In honor of Earth Day (April 22), we sat down (virtually) with Rachel Regula, owner of the Better World Refill Shop in Lakewood, Ohio. As Cleveland’s first bottle refill shop, Better World Refill Shop is dedicated to helping the community reduce their plastic waste, refill their own vessels with natural products and live more sustainably. Make every day Earth Day!
A: My current favorite products are the items by Marley’s Monsters, which range from Unpaper towels to reusable sponges. Unpaper Towels help people decrease the paper waste created by paper towels and the reusable sponge is able to be washed with your laundry every week. I think these are pretty simple swaps our customers are able to make.
I also love our shampoo, conditioner and shower gel by Oneka. I fell in love with their brand when I was able to make a meaningful connection with the owner’s stories of struggling with chemical sensitivities and skin reactions to synthetic chemicals in unnatural products. Their products are 100% organic from the essential oils they farm themselves.
A: What surprises people most about Better World Refill Shop is how simple it is. Our customers who bring their own container simply weigh their bottle first, fill up with the product of their choice, and reweigh. We then subtract the weight of the container so they are only purchasing the product inside of their bottle.
Remember that refilling is not a new concept. When my mom was a kid, they would have milk delivered every week. The milkman would come the following week, pick up their old bottles and they’d get milk that day. Our communities used to do it all the time… We are making sustainability more accessible to the community especially those that find themself unsure of what to do with their extra containers.
A: I hope to open a second location on the eastside of Cleveland before the end of the year. We have so many customers who live on the eastside that I want to make these sustainable products and swaps more accessible to them. I also really want to help educate our community on how important it is to be loving to not only your own body through natural products, but also our earth by reusing products that may be hard to get rid of or recycle. We only have one body just like we only have one earth.
Small changes by everyone can make a large difference.
