Refill Culture Is Growing: How Your Everyday Actions Drive Real Change
- Skye Blank
- Jun 16
- 3 min read
Every day, we make choices. Some feel big, like changing jobs or moving house. Others feel small, like choosing a reusable cup over a disposable one. But here’s the truth: it’s those small, repeated actions that shape the world around us more than we realise.
This World Refill Day, we’re celebrating the growing movement behind sustainable living: refill and reuse. On their own, each act helps cut waste, but together, they’re part of a bigger shift toward a circular future.
When you refill, you’re not just avoiding waste. You’re becoming part of the narrative.
Why Refill?
Single-use culture is everywhere - and it’s a problem. In the UK alone, we use an estimated 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups each year, with less than 1% of them recycled. Most are lined with plastic, making them difficult to recycle, and many end up in landfills or are incinerated within minutes of use.
Even the best recycling systems can’t keep up with the volume of waste we generate. The better solution? Avoid waste before it starts.
That’s where refill systems come in. From water stations and returnable food containers to smart cup schemes at festivals, campuses, and construction sites, refill is becoming a practical, scalable alternative. But adoption still lags behind, not because people don’t care, but because the impact often feels invisible.
The Missing Link: Making Reuse and Refill Visible
We all know behaviour change is hard, and even harder without feedback. That’s the gap Circulayo is working to close and make reducing plastic pollution easier.
Our technology helps make reuse easy to run for businesses and rewarding to use for customers:
AppNostic rewards users for their sustainable habits and shows the environmental impact each time they refill or reuse a product.
Flow Platform allows businesses to track return points, sales, and stock in real time, simplifying reuse operations at scale.
Tap & Return makes it effortless for customers to return products and receive deposits back, no confusion, no delays.
Together, these tools remove the friction from reuse and turn every refill into a visible part of the bigger picture.
Whether you're running a reuse scheme or tapping a smart return station at your local café, Circulayo helps you track, measure, and tell your refill story. One cup, box, or container at a time.
This World Refill Day: What’s Your Story?
So, what does your refill story look like?
Maybe you’ve just started bringing your own cup. Maybe you’re already ten refills in. Maybe your workplace is trialling a reuse scheme. Or maybe, you're looking at how you can get involved this World Refill Day?
Wherever you are on the journey, your actions matter — especially when they’re part of a wider culture of change.
Here’s how you can join in today:
Bring your reusable bottle, cup or container out with you whilst travelling.
Look for refill stations out and about in stores, cafes, markets, and public spaces.
Advocate for a reuse scheme at your workplace, university, local venues, and more.
Talk about it with others to normalise reuse and refill to grow a supportive culture.
Make reusing products and refilling containers your default
Because it’s not just about one refill. It’s about refill culture: a mindset that says we can change the system, one choice at a time.
