DON’T RECYCLE OUR RECYCLABLE ALUMINIUM BOTTLES!

To celebrate our 50^th birthday last year, we launched our shiny new 500ml bottles – made from 100% recycled and infinitely recyclable aluminium. But we don’t want you to recycle them. Here’s why…

WHY ALUMINIUM?

Our 400ml bottles have been made out 100% recycled plastic (RPET) since 1999. Plastic can’t be recycled forever, though (it eventually weakens and degrades) and very little waste plastic actually gets recycled. So, for a long time, we’ve been looking for an alternative packaging material for our liquid products.

After much searching and experimenting, we found what we were looking for: 100% recycled and infinitely recyclable aluminium bottles (with a 100% recyclable plastic pump). Aluminium retains its strength and properties no matter how many times it’s shredded, melted down and made into something new, so it really can be recycled forever. It’s even considered a ‘permanent material’ by the International Aluminium Institute! But we don’t want you to recycle our aluminium bottles – we want you to refill them.

CALCULATING THE CARBON FOOTPRINT

Before we decided to go ahead with the aluminium bottles, we needed to understand their impact on the planet. So, we conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) to calculate their carbon footprint.

The assessment took into account every stage of the bottles’ journey, from their raw material extraction and manufacture to what happens to them when they’re empty.

Our studies show that newly produced aluminium contains 13 times the carbon of our recycled aluminium. If we’d made our new bottles out of brand-new aluminium, their carbon footprint per use would be 2.3 times that of our 400ml RPET bottle. That’s why we found one of the only suppliers in Europe who works with 100% recycled aluminium.

Using 100% recycled aluminium means we’re not taking resources from the planet – and the carbon footprint per use of the new bottles is 1.6 times that of the RPET alternative. 

But – hang on – if the carbon footprint per use of our recycled aluminium bottles is still higher than that of our existing plastic ones, why on Planet Earth would we want to use them? Because we want to move away from the take-make-waste economy – in other words, we want to wave goodbye to single use packaging. And these aluminium bottles are far from single use.

Although it’s possible to refill our RPET bottles (and many of you do – thank you!), lots of them end up in household recycling bins. Frustratingly, only 12% of household plastic waste in the UK actually gets recycled. Our aluminium bottles are built to last, look beautiful in your bathroom, and, crucially, to be refilled – over and over again.

WHY IS REFILLING BETTER THAN RECYCLING?

Top up one of our empty aluminium bottles just once and its carbon footprint per use instantly halves, cutting it down to lower than that of the PET bottle. Every time you refill it again, you’re saving a new bottle from being made, and the carbon footprint per use becomes lower and lower.

Should you ever decide it’s time to replace your aluminium bottle, just put it in your household recycling bin. The recycling rate for aluminium in the UK is much higher than that of plastic at 68%, so it’s far more likely to be recycled than an RPET bottle.

Our studies showed that, although the carbon footprint of our aluminium bottle is higher than that of the RPET one, because it can be reused and then recycled for longer, over time, we will use less carbon. And they showed that if everyone who buys our 400ml RPET bottles switched to our aluminium bottle and refilled it just once, by 2026 we would start to ‘save’ carbon in this way, compared to continuing to use our single use RPET plastic bottles. Simple!

I’M IN! WHERE AND HOW DO I REFILL?

You can refill your aluminium bottle either at a refill store or at home.

To find your nearest refill store, scan the QR code on the back of your bottle or head to our refill station locator.

If you’d like to refill at home, you can shop bigger bottles at the Refills section here on our website, and use our Freepost service to return your washed, empty bottle to us to recycle. Our compact 2.5-litre refills are designed for smaller homes and hold the equivalent of five of our aluminium bottles. For bigger spaces, our 5-litre refills will let you top up your aluminium bottle ten times. Our biggest refill size, popular with businesses, is 20-litres – which would fill one of our aluminium bottles an impressive 40 times over!

To find out more about refilling at home, read our blog: How to Set Up a Home Refill Station.

Whether you do it in-store or at home, start a refill ritual to reduce plastic waste and move towards a circular economy.