The Refill Room

January 11, 2019 by Annika Mullane

The Refill Room is a brand new store to Leigh-on-Sea with a brand new idea! The store’s main ethos and intent is simply to help eliminate single use packaging.

The origin of the store stemmed from the owner Gemma, who has a growing concern about the ecological state of the world. Gemma’s husband is a diver and has seen first hand what the wastage and over use of un-recyclable plastic products has done to our oceans and they wanted to do something about it.

We all know that plastic pollution is a huge epidemic that no one really knows what to do about and this store makes thinking about it a lot easier.

Offering a simple way to buy zero waste products, The Refill Room is a wonderland of dried, organic products. Rows of glass dispensers line the walls all filled with nuts, cereals, rices, chocolate, herbs, flours, and loose leaf tea and ground coffee beans, like the organic Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. They even have a nut butter machine! All you have to do is bring your own jars, tins or packaging or buy the packaging in store and pay for the weight of the product.

The Refill Room doesn’t only sell food, there are lovely organic soaps, beauty and skin care products, shampoo and conditioners and cleaning products, which are better for you and the environment. Along with reusable water bottles, coffee cups and metal straws.

The fun of dispensing and measuring things yourself into your own reusable packaging resinates with children and older people alike. Even whilst taking a look in the store myself, an older couple were enjoying the fact that supermarket’s used to be like this and we think that is lovely.

Gemma expressed that she wanted to bring the Leigh-on-Sea community together in her store with the addition of workshops, a breakfast bar and supper clubs for sharing recipes and growing as a community. I believe The Refill Room really is a perfectly delightful place to learn about and change the environment, and beautifully easy store to use.

For more info, click here.