We get asked about it all the time...
What is Flexible Plastics Week
If you’re new around here, we do a monthly collection of difficult to recycle plastics including: plastic bags, snack wrappers, chip bags, bubble wrap, etc... If you’re bringing plastics for this event. To get ready for this event here are a coupe of tips:
🌟 Make sure your materials are clean and dry
🌟 Pre-sort into three categories to save you time at the store ✨ Stretchy (2-4): If you try to push your finger through it the plastic stretches before it tears. Think plastic shopping bags, bread bags, bubble wrap, things like that. ✨ Rippy (5-7): If you try to push your finger through it there is no stretch. If you were to try and tear it, it would tear without stretching first. ✨ Foil lined: These are usually easier to spot, they have a foil interior! Usually these are snack wrappers, chip bags, sometimes coffee bags, things like that.
This initiative is entirely supported by contributions from participants and the community. If you would like to help support this program you can either make a cash donation at the shop, or Venmo @justraydaly (please don’t use the business Venmo, we get charged a fee on that one!)
Do you have any questions? We’re collaborating with Rabbit Recycling on this post so that we can answer it all!
#phildelphia #philly #philadelphia_ig #northernliberties #reducewaste #lowwaste #recycling #phillysmallbusiness
We’ve all fit in that box once or twice in our waste reduction journey. Maybe more than twice. I mean, how many pasta sauce jars, wine bottles, and kombucha bottles can you really repurpose?
If you haven’t heard yet, you can drop ANY post consumer glass with us here at Ray’s Reusables to be repurposed, reused, or re-blown by the Bottle Underground/Remark Glass. I’ve been getting some repeating questions about how exactly drop off works, so here’s the skinny:
1. Do I need to schedule an appointment to drop off my glass?
—No! You can swing by with your glass any time the store is open, no appointment necessary.
2. Can I drop at the van?
—No. while I would love to be able to pick up glass from you all at markets, I’m not sure I can accommodate it space-wise in the van! If this changes at any point in the future I’ll be sure to let you know!
3. Do I need to remove the labels/do anything with the lids?
—Nope! The folks at the Bottle Underground are expert de-labelers at this point, and they partner with Rabbit Recycling to take care of the lids. All glass needs to be clean and dry for drop off.
4. What kind of glass is eligible?
—All kinds! Wine bottles, beer bottles, baby food jars, salsa jars, kombucha bottles, liquor bottles, glass cannabis canisters, cosmetics containers…the list goes on, but if it’s glass we take it!
5. What happens with the glass?
—Bottle Underground collects and sorts all the glass they receive. Some of it gets washed and sanitized according to food grade standards to be reused by businesses like mine (look for salvaged kombucha bottles next time you’re in shop!). Sometimes it’s blown by their sister organization, Remark Glass, into vases, tumblers, light fixtures, dinnerware and more!
6. Why shouldn’t I just put it to the curb?
—Recycling figures for single stream recycling can be pretty dismal. Last I looked only about 30% of glass gets recycled in curbside recycling on average.
7. Will you judge me for how many wine bottles I bring in?
—Not if you won’t judge me for the number of sweets I eat.
Any other questions about our glass drop off program?
🔥 5 DAYS UNTIL ECOFAIR! 🔥
Get excited for the greenest event of the season! Here’s a sneak peek of some of the incredible vendors that will be at our Sustainable Marketplace. 😍
Comment ECO and we will send you the link to RSVP. 🌱
We’re putting together something really fun! More details to come soon, but for now, mark your calendars for Saturday May 30. It’s going to be a day of guest vendors, a refreshed space, and a *very* exciting new program.
Gabi and Bri and I have been working super hard behind the scenes on these big updates and we can’t wait to share them with you later this month. So while we’re celebrating our hard work on 5/30, this is a heads up that we are going to close the store from 5/25-5/28 to put all our changes in effect.
See you there!
#northernliberties #womenownedsmallbusiness #phillysmallbusiness
There’s nothing to get me fired up and exited like seeing the 10 year business anniversary of a local business. Especially one doing things as amazing as Remark Glass.
If you don’t know, Bottle Underground, our glass collection partner, is the non-profit baby of Remark Glass.
Not only do they come and collect your glass from us, but we actually buy glass back from them! Some of the containers in the store probably had their start in the drop off bin before being de-labeled, sanitized, and purchased by us (or any of their many other business partners!)
In addition to being super cool and keeping glass out of landfill, they also use the jobs they create to do social good by working with anti-recidivism programs.
We are so honored to have worked with Bottle Underground these last four years, and are looking forward to many more 🫙
#supportlocal #phillysmallbusiness #womenownedsmallbusiness #recycling
We had SO many amazing sustainability goals put up on our board this Earth Week. Thank you so much to everyone who participated!
It was hard to pick just a few of my favorites, but I tried to give you a taste of what people posted.
Some of the through lines I saw were around carefully considering purchases/refusing things we don’t need, walking and taking public transport, buying second hand, cooking at home (especially bread it seems?), reducing plastic and trying reusable swaps, and getting back into composting.
If you didn’t get a chance to come in this week and post your goal, drop your sustainability goal for 2026 in the comments below 🌎
#northernliberties #earthday2026 #everydayisearthday #refillery #sustainablestore
Happy Earth Day! I’ve got some refill stats that might surprise you.
