Swindon & Wiltshire News
Swindon businesses to join the refill revolution on World Refill Day
Environmental campaigners at Refill Swindon are joining a global movement of businesses, community groups and all other sustainably minded people on Sunday, June 16 to mark World Refill Day.
Many local businesses including Weigh It Up, Lush, Ten Green Bottles, Refill Station, and Purton House Organics have all signed up to try and encourage customers to shop with less plastic by choosing to reuse.
Refill Swindon is leading the change by signing up local businesses to the Refill app, empowering individuals to live with less plastic.
In the Swindon area are over 80 places to eat, drink and shop with less waste mapped on the award-winning Refill app.
World Refill Day is a global day of action designed to accelerate the transition away from single-use plastic and towards refill and reuse. Bringing together everyday activists, NGOs and sustainable businesses across the world, it’s a global movement on a mission to make plastic pollution a thing of the past.
Recent research from City to Sea shows that people want to reduce single-use packaging, but they can’t find reusable alternatives where they shop.
This World Refill Day, the organisers are calling on governments around the world to legislate mandatory standards for reuse to support industry to scale-up and meet this growing demand.
The free Refill app helps people live with less waste. It has now been downloaded more than half a million times and lists more than 330,000 places across the world where people can fill up with free drinking water, find plastic-free shopping options or save on hot drinks and food-to-go when they bring their reusables.
Refill Swindon has been working hard to turn the tide on plastic pollution in the local area. Since its formation in 2018, the scheme has grown from just offering free water refills to also mapping outlets using reusable cups, zero-waste shops, as well as greengrocers, bakeries, and even take-away food offered in reusable lunch containers. They have also shared information on reusable cup schemes and other waste reducing initiatives to local event organisers.
Jane Martin, CEO at City to Sea said: “It’s great to see the incredible work happening in Swindon to tackle plastic pollution. World Refill Day is designed to get people talking about the problem, and crucially to highlight the solutions and help people take action to reduce waste.
“As a global movement, we have the power to create a wave of change and show businesses, brands and governments that we need move away from single-use plastic and towards refill and reuse.
“Research shows that people want to reduce single-use packaging, but they can’t access reusable alternatives where they shop. Now we need governments to legislate mandatory standards for reuse to support industry to scale-up and meet growing demand to make plastic pollution a thing of the past.
“With the general election just a few weeks away, we need to put pressure on politicians. A reusable future is possible. But we need to act now.”
