Mission

Our mission is to make waste reduction accessible to all. We are changing the consumer packaged goods industry by making it easier to reduce and reuse than it is to recycle. We do this by empowering consumers with better, affordable, convenient, and sustainable options. Our success is defined by less plastics entering the waste stream, landfills and waterways.

 

Our mission is our promise to you and to this planet.  We are all in this together.

Core Values

Accessibility

• The quality of being usable, reachable, obtainable, etc.  Synonyms: Convenient, inclusive and affordable.

• We know and understand that consumers are busy, overtaxed and tired.  Through our expansive network of Trading Posts and Bottle Exchanges, we seek to make our services as convenient and simple as possible.

• At times “zero-waste” can feel exclusive and a term only for those at the forefront of sustainable living.  We seek to break down this barrier and help more people along their journey towards zero-waste

• Many sustainable decisions come with a “Green Premium” and are either more expensive or harder to access.  We’re flipping the script and offering discounts to customers making sustainable decisions.

Sustainability

• The quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance.

• Consumerism has overtaken sustainability and is in dire need of a correction.  Our environments and communities are not in balance and are being overwhelmed by the waste we create.

• Sustainability as a consumer is hard and time consuming to measure.  Researching every product’s supply chain is exhausting.  At Good Filling, we only partner with the most sustainable businesses we can- so you don’t have to worry about your impact.

Empowerment

• Authority or power given to someone to do something

• Because reducing waste is a universal goal, we seek to empower and enable our communities to make their difference.  An individual’s actions aren’t sufficient for overcoming today’s challenges: we need systematic change.  What better way to effect change than to empower?

• The overwhelming facts about ecological destruction and climate change often have people feeling helpless, confused or unequipped.  Our company, our services and our staff are here to help and point you along the path towards change.

Transparency

• A situation in which business activities are done in an open way without secrets, so that people can trust that they are fair and honest

• For hundreds of years businesses and corporations have tricked consumers into making unsustainable decisions.  They have profited off of distrust, false advertisement and green washing.

• Good Filling is an open book.  We list all of our manufacturers and partners on our website.  If you have a question or comment- just ask (contact@goodfilling.com)

Founding Story

Identity

As Petros Palandijian grew up in a large family, he became more and more aware of the amount of waste generated by households. 

Like most of his peers, he was concerned about how our consumer society dumps massive amounts of plastic into our oceans and landfills—despite the recycling system. Petros tried his best to reduce the amount of waste he produced personally. 

Struggle

In time, he learned about refill stores where he could purchase products and reuse his own containers. The shops were obscure and pricey, and refilling was messy. Petros felt they were better suited for die-hard zero-wasters who were making a huge effort to circumvent the system. He struggled to fit trips to refill stores into his busy schedule.

Petros felt powerless as an individual to make a meaningful impact. And he was discouraged that most people didn’t think twice about the waste generated each time they flicked a thumb for Amazon to deliver a virgin bottle of product in a brand new box.

Discovery

One day, the LED lightbulb went on in his head. 

If refilling was as easy as e-commerce, more people would prevent more plastics from entering the waste stream. Petros set out to make a refill service that’s convenient and scalable.

He started buying personal care and home care products in bulk. He sold really great products to his neighbors in Boston. When they had used up a bottle, he gave them a full one and took back the empty to sanitize, refill, and reuse for the next customer. 

Good Filling was born: the world’s first distributed refill service. 

Results

With Boston as the breeding ground, Petros and the Good Filling team have proven the model and are now making sustainability more accessible to all.

Good Filling Trading Posts are installed in well-trafficked retail locations where within 1 business day customers can pick up orders and drop off empties. There are now 7 in and around Boston, and more cities are on the horizon.

Customers may choose package-free home delivery in the Boston area. Shipping is also available in compostable mailers across the US.

Apartment buildings partner with Good Filling to offer residents on-site bottle exchanges. There are now 12 participating buildings. Some are already signed up to try a new fleet of innovative Good Filling Stations.

Good Filling now distributes Seventh Generation, Puracy, Oneka, The Unscented Company, and products from other high-quality, sustainable brands. And more brands are lining up.

As the community of Good Filling customers, suppliers, and buildings grows, the volume of plastics entering our waste stream, landfills, and waterways shrink.

Why It Matters

Community and Personal Health

• Humans are eating, drinking and breathing plastic and micro-plastic waste (Source)
• Recent studies suggest that we consume the equivalent of a credit-card of micro-plastics each week
• 90% of the water we drink contains micro-plastics (Source)
• 40% of all plastics manufactured are intended for one-time use, yet 91% of it in the US isn't recycled (Source)
• Wish-cycling (e.g. trying to recycle a greasy pizza box) results in entire batches of recycling being landfilled
• Studies show that toxic, caustic and synthetic compounds found in popular cleaning brands have been linked to cancer and other major diseases

Our Environment

• 18 billion pounds of trash is dumped into our oceans each year (Source)
• Scientists have predicted that by 2050, our oceans will contain more plastic than fish by weight (Source)
• The ocean is littered by over 165 million tons of plastic (Source)
• Animals are eating and drinking our plastic and micro-plastic waste
• 100% of marine turtles, 59% of whales, 40% of seabirds and 36% of seals contain plastics (Source)
• The contamination of micro-plastics will continue as ocean plastic breaks down (Source)