Be for a #REFILLution | Not a 50% PCR plastic DELUSION.
"If we do what we've always done, we'll get what we've always got..."
It was well over 2 years ago that the King of Shaves team and I decided to be the change we wanted to see when it came to the use of plastic packaging for our products. Having manufactured using PP tubes (yes, recyclable - but 70%+ weren't) for our gels since 1996, it was clear we had a binary decision to make regarding entering our third decade of existence.
Stick to doing what we'd always done, don't 'rock the boat', try to convince our consumers that our plastic tubes were recyclable, could be recycled - but the infrastructure in the UK and around the world didn't exist to do it' or take a deep breath and put our two bestselling products into a beautiful lifetime use refillable aluminium can, and work with specialists in single laminate refill pouches, to reduce plastic by 72-84% and thus take the first steps towards being that change.
Two years later, and lots of hurdles overcome, our best selling shaving gel and oil are now listed by all the major UK retailers - both the refillable AND the refill - kudos to them for coming on board - it would have been easy to list just the refillable on-shelf, but sell the refill on-line.
In recent days, I've seen announcements by P&G regarding their similar 'refill + pouch' system, launched to great acclaim - but unlike our refill pouch, using mixed plastics (the spout isn't the same plastic as the pouch) - which effectively makes it un-recyclable... To use our pouch, you need to use a pair of scissors - but hey - we reckon most of our customers have a pair of those in the kitchen cabinet.
Other toiletries brands continue to make a huge amount of noise about using "50% PCR (Post Consumer Recycled) plastic" in their products, introducing this in the next 5-10 years. Unacceptable this, such a cop out. In a forward looking brand owners portfolio simply being 'twice as good' as we were IS NOT ENOUGH.
Of course plastic has its place in our world - it's a fantastic material, with so many important uses. BUT NOT FOR CONSUMABLES when other options must be developed.
JOIN OUR #REFILLution
I'd love to claim first use of the term '#Refillution' but others deservedly got there ahead of us! However, if you want to deliver dynamic and rapid change - from single use, dispose to lifetime use, refill - always best to congregate around a hashtag that is easily remembered. And whilst the world is dominated by daily headlines about the impact of Coronavirus, it’s important to remember our planet suffers from this SINGLE USE PLASTIC scourge, the unnecessary over-use of plastic for way too many consumable products.
When we introduced our Code Zero "zero out unnecessary, bad, unhelpful" project in 2019, we knew the response to our Code Zero shave sticks - very much an MVP - would be good. And over the past 2 years, the team and I, and others have been hard at work evolving what we intend Code Zero to become, going way beyond 'shave'.
120,000,000,000 & 70% ends up in Landfill
In the cosmetics and personal care sector, 120Bn items of toiletries packaging are manufactured from plastic, of which nearly 70% ends up in landfill each year. We believe this is unacceptable and there must be a more sustainable way of selling high use toiletries consumables in desirable, refillable durables, better for the planet, with plastic-free or alt-plastic refills priced to delight the customer. It's time for us all to go above & beyond in our thinking, our behaviour, our actions and take the all important customer on a refill, not landfill journey with us.
Make sustainability sexy? Yes.
Make refilling desirable and 'the way it must be done' Yes.
This is our mission with King of Shaves as 2020, a year of HUGE hiatus, sadness and change has washed over us, we're looking to 202ONE as I term it - the first step in us resetting King of Shaves from FMCG brand to FM(R)CG - Fast Moving (Refillable, Reusable, Responsible, Renewable) Consumer Goods company.
Keep watching this space, and if you want to get a clean shave with a clear conscience, you can buy our refillables here or in the major high street retailers & supermarkets (excluding Tesco, who for some reason, chose not to re-list our refillables, boo. Come on Tesco).