M&S trials refillable own-brand homecare products
M&S is trialling refillable own-brand cleaning and laundry products as part of its commitment to reduce and remove plastic packaging.
Customers are able to choose from eight pre-filled products, including cleaning sprays, laundry detergents, fabric conditioners and washing up liquids.
Delivered in partnership with Re, the new offering is now available in the retailer’s recently opened Stevenage store and in Bluewater. However, there are plans to extend it to the Stratford City, Hedge End, Aintree and York Vangarde Retail Park shops during the summer.
The move follows the launch of the retailer’s packaging-free Fill Your Own concept for groceries, which was introduced in December 2019.
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.”
When using the service, customers are asked to pay an initial £2 deposit for a reusable bottle, which is either 500ml, 750ml or 1L in size and can be returned to stores after use. Once they have returned their container, customers receive a £2 voucher which can be redeemed against a second purchase in the M&S Refillable range.
All returned bottles are cleaned and refilled before being returned to stores to be sold again. Cleaning spray and washing-up liquid bottles also include a fully recyclable spray trigger or pump that can be recycled at home or returned to store.
M&S said customers are responding well to the trial, with the most popular product (citrus washing up liquid) almost equalling sales of its packaged equivalent.
