How Sydney startup Refilled plans to eliminate 100 million single-use plastic bottles

An exciting Sydney-based climate/sustainability startup launched last week with two local Australian customers – UTS Sydney and Sydney University’s Union (USU) – and one rather special global one: Google, which has installed a prototype in its Pyrmont campus.

Refilled has a very big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) of eliminating 100 million plastic bottles by 2030 as part of its mission to reduce single-use plastic bottle waste caused by the $44 billion global vending industry: Refilled plans to replace wasteful machines with its new swanky BYO-Bottle system.

The company hopes to disrupt and ultimately crush the reusable bottle market, leaning into the increasing popularity of reusable bottles – proud Yeti fan-boy here – to give those filling up more variety and choice than just plain water on tap.

Full disclosure: I first discovered Refilled because my employer Private Media shares a co-working space with the business in Sydney. Getting hands on with its beautifully designed machine is certainly much more exciting than my usual fill at the tap at home or Hobart Airport.

Not only can users choose still or sparkling, but Refilled offers a customisable variety of flavours and nutritional options, depending on your taste and daily needs.

These “Refillers” are vending machines designed to tackle the plastic and climate crisis. A cross between a stylish fridge and a giant Soda Stream machine, it fills your reusable bottle with the drink of your choice (I particularly love the mango, but you do you).

And that’s not all, you can also add optional boosters such as caffeine, vitamins, or workout-focused nootropics. Plus, you can sign up to track your fills via a QR code, tracking how you are addressing the climate/waste crisis each time you refill.

To be clear, I am not an investor in Refilled, I’ve just drunk the Kool-Aid! Refilled is a damn cool product, with a slick bit of hardware, and a potentially world-changing mission, powered by the energy and smarts of founder Ryan Nelson.

“I’m a Blue Mountains boy,” Nelson told SmartCompany in a recent interview.

“I have always been a little bit entrepreneurial, running lemonade stands, mowing neighbours lawns and washing cars. All the cliches”

“After university at UTS, I had a small e-commerce business with a mate. We made a little bit of money. 25 years old, made $100,000. We were stoked.”

But then came the first global pandemic in a century: “I knew I wanted to start something myself. But the landscape was terrible. The world was ending and people thought the economy was going to crash. No one knew what was going to happen”.

Like many people stuck at home for ten weeks, Ryan started dreaming up business ideas. Eventually, a trip to the gym led to the key insight that encouraged him to start Refilled.

“After the first lockdown gyms eventually reopened. I went to the gym and I finished a workout and I went to get a drink and the little stainless steel bubbler was out of order. I’m like, ‘I’m dying here. I just did a big workout!’ I needed something to drink but the only option was to go use the vending machines or choose something from this huge illuminated wall of double-door fridges. There were literally thousands of drinks just sitting there: energy drinks, vitamin waters, protein shakes, bottled water. I could have had whatever I wanted.”

“But they’re all in plastic bottles. And I’ve got a bottle right here! So I bought a Powerade and left the gym. I’m walking home with two bottles. Five minutes later they’re both empty. And I was like, ‘why do I have this plastic bottle?’ I only needed it for two minutes! I looked for a recycling bin and I couldn’t find one so eventually I threw it out. I felt terrible. And I just thought to myself: why can’t I refill these drinks instead?”

And so, Refilled was born.

Today, Refilled tracks the number of bottles it saves in real-time – when you’re signed up you get to see how many you save from landfills too, addictive!

It has also created reusable bottles with QR codes that can be scanned at the Refiller and used to pay for drinks – no card, phone, or cash required.

And this is an accessible way for everyone to do something for the planet.

“Refilled is transforming the ordinary, everyday act of drinking water into climate action,” said Ryan. “Most people have good intentions and want to do good for the planet, but not everyone can afford to buy an electric vehicle or install solar panels.”

More than 891 billion single-use plastic bottles are produced worldwide every year and less than 20% are ever recycled, which makes vending machines a major source of plastic pollution. Refilled says it is on track to build and install 100 Refillers by 2024, stopping more than one million single-use plastic bottles ending up in the ocean or landfills every year.

Cleverly, a Refiller can stock six times more beverages than a typical vending machine because its concentrate is six times more concentrated: so it also dramatically reduces waste and delivery emissions caused by frequent deliveries and restocking of traditional beverages.

“So now instead of sending a pallet of soft drinks in bottles or cans, we only need to transport a shoebox. And we’re visiting the machine six times less often. So when it runs out of syrup, with a traditional soft drinks vending machine, you’re there once every three, four days, at best once a week. With ours, you’re there once a month. So there’s a big environmental impact. We’re reducing fossil fuels, and labor and supply chain waste.”

All this tech is being designed in-house, with outside agencies and experts assisting with design and production: “A contract manufacturer in Melbourne has been helping us blend our syrups and put them in our own proprietary packaging,” said Ryan.

“We wanted to make them like a printer cartridge that only fits in our machine, to protect us from someone ripping us off.”

To date, Refilled has raised $600,000 through angel investors and Newcastle-based Melt Ventures, an impact VC Fund. Refilled is seeking an additional $3 million in its next funding round.

And the startup is at an inflection point.

“We installed two at Google last week”, said Ryan. “And so in the last six weeks, we’ve saved more bottles than we did in the previous 12 months.”

And that Big Hairy Audacious Goal?

“Worldwide we’re producing 891 billion bottles a year,” said Ryan. “Here in Australia, I would like Refilled to eliminate 100 million plastic bottles by 2030. We’re just about to hit 10,000. So we’ve got 99,990,000 to go. But I like a challenge!”