Upmarket grocer Marks and Spencer has started to trial refillable cleaning and laundry products as part of its plans to tackle plastic waste.
The trial will initially only launch in six stores, but if successful, could roll out to the chain's 1,000+ stores in the UK, including those in Newcastle, Durham and Metrocentre.
M&S Refillable follows on from the supermarket’s packaging-free Fill Your Own concept, which was launched in 2019 and sees customers fill up tubs of loose produce to save on plastic waste. Now available in 14 stores, Fill Your Own allows customers to use their own packaging to buy more than 60 grocery lines, including pasta, rice, cereal and nuts. The scheme is estimated to have removed 350,000 units of single-use packaging.
Read more: 12 simple changes you can make at home to help save the planet
The new trial of M&S Refillable will include cleaning sprays, laundry detergents, fabric conditioners and washing-up liquids.
Products available are:
- M&S Original Washing-up liquid
- M&S Citrus Washing-up liquid
- M&S Floral Burst Multi-Purpose Cleaner
- M&S Sparkling Wave Bathroom Cleaner
- M&S Apricot & Orange Anti Bacterial Kitchen Cleaner
- M&S Pure Fresh Fabric Conditioner
- M&S Sensitive Non Bio Laundry Liquid
- M&S Bio Colours Laundry Liquid
While M&S are calling the lines refillable, they work slightly differently to other refillable schemes, such as Tesco.
The system works in the following way:
- Customers buy a prefilled bottle, the price of which includes a £2 deposit for the reusable bottle. There's a range of 500ml, 750ml and 1L sizes on offer.
- Once the bottle is empty, you return them to store, where you will be given a £2 voucher to use against another purchase in the range.
- All returned bottles, which are made with durable materials to reduce damage and waste, will be cleaned and refilled before they’re made available to buy again in stores.
M&S says its latest refillable offering, which includes eight products and is delivered in partnership with Re, will be available initially in its recently opened Stevenage, Herts, store and in Bluewater, Kent.
It will then be extended to an additional four stores in London, Hampshire, Liverpool and York over the summer.
Lucinda Langton, head of sustainability at M&S Food, said: “At M&S, we want to help our customers live more sustainably by transforming how we sell our products.
“We know they care deeply about reducing plastic so we’re taking a test and learn approach to find innovative solutions. Our homecare trial builds on our refillable and packaging-free Fill Your Own concept, and both are important parts of our strategy to reduce plastic and packaging.
"Fill Your Own has already been hugely popular – showing there is high demand for refillable great value options – and if customers love M&S Refillable just as much, we’ll be rolling it out to more stores.”
M&S has committed to remove one billion units of plastic food packaging by 2027 and has already removed 75 million units from across its food business in the past year.
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