Nicole Meckley would like to see the world reduce and reuse instead of having to recycle. She plans to lead by example when her new store, Kemerton Refill & Refresh, opens later this month in the Village Square Shopping Center at 82 Commerce Drive in Wyomissing.
This vision for the world will become a reality when her doors open, and shoppers can use refillable containers to stock up on household items like shampoo, conditioner, body wash, laundry detergent, and all-purpose cleaners instead of buying these staples in single-use plastic containers.
You can bring your empty single-use plastic or other containers in to refill them or buy a glass or aluminum refillable container sold by the zero-waste refill shop. Kemerton Refill & Refresh will also sell reusable items like cloth paper towels, cloth napkins, bamboo cleaning brushes, dental care items, as well as “a whole host of everyday products you don’t think about where they end up after using them,” as Meckley explains.
All products sold at the zero-waste refill shop are organic and cruelty-free.
The whole goal of Kemerton Refill & Refresh is to cut down the 79 percent of all plastic that isn’t recycled and ends up in landfills, our oceans, or other natural environments.
Meckley, who also runs Kemerton Holistic Healing, came up with the idea for her store after wanting to set a positive example for her children on how we should be treating Mother Earth.
“I’m a mom of three young kids and was looking for a way to better our waste within our family and approach environmental aspects of things with my children to teach them how we can help to eliminate our waste,” Meckley told What Now Philadelphia. “We do a lot of composting. We have some small farm animals and are trying to teach them ways of sustaining. It kind of just grew from there that if I can do this, as a busy working mother of three, then I could hopefully teach others. If I can do it and make small changes, anyone else can.”
From there, Meckley tracked down a retail space and modeled her store after similar ones in New Jersey. The 1,170 sq. ft. space will be outfitted with displays made from upcycled furniture from local vendors like Endeavor’s Our Gather Home in Reading.
Kemerton Refill & Refresh is slated for a mid-October opening with the grand opening in mid to late November. Check out their website for updates at kemertonrefillandrefresh.com.
