Refill Packs, Handkerchiefs and other Green Living Conundrums
PENCINTA ALAM AUGUST 2013 GREEN LIVING COLUMN REFILL PACKS, HANDKERCHIEFS AND OTHER GREEN LIVING CONUNDRUMS (By Wong Ee Lynn, gl.mnselangor@yahoo.com ) Q.Which is better -- purchasing refill packs and refilling existing containers, or buying regular products and recycling their containers? Refill systems have the potential to significantly reduce both retail packaging waste and product waste. This favours the selection of high volume products that show significant potential weight savings. Such systems involve the initial sale of products in a dispensing container such as a trigger spray or a pump dispenser, with customers encouraged to purchase a simple container to refill the original dispenser. In their simplest form, refill systems could be a pack where the spray or pump can be transferred from the original container to a new container of the same size and design as the original but with a screw cap in place of the dispense mechanism. Refill packs generally provided value...