You’ve heard the story before - humans are consuming resources faster than the Earth can handle, changing global climate patterns and creating a whole lot of trash in the meantime. We’ve been trained not to see the excessive plastics, cardboard, and other forms of single-use boxes and containers that surround the products we use and food we eat. We’re so excited to get to the goodies inside, we tear off the packaging and throw it into the garbage can with hardly another thought towards the wrapper’s fate.

We can’t afford to be blissfully ignorant anymore. Trash is piling up all around us, in our oceans, lakes, and natural environments. There are small steps you can take to reduce your impact, but bureaucratic systems and overly-cautious laws are getting in the way.

The Realm Refillery, Oregon’s first package-free grocery store, was started with the goal of reducing consumer waste through providing bulk food and home goods to the public in an affordable and accessible storefront. Unfortunately, in 2012, the Oregon Department of Agriculture adopted the USDA’s law preventing customers from bringing in their own reusable containers to restaurants and grocery stores.

We’ve worked with the ODA to come up with a variance to the law, utilizing a deposit system on jars that provides the customer with a more-sustainable option, but it is not what we envisioned when we started this business. We want customers to be able to use what they already have, rather than introduce more into an already-saturated consumer system.

Bulk shoppers have been filling and reusing their own containers for years without incident (both legally and otherwise). This law is unnecessarily cautious and creates undue burden on both the customer and the establishment.

We propose a long-overdue change to the law: Allow customers to bring in their own clean containers to fill as they may. Provide stations for customers to sanitize containers and record tare weights as needed. 

We want to empower you to shop in a way that is much more sustainable, and, frankly, more neighborly! We want to show the State of Oregon that its residents care about the future of the planet and its people. When we reach our signature goal, we will meet with our state representatives and bring this petition along. We need your voice alongside ours in order to rewrite this law!