Meet Good Bottle Refill Shop Owner Deanna Taylor-Heacock _ One Small Step _ NowThis

Every three months, I have the same frustration. I finish my favorite shampoo, and all I wanna do is go to the store and refill this container. But instead, I have to put this one in the recycling and get a completely new container with the same exact liquid that I was just using. All I think when I go through this process is why is there not a refill station on every corner? Luckily for me, there are soap refill shops popping up all over, and today I'm in Maplewood, New Jersey at the Good Bottle Refill Shop. I've brought my shampoo bottle. I'm gonna get new shampoo without buying a bottle. I'm Lucy Biggers, and this is One Small Step. Dayana Taylor-Haycock opened Good Bottle Refill Shop after she realized the cleaning products she was buying for her family came only in wasteful packaging. As I'm unloading all this stuff, putting it away, I thought, there's gotta be another way. I was basically buying my trash. The shop opened in September 2019 and has already prevented over 4,000 bottles from going to landfill. I just did the calculation. Hold. The number is 4,000. I don't wanna get it wrong. No, get your record straight. Because I posted it. 4,258 refills. The shop carries 70 bulk soaps and cleaners comparable to the items you'd find at a grocery store or pharmacy. When you refill, it is so much better for the planet. I think the refill system is good for the environment because you are able to reuse these bottles. Think about laundry detergent. You buy it every month, and that's 12 jugs. And some people might say, oh, but I recycle it, you know? And I don't know if that makes it any better. You know, we are not so certain about our recycling these days. What we have done is given people a way for them to reduce their trash in their home. Well, I really wanna go around the store and sort of experience how to fill up a bottle. I brought my shampoo from home. I don't think you carry my brand of shampoo, but we'll find a good alternative. You've got some good ones. Okay, let's do it. So over here, we have an assortment of bottles and jars available to fill if you didn't bring your own. How many people are coming in and buying the bottles? 40% of the people buy the bottles. The rest bring their bottles. The more we're open, the more people are just bringing their own because they're bringing these back to refill. Can I ask you, what is this? This really caught my eye. Yes, it's a dish soap block. No way. So instead of it being in liquid form, it can be on a block on a soap dish, and you just use that scrubber to get the soap on it. These are un-paper towels. When my family did our New Year's resolution to reduce our waste, we did a trash audit. Most of our trash was paper towels. So I found this product, and yeah, it's been unbelievable. You wash them. It hasn't created any more work for me because I just wash them with my towels. I live for these logical swaps that anyone can do. That's where we're gonna make the difference when it comes to cutting down on waste. Yes, I've really turned a lot of moms onto this because I figured out a way to not add work to their lives. What's this right here? This is cool. This is a laundry stick. This is like a Tide pen. Yes, exactly. So you can just rub it on the stain and then put it in the laundry, and it'll get the stain out. Everything that's sustainable is also cuter than the plastic alternatives that you buy at the store with the gaudy colors and text. This is pure. Yeah. I love it. All right, so since we're here in IC Shampoo, can we fill up my shampoo bottle? Absolutely, let's do it. So I have some that you might like here. If you want to smell any of these to see what they smell like, this is how we do it in the shop. People love to smell the products. It's actually very true, I get that, because you kind of want to go. So we always tell them, just pump a little bit into the drip jar. Ooh, that smells really good. This brand scents all of their products with the plants and the flowers. They grow on their organic bar. It's very comforting. Yeah. I would love for my hair to smell like that. This one is Angelica and Lavender. Ooh, this smells similar to what I use now. So let's do this one. Okay, great. And what's the price point on your products compared to something that you're buying at a Target or a Walmart? The cleaning products generally are at or lower than the grocery store or the big box retailers. Bath and body care tends to be a little bit higher. We have found that the brands that sell in these bulk containers are generally the ones that have the really high standards of how their products are produced. So I have my bottle. How do I go about refilling it? So you weigh your empty bottle, and this is 1.5 ounces. Okay. Write down that so we don't forget it. 1.5 ounces. Now we pick out the product. So you want the Lavender and Angelica scented shampoo, right? Yes. I'm like so hyped to get shampoo right now. I'm like, let's go. Okay. So here's a little tip. Yes. You can get it on there. The more you get it inside. Like in there? Yeah. The better it is. Oh, that makes so much sense. Sometimes people hold it out. Those are okay too. And this is a new concept too. This is a new way of buying, and it's not the cleanest, or it's a little messy. I did it. All right, you did it. Okay, so then we'll bring it back over to the scale, and then we just want to weigh it again. We'll get the top. Get that on there. All right, so we'll weigh this, and this is 12.5 ounces. Okay, and I put that into my filled bottle? Yep. This is 65 cents per ounce, and all of our containers have that on the container, so you know exactly how much you're paying per ounce. So this is a $7.15 shampoo bottle. I'll take that. Our customers don't have to figure out how much it costs unless they want to. We've tried to have them have the least amount of work to do, but also they have to do a little math, and the great part about this is because we have so many moms that shop here, they bring their kids in here, and they have them do the math, and it's great. That's so cute. It is. Our customers bring their kids here all the time, and are explaining what they're doing, and why they're doing it. I see it all the time. That's so cool to hear, because you know the kids, they're learning about recycling and climate change in school, and then they can see that they're taking an action with their parents to really change that trend. Yeah. I think it's an awesome way to install that in a young kid. It is, and a lot of people come in here, and they read so much about what's going on, about the climate change, about the plastic problem, and at the end of the day, they want to make a difference. They want to do something, and I feel like we've given them something to do to be part of this. Well, Deanna, thank you so much for showing us around your shop. Thank you for the shampoo. I will pay for this, and I think what you're doing is so inspiring, and you're bringing it to a really great population of people, so thank you so much. Thank you for coming. This is awesome. Great. Get it, I'm pumped, pumped to use this.