The Refill Revolution
We had a chat with Rachel Ward, owner of Cogs of Coventry and zero waste guru to talk all things plastic free. Cogs is a small, independent zero-waste business selling unpackaged foods and household goods.
Q: When did you first learn about climate change?
Rachel: I was just a teenager, a geography student, when I first heard about the idea of, as it was then, global warming. The news at the time, had shown pictures of the French Riviera and discussed Global Warming. The suggestion very strongly being, that this would mean southern England would be much more aligned, weather-wise, to the south of France. Roll on Global Warming; it sounded great.
Fast forward more years than there seems to have been time for (about 35), and Global Warming is now more accurately called Climate Change. The reality is, climate change is a phenomenon that is going to affect every aspect of our lives; extreme weather, drought, flooding, fires. We’ve already seen incredible scenes this year, of fires in the US. Last year’s flooding in Bangladesh was another extreme weather event. There will be a greater frequency of these events in the future along with increased desertification, diseases, climate refugees, warmer seas affecting the ecosystems of our oceans – the list is very long indeed.
Q: Why did you start the Cogs zero-waste shop?
Rachel: About 4 years ago, fed up with a teaching career that seemed to get harder each year probably due to the lack of resources and funding which make providing a public service very difficult. Then there is also the current political inertia on all manner of environmental reforms which we absolutely must make, I decided to start my own one-woman protest. A refill revolution. Right here in our city, Coventry. So, I opened COGs Refillery.
Four years on and my little business has expanded beyond all my wildest dreams. Today, the stock lines on offer have quadrupled at least and the numbers of customers we see each week has exploded.
Q: What do you sell at Cogs?
Rachel: All manner of household consumable items; dried food (fruits, nuts, seeds for starters), herbs and spices, vegetables, cleaning products, cleaning tools and personal care items.
Q: Tell me about the food you stock?
Rachel: At COGs you’ll find; locally baked bread (Wed / Thurs and Fridays at the moment – all sourdough) oils, teas, coffees, cereals, grains, nuts, beans, seeds, dried fruits, eggs (bring your own box – I have a few spares), chocolates, crisps (yes crisps without that plastic bag), fresh organic tofu, incredible salad leaves, local honey, locally made jams…. I want to expand into refills of passata, of pasta sauce, ready made curry with a returnable package… oh everything is possible.
I offer a vegetable box each week containing 10-12 different vegetables and salad items. I try to make this as local as I can, using local organic growers like Five Acre Community Farm and Mill Piece Gardens wherever possible. I then use an organic wholesaler in Leicestershire, picking off their UK grown produce as often as I can. Nothing comes from outside the EU in my boxes. How can we justify apples grown in Chile or New Zealand when we grow splendid ones here?
I stock lots of herbs and spices. Bring me your spice jars, a list and leave me with it. I’ll refill these for you at a lower price than the supermarkets, with a better quality product in a jar you’re reusing and therefore won’t need grinding down, heating and reforming, producing more CO2 in the process before it is filled again. There’s a lot to love.
I choose organic standard food to stock at the stall because this type of agriculture works more in harmony with nature. The soil on an organic farm is alive and full of bacteria, insects and soil creatures, the soil builds structure and fertility. In terms of human health, I don’t really have a good grip on the science but strongly feel there is probably not a whole lot of good to be had from ingesting weed killers and insecticides. Check out ZOE nutrition for the science.
Q: Cleaning supplies can also be zero waste?
As for other items available at the stall, I try to stock the things you’ll need to use every day or week. Cleaning products like laundry liquids / powder, washing up liquid, toilet cleaner, all-purpose cleaner and so many others… all these things arrive in a barrel, you bring your clean bottle to fill, the barrels go back to the manufacturer and are cleaned and refilled. No plastic waste in this; a closed loop.
You can also select tools for cleaning, brushes, cloths, sponges. All natural ingredients which will either recycle endlessly or compost. These tools very closely resemble and function like the plastic ones in the supermarkets. I’ve tried just about everything and if it doesn’t work, I won’t stock it.
Q: And finally, toiletries?
I have selected a small range of personal care products too; toothbrushes, shampoos, deodorants, soaps; again, all things you are likely to use on a regular basis.
Start by refilling your first pump bottle of handwash or shampoo, then look around you for other changes. They are all extremely powerful changes because so many people are waking up to the idea that there has to be a better way. My tiny little business, measuring 4 square metres or so, on its own has prevented about 20,000 bottles from being needed and discarded. We can do even more than that.
Q: Going zero waste is made out to be really time consuming and expensive – is that the case?
Rachel: It’s just a state of mind. Just like the way we have adapted to having to remember shopping bags, we can get used to taking containers with us. It takes a little bit of organisation to get on this particular cart. You need to be prepared to wash out your bottles and boxes. You need to bring these into Coventry Market and then take the time to weigh and fill.
Some items do cost a little bit more than the supermarkets, but most are cheaper. Take our organic eggs – they are £2.50 for a half dozen. Sainsburys charge between £2.80 and £3.55 for the same. Our organic apricots are £1.50/100g this compares with Sainsburys SO range which are £1.59 – but you can buy 100g of ours… or whatever weight you need whereas you have to buy 250g of theirs and work out the plastic waste at the end of the packet. You can see our stock list on www.cogscoventry.uk. Our prices compare really favourably but we can offer you a small amount of a product – so if you only need 300g of porridge, or 20g of pine nuts, that’s no problem.
Much of your zero waste journey can happen at COGs but you’ll also start rejecting plastic bottles of water and refilling your drinks bottle. You’ll reject the straw. You’ll choose to make rather than buying a pre-packaged sandwich and you’ll look at apples or mushrooms wrapped in plastic and know that when you head down to Coventry Market, you’ll get some in a paper bag or straight into your own. Or you’ll seek out locally grown veg, maybe even planting some in your garden or window box. Then you might start thinking even bigger by dusting off your bike and cycling to work – especially with all the fabulous new bike lanes we have in the city. It’ll grow from there and you will feel better, lighter and know that you too have joined this quiet revolution.
Q: Why should people start their zero-waste journey?
Very simply, because we need to reduce our impact on the environment and give over space for nature. Natural processes will help to redress the balance of so much human activity in our ecosystems. We need to give space to ensure species have room to survive and flourish. We need to clean the air, the soil and the oceans of the toxins we’ve released – certainly, we need to not add anything extra to the soup. We need to do this for our own health, that of our children and our grandchildren.
Q: What does the future hold for Cogs?
I’m hoping COGs will continue to grow. I’d love to be able to offer a whole lot more choice of goodies to those I have already. Next week sees the arrival of loose olives… just in time for summer. Who knows? I’d love to have a bigger space and a zero-waste cafe attached to this… oh and a peanut butter machine….
COGs is running a trial with the Hope Centre to offer customers of the Social Supermarket there an opportunity to refill their household cleaning products. I am looking for a little bit of sponsorship with this to help fund the initial set up cost but after that, I am offering goods at a discounted price so that they are financially accessible to all income levels. I’ve got my fingers crossed on this, it’s a big plastic-reducing avenue I want to explore.
This has been a most exciting adventure to be on. I meet lots of people every week starting out or properly into their own journeys to plastic-liberation. They are the most open-hearted, kind and caring people who fill me with hope and optimism… come join us, you will love the change.