prices featuring your standard price and then a slightly reduced cost should customers have their own drinks cup. This also gives you the opportunity to upsell your own reusable hot cups to get extra revenue from their sales.
Understandably, there are other ways to promote a refill culture within your business, but we find that using cleaning concentrates and refill schemes for customers are two of the easiest places to start. The initial cost savings is almost immediate noticeable and the waste reduction will also be obvious very quickly. Going forward other measures can be introduced to further aid in reducing your environmental impact by way of refilling.