We took a look at the last year of refill data, and it’s so awesome to see how much of an impact our little shop is having.
I crunched the numbers this morning, and since this day last year we have refilled a total of over 100,000 oz of products! I wanted to put this into perspective for you, so image looking at 790 gallon jugs of water. Or 6,320 hand soap bottles (like the one you’ve got at your sink).
In reality we filled 5,206 bottles, some of them are more than a gallon, some are much less. A whopping 20 gallons of what we filled last year were through our partnerships with Pietramala and Emmett Philly, both of whom we supply refillable hand soap.
I wish I had kept more data on our recycling programs, but now that I’m collecting it I’ll save that for a big ole mega post next year ;)
Come on out and see us this week for your refills, and when you do don’t forget to take a second to enter our Earth Week Raffle. We’ll draw a winner at the end of the week and they will receive $25 gift card toward the shop.
#earthday2026 #northernliberties #refillnotlandfill #sustainableshop zerowastelifestyle
Sometimes people come in really stressed about how to go zero waste.
My opinion is that it’s most important to start small and work your way up. Trying to do a full-life reset and stick to it is setting yourself up for failure.
As a low waste shop, we believe in progress over perfection. Changing your lifestyle is a journey, and the path that each person takes is different. It’s why I have such a hard time answering the question “how do I start going zero waste”!
My advice is usually to choose one thing to focus on at a time. Maybe you want to go room by room in your house. You might start in the kitchen, paying attention to what waste and plastic has made its way in there. Try a couple of swaps in that zone, and gradually build on those.
Building an awareness is, in my opinion, one of the most critical steps in reducing waste. Once you start thinking about it you’ll suddenly see a lot of opportunities to reduce waste. Don’t panic because there are so many habits to change! Celebrate each time you are able to change a habit or make a swap :)
What’s your top piece of advice for someone starting out on their sustainable journey? Drop it in the comments
#refillnotlandfill #refillshop #sustainableliving #smallbusinessphilly #northernliberties
If you told me back in 2016 that I’d be an established business owner by my 35th birthday I probably wouldn’t have believed you.
At the time I’d recently come back from teaching abroad and was figuring out being a high school teacher here in the states (despite having no teaching background, but that’s a story for another day).
I moved to Philly shortly thereafter and started working with people who made it easy to be myself in a new city. And when I started making upcycled denim tote bags and cutlery pouches, they were some of the people to give me the confidence to keep going because of their support. (Fun fact, my boss from this time went on to open @afourfootprune !)
That was all back in 2019. Before the refills. Before the store. Before the van even! Ray’s has come a long way since then. It’s been challenging, but with the incredible support I’ve felt in Philly it has been so rewarding.
As my little gift to you we’ll be giving away some little gifts tomorrow. Swing by and grab a RAYS sticker or a sample of our house-made soap when you shop with us on my birthday.
Thanks always for being here ❤️
#smallbusinessphilly #smallbusinessowner #northernliberties #sustainableshopping
You probably have a million mason jars that you’ve accumulated sitting in your cabinet.
Did you know that we have an assortment of attachments to make your reused jars even more functional? With our selection you can transform your mason jars into:
-stylish storage containers with a bamboo lid (regular mouth and wide mouth)
-portable drink cups with a bamboo lid with straw hole (regular mouth and wide mouth)
-food prep and storage assist with the grater lid (regular mouth only)
-easy drink dispenser with the stainless steel pour top (regular mouth and wide mouth)
-cooking assist with the self closing cruet top (regular mouth only)
-a soap dispenser!! (Regular mouth only) Fun fact: did you know that the jars we do pre-fills in have the same lid size as a mason jar?
And the most popular of all: the juicer! This one is only available for wide mouthed jars, but it has been FLYING!
These are available in-store and online. Just search “mason jar” on our website to view them all.
Now you have at least 6 excuses to keep saving those jars. You’re welcome 😜
#lowwasteliving #masonjars #reuse #smallbusinessphilly #northernliberties
I’m not being nosy, I swear!
But if you’ve ever been in the store with someone visiting from out of town, the chances that I’ve asked them where they’re from are pretty high. It’s just because I want to see if I know someone who has a shop in that area!
The camaraderie that exists between small business owners, and especially refill shop owners, is one of my favorite things about running the shop as I do. And when the makers of your products are just as community minded as you are, the support goes even deeper.
It’s been months now, but the connections made at the Hair Ties Summit back in February are still going strong. I can’t thank the leaders at Dip, HiBar, and Plaine enough for bringing the refill shop community together and have the courage to do something that many business people would say is risky (like hosting a conference with your ‘competitors’ for instance)
Whenever you support any one of these brands in this space you are really supporting a network of businesses with impact way beyond what you see in front of you! One of our success is all of our success.
So on behalf of all of us, thank you 😘
#refillshop #sustainableshop #phillysmallbusiness #northernliberties #zerowaste
Okay, you’ve got to let me know: how accurate is this for you?
Are you a jar-hoarding, composting, DIYer with a love of local goods and a recycling system that seems to expand in its number of separate bins by the day. Or is that just me?
Did I miss any categories? What would your storage report look like?
#sustainablestore #smallbusinessphilly #refillery #lowwasteliving #northernliberties
