Refills in the shop

Many of you will know, but some might not, that we stock a range of eco products as well as Fairtrade products in the shop, and this includes both Ecover cleaning products and Faith in Nature shampoos, conditioners and body wash. We also do both Ecover and Faith in Nature refills in the shop; so once you’ve used up your bottle of washing up liquid or shampoo, bring the same bottle back into the shop and we will refill it for you.

Saving the planet can often be easy to aspire to, but difficult in reality. Fortunately Ecover and Faith in Nature have made environmental friendly shopping easy with their ingenious refill concept. It is incredibly straight forward – instead of throwing away your plastic washing up or shampoo bottle (which then takes hundreds of years to degrade), bring it into Headington Fairtrade and we will simply refill it for you. Not only is this even better than throwing it in the recycling bin, it also saves you money as you’re not paying for the packaging and shipping which is normally included in the price of a normal bottle off the supermarket shelf. In addition, you are helping to combat climate change by reducing trasnsport of goods in polluting lorries.

Ecover launched their first refill systems in the UK back in 1993. They were 25 litre ‘drums’ with a pump. When empty they would be sent back to the Ecover factory in Belgium where they would be washed, refilled and returned to the store. By 2000 their range offered through refills had expanded further. Today, the refill system is a clever 15 litre container with a tap and a little fitting under the tap to hold customer bottles steady, which makes refilling as easy as possible.

(Original Ecover refill poster, courtesy of https://www.ecover.com/refill/)

Faith in Nature supplies our refills in their large bottles – 100% recycled and 100% reused.  Their ultimate priority is the complete elimination of virgin plastic from the Faith in Nature supply chain and when our refill bottles are empty, we post them back via FreePost to Faith in Nature, where they deep clean the bottle, refill and reuse it, or, depending on the sort of bottle, send them to a UK partner where they are ground down and made into new bottles before being sent back to Faith in Nature for reuse.

(Photo of Faith in Nature refill bottles, courtesy of https://www.faithinnature.co.uk/refill-returns).

At Headington Fairtrade, we currently have refills available for:

Ecover

  • Washing-up liquid
  • Laundry liquid (non-bio)
  • Fabric softner
  • All-purpose cleaner
  • Handwash
  • Toilet cleaner
  • Delicate laundry liquid
  • Floor soap

Faith in Nature

  • Body wash (Grapefruit & Orange, Aloe Vera and Lavender & Geranium)
  • Shampoo (Aloe Vera and Coconut)
  • Conditioner (Aloe Vera and Coconut)

The Process at Headington Fairtrade:

Please leave any refills in a named bag in the plastic crate at the back of the shop. We will refill your bottles either while you wait – if we are able – or for collection a little while later.   

Please note that we can only refill your empty bottle with the same product. So please make sure you’re saving your empty Ecover and Faith in Nature bottles for a direct refill because we love to keep another plastic bottle out of the waste system!