Last weekend, as part of Plastic-Free July, I visited Ecomended – a shop in Tempe that sells zero-waste and eco-friendly items. I wanted to check out the refillery before going there to make my first purchase.

What’s a Refillery?

A refillery is a similar to the idea of bulk bins, except for household items like laundry detergent, dish soap, hand soap, toothpaste powder, and lotion. You can purchase an empty glass jar there or bring your own container. (They don’t care if you bring a plastic container.)

You take your container, tare it on the scale, fill it with the product you need, and pay for it. In the future, when my hand soap dispensers are almost empty, instead of buying a big plastic refill bottle of soap, I can take my near-empty dispensers to Ecomended and top my dispensers off with their hand soap. Since I can tare my containers, I’ll only be paying for the soap I buy.

They also have a soap in the refillery that you can use to clean your home and yourself. I want to try it!

Ecomended also has a box labeled “Please Reuse Box” where people can leave their clean empty jars and other containers that they won’t use again, for other patrons to take and use, so they don’t have to buy a jar if they didn’t bring a container.

Other Plastic-Free Products

Besides the refillery, Ecomended has an assortment of other planet-friendly products, including reusable diapers and menstrual pads, reusable sandwich bags, plastic-free adhesive bandages, all-metal razors and blades, plastic-free dental floss, and beeswax wraps. I was pleased to see that they carry products by Rareform, which makes bags from repurposed billboards (so each one is unique), and Tree Tribe, which makes vegan wallets and other products from teak.

I’m so happy that my friend, Liesl, told me about this shop. I’d much rather buy zero-waste and plastic-free goods locally than online.

Ecomended is located at 115 East Baseline Road, Tempe, AZ 85283.