Environmentalists' hopes have been dashed as latest trial to encourage supermarket customers to keep and reuse containers ends in failure
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Green fatigue among shoppers has set back Britain's long-awaited refillable bottle revolution, with the latest attempts to persuade supermarket customers to reuse containers ending in failure.
Twelve years after one supermarket chain first began testing ways to encourage shoppers to refill detergent bottles rather than buy new ones, the group is no nearer to launching a national scheme across its stores.
Asda's head of corporate sustainability, Julian Walker-Palin, called its latest trial – which ran in five stores across the UK and offered customers the chance to save money while cutting their carbon footprint, by reusing specially designed fabric conditioner pouches – "disappointing".
A new report published by Wrap, the Government's recycling body, which worked on the trial with the supermarket, said the self-dispensing machines were a "disruptive technology" that would take consumers time to come to terms with. But it also claimed that the technology, supplied by the manufacturing company Eziserv, could be a "viable option" for wider use.
Asda admitted this weekend that sales of the two own-brand fabric conditioners used in the trial barely hit half of its projections with the exception of the first two weeks the machines were installed. While a "good sample" of customers refilled the pouch twice, only a "limited number" refilled it more than twice, although the pouch was designed to withstand being refilled 10 times, according to the company. Asda has no immediate plans to reintroduce the self-dispensing machines, although it may run another trial at some point.
Environmentalists had hoped other retailers would follow suit and star and run similar schemes but that now looks unlikely. Sainsbury's has already admitted it does not see much merit in store-based refill systems, leaving few shops outside the niche health-food sector offering shoppers the chance to reuse containers.
One exception is Whole Foods, the US grocery chain that is expanding in the UK, although the popularity of its scheme is, so far, unclear. The Body Shop used to offer a shampoo refill service, but stopped in 2002 because only 1 per cent of its customers used it.
That left Ecover, the Belgian green pioneer. It provides refill stations in around 600 UK health-food shops but has said it is "unfeasible" to offer something similar in supermarkets. "You need to clean up after customers, plus we don't have the volume to invest in big refills," Tom Domen, its marketing manager, said.
The biggest factors deterring customers from refills are "inconvenience, mess and cost", according to research where it was found that people were quite happy to use refills if they... liked the product. While the researcher added that refills are a really valuable area... and we run the risk of dismissing them too early, I would suggest that we rethink the idea of people refilling the products in store. Rather the bottles (even plastic bottles as used by the likes of Ecover, etc.) should go back to the factory for refilling. A much better and c leaner solution. A small deposit of, say, 5pence or 10 pence per container would, I am sure, make people bring back the bottles.
Ever since Britain called time on its refillable drinks industry, the country has struggled to cut the amount of waste sent to landfill: more plastic bottles are thrown away per year than are recycled two decades after the Government first tried to get us recycling. And glass bottles, which could be reused ad infinitum, are being thrown into the trash or, if lucky, into the recycling bins only to be broken down and made into other glass products. This is stupid in the extreme.
I do not think that, unless we can return to a system of people bringing in their containers to buy loose bulk goods, as we used to in my childhood before the advent of the supermarkets in Britain, that this in-store refill thing will ever work and catch on.
In the old days you went to the store and either brought along your own containers or had the stuff put into strong brown paper bags when bought your dry goods such as beans, peas, sugar, and other commodities of this nature. It was all taken out of big containers with scoops, weighed and then put into the container. Milk too was sold “loose” and you had your own little milk churn with which you went to the store or the farm to buy the milk.
If refilling of cleaning products, etc. is to work then it can only work when a member of staff is available to do that and that, unless we really change our approach in supermarket, is not feasible anywhere but small Ma & Pa kind of stores.
We do not have to reinvent the wheel, however. Solutions are there that are tried and tested. If supermarket want to offer a refill service then they must provide the staff to do it for people and the incentive.
There are stores, small stores, and not that many, unfortunately, that give the shopper 20percent discount for bringing their own containers when they come and buy stuff. If small stores can do that one should think that the big guys can do that too. But the will, more likely, is not there.
The only one who can change such attitudes is us, the consumers, but when we are not willing to do it then what is the point. It all boils down to will, and that on both sides.
© 2011
