As we’ve seen with Nivea’s recent initiative to test a refill station in Germany, the reuse movement is steadily getting more attention as a solution that can reduce our overwhelming amount of plastic waste. A similar initiative that’s taking roots in New York City is yet another positive indicator of the growing zero-waste phenomenon.
Located inside a laundromat in Stuyvesant Heights, Brooklyn, a refill station is allowing people to buy standard cleaning products like Pine-Sol without having to buy a whole new container. Instead, customers bring their old container back and refill it themselves. The location is one of the first to pilot a new system from Chile-based startup Algramo.
After it first launched in Santiago, Chile, the refill service is now expanding to the US thanks to an investment from Closed Loop Ventures, a New York-based venture capital fund focused on the circular economy.
“The goal is to get cleaning products and other essential items to consumers without creating the waste of single-use packaging,” says Bridget Croke, managing director at Closed Loop Partners,
At the Brooklyn laundromat, as well as at two other pilot locations at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and in the Lower East Side, customers can use Algramo’s app and refillable containers equipped with RFID tags at a refill station to buy as much of a product as they need.
When they need more, they bring back the package to get a discount on their next refill. The smart package is also linked with the app, so it serves as a digital wallet, letting you pay just by refilling.
What’s especially interesting about Algramo’s service is that it doesn’t require customers to buy a full container of a product. This avoids the so-called poverty tax or the fact that a small package of a product usually costs more by weight than a larger package, meaning that lower-income customers end up paying more over time if they can’t afford to buy in bulk.
The company is now partnering with large companies like Clorox and Colgate-Palmolive to provide standard, commonly available products. After the initial pilot, which is also happening at Brooklyn Navy Yard, it will expand throughout the city, add products, and begin expanding to other parts of the US.
