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Everyday swaps

Buy dry goods from bulk or refill stores

Rice, pasta, nuts, cereal and cleaning products from refill stores go into jars you already own and cut hundreds of packets a year.

Swap out
Plastic-packaged pantry staples
Swap in
Bulk or refill store into your own jars
Impact
4 / 5
Cost
2 / 3
Effort
2 / 3
Grams of plastic avoided per person per year
1000
Watch out for
Availability and price vary; extra car trips to a refill store can outweigh the packaging saved.

Take jars or cloth bags to a bulk or refill store for pantry staples. Weigh containers first (most stores have a tare scale), fill, and decant at home.

A typical pantry packet is 5 to 10 g of plastic film; a household replacing 150 packets a year avoids around 1 kg. Loop now operates refill in over 250 Carrefour, Monoprix and Systeme U stores in France, and the global refill market is growing.

The catch: refill stores are not everywhere and can be pricier for some items; Loop's home-delivery model failed, so the win depends on a store you can reach on foot or as part of a trip you already make.

Page updated 22 September 2026. How we check sources