GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. - Refill GB is a newly opened store in Great Barrington with the mission of reducing the consumption of plastics, recyclable or otherwise.

The owner of Refill GB said the new store came about from a simple idea. “The less plastic out there, the better,” Jamie McCormack said. The refilling process is pretty simple too.

What You Need To Know

  • Refill GB is now open in Great Barrington in an effort to reduce the amount of plastic waste
  • Refill stores offer sustainable items commonly used in households for customers to fill resuable containers with
  • An estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic enters the ocean each year, according to the U.S. Department of State

  • According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the amount of plastic in the ocean is expected to double in the next 15 years, and by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea (by weight)

“You can bring your own container if you want or you can choose one that we have here. We have different sizes…Choose your container and then what you would want to put in it.”

Choices range from household cleaners to shampoos and soaps. Customers fill their containers, weigh it and then pay. The items are priced by the ounce.

McCormack said her motivation to open the store came from her son’s love for animals, and the amount of plastics polluting the environment.

“It felt like this insurmountable problem, and it was really kind of affecting me," McCormack said, "I wanted to try to do something about it and it felt like this was something I could do. My son was a huge inspiration for that, and the health of the planet.”

McCormack said her store joins the growing number of refilleries who aim to make sustainable shopping simple.

“All of our products are biodegradable, a lot of them are organic," McCormack said. "They're made in small batch facilities, and they use all natural ingredients. So, they're good for your systems in your house, they're good for every part of the process and there aren't any kind of artificial scents and dyes and anything like that.”

Refill GB hopes to reduce or eliminate the amount of plastic waste people produce, and McCormack said everyday items are a great place to start.

“For me, it's sort of like doing the most that I can in trying to at least effect some change," McCormack said. "And I think that for people, maybe it's easier than they would think it is to kind of make some small changes that would have a big impact.”