And in return

Fair Food’s marketing manager had a feeling people had been buying a lot of Schulz milk-in-glass lately. When she looked up the refillable bottles delivered in the last year the system reported ten thousand. She double-taked and then double-checked her numbers – could this be right? 

When Simon Schulz launched milk-in-glass after an oversubscribed crowd-funding campaign helped purchase a new bottling machine and buy the first batch of glass bottles, he wasn’t really sure if people would take to it.  

Six years later, over a million milk in glass bottles have been refilled and refilled and refilled taking out over 50 tons of plastic bottles from the waste stream. Starting with just a few a bottles a week, Isabelle confirmed that milk-in-glass has become one of Fair Food’s biggest selling items.

As heartbreaking as the collapse of REDcycle’s soft plastic recycling scheme was, there was a clear and urgent message sent in the 144 tons of plastic that were being returned every week and that eventually overwhelmed the system.

We want to do something about the waste we’re creating.

Fair Food drivers see it every week from the huge majority of customers who leave their glass milk bottles, their Fair Fizz cylinders, their Dirt and Dr Planet soap refills, their cardboard boxes, shredded padding, coolers and ice bottles out be reused. 

Each piece of packaging that comes back to the Fair Food warehouse for refilling or reusing is a little win – one less bottle, box, cooler, container that needs to be mined and manufactured.

Fair Fizz, our own soda-making cylinder refills, have become so popular in our deliveries and over at CERES Grocery in Brunswick East that we’re ordering a new shipment six months ahead of schedule. The beauty of these sleek silver and red cylinders is that they will stop thousands of plastic bottles from being brought into the world.

The contrast between Fair Fizz and buying a plastic bottle of San Pellegrino, owned by Swiss multinational Nestlé, filled and carbonated by robots in a high tech factory in Italy and then freighted across oceans in stacks of shipping containers could make for a bubbly water allegory about the ecological fix we’ve gotten ourselves into. 

Returning feels good, but does it have an impact?
  
Our friends at Riverford Organics in Cornwall, who deliver their famous veg boxes across the UK every week, commissioned a study and found their cardboard boxes made up 10% of their carbon footprint – bigger than the impact of their articulated trucks and delivery vans.

So yes,  it’s something simple but impactful, something we can do in our day-to-day that makes a difference.

Here are a few more packaging things you can get into at Fair Food:

Dirt have refillable dispensers and returnable laundry liquid pouches and Dr Planet does the same with their bulk castille refillable soaps.

CERES Bakery proudly sends out its sourdough in all-paper recyclable packaging.

Delicious & dark Corner Store Coffee pack their award-winning beans in a home compostable bag.

Island Home share not only the food traditions of Sri Lanka but also use the zero waste banana leaf packaging it’s traditionally wrapped in.

You’ll also find there’s forty-three organic bulk nuts, dried fruits, pulses and grains you’ll find packed in Detpak reusable biodegradable and compostable paper bags.

Our double-walled recyclable wood pulp cardboard coolers have been a massive step away from polystyrene. Though don’t be surprised if you see a poly box – we reuse the ones our broccoli comes in  (it would be wrong not to). Just remember send both types back.

The ice bottles we put in our coolers not only keep things cool, when you return them we reuse them again and if they don’t come back they can be easily recycled in your yellow bin.

That cardboard padding we pack your eggs etc in, we shred that in the warehouse and will use it again if you send it back.

And finally all the plastic wrap our pallets come in, the banana box liners and the bulk salad bags we send off each fortnight to be recycled into new plastic by the awesome team at Reground. 

Have a great week

Chris

Ps. Into packaging like we are? Check out our dedicated page here – Can Packaging Be Fairer?