Reduce, Reuse, Recycyle, REFILL

My generation never knew the days of the milkman and his refillable milk bottles. Perhaps this is why the concept of refillable containers never really seemed important to me. An article I read in The Observer Magazine (a magazine supplement to the Sunday newspaper, The Observer) changed my view.

Single use containers create huge amounts of waste. In addition to this, they also allow the distance between what we consume and where it comes from to grow. And while recylcing is indeed a worthwhile cause, products made from recycled materials are typically inferior products; refilling is the better option.

The responsibility for refilling containers should be put on both producers and consumers. Producers should make containers conducive to refilling, and provide the necessary services to have these containers refilled. For example, Ecover (www.ecover.com), a European company (with some North American retailers) that produces environmentally friendly cleaning products, provides many retailers with large vats of detergent from which they can refill consumers's empty bottles. Other companies sell highlighter refills and refilled printer cartridges.

If refilling for the same use is not practical, producers should make an effort to create containers that can have other uses. Furthermore, they should provide consumers with potential uses when they're done with the product's original purpose.

Consumers should look to buy products designed for refilling and reusing, and make an effort to do so. They should be creative and try to minimize their waste, which has tripled in the last twenty years.

The trend towards "smart," single-use pacakging is bad for the environment and bad for consumers. It is also another example of the detrimental trend towards speed that is encompassing our world. Globalization is a thrown thrown around so much it has become meaningless, but staying local is still important, and refillable containers are a great way to do so.

Read the article here.