New York City is the city that famously never sleeps. That’s actually true. People coming and going and their consumption are constant. That brings huge levels of every type of pollution: air pollution, light pollution, noise pollution, and a massive daily production of trash.

Thankfully, enough New Yorkers are not insensitive to this man-made disaster. The 4-Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle and most recently refill) are becoming more and more popular on commercials, subway adverts and t-shirt slogans.

Refilling, for example, has now entered the shopping experience in few trendy shops of New York City. You go into one of these shops that sell anything from milk, wine, sugar, flour to spices, salts and cookies with your own bottle or jar. You fill it, pay for the content and put it in your recycled shopping bag.

This simple activity achieves a lot and is very fulfilling:
-it makes you part of the physical experience of packaging
-it allows you to decide precisely how much you want to buy
-and you will not be overwhelmed by multiple brands staring at you from the shelf
-...but, more importantly, you will have done your part in reducing waste.

So, next time you cannot sleep in the Big Apple, look for these shops and be part of the refilling revolution.

Stay tuned for new trends from New York City and until next time, go out there and see the world.