From refilling products to building a local reuse system

(*Refillables Đong Đầy is an independent enterprise and a partner within the wider community-led regenerative system. Hanh Vu co-leads Refillables Đong Đầy alongside founder Alison Batchelor. It is included in this wider system because its refill model forms an integral part of Hoi An Eco Hub in Cẩm Kim.)

Refill is sometimes presented as a small consumer choice: bring a container, buy only what you need, and avoid one piece of packaging. In practice, an effective reuse system is much more ambitious. It connects product and packaging design, supply, retail, use, return, cleaning, refilling and repeated circulation. It replaces the logic of ‘make–use–discard’ with infrastructure that keeps products and containers in service.

Refillables Đong Đầy was founded by Alison Batchelor in Hội An in 2018 and is now co-led with Hanh Vu (Vũ Thị Mỹ Hạnh) and Michael Hytinen (Hanoi’s branch). Alison established the original Refillables Hoi An as a pioneering package-free store in Central Vietnam; Hanh leads its present development as of the community and policy-related parts of Refillables Đong Đầy. Their roles are documented in GAIA Asia Pacific’s profile of the founding business and CIRCO Hub Vietnam’s case story.

What began with a routine-breaking proposition—let people refill everyday products in containers they already own—has developed into a local demonstration of circular practice. The business works with customers, suppliers and peer organisations to reduce packaging before it becomes waste, while testing how refill can remain convenient, affordable and rooted in the realities of a Vietnamese city and tourism destination.

What a reuse system actually is

Reuse is the repeated use of a product or component for its original purpose. In packaging, that definition is only meaningful when the system makes repetition possible. A durable container on its own is not a reuse system; there must also be access, reverse logistics where relevant, inspection, cleaning or user care, refilling, redistribution and a credible route for repair or material recovery at end of life.

THE REUSE SYSTEM FLOW Design for repeated use  →  Fill  →  Access  →  Use  →  Return or refill  →  Inspect and clean  →  Refill  →  Repeat At end of service life: repair where possible, then recover the material through safe recycling.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation distinguishes four consumer-facing models: refill at home, refill on the go, return from home and return on the go. Refillables Đong Đầy is principally a refill-on-the-go model: customers bring and retain responsibility for their containers, fill them at a dispensing point and pay for the product rather than a new package. Return systems add a different loop: the business or system operator recovers standardised packaging, inspects and cleans it, then puts it back into circulation.

These models can coexist. A mature local system may combine customer-owned bottles for some household liquids, standard returnable containers for other products, reusable transport packaging between suppliers and shops, and shared collection or washing infrastructure. The design question is therefore not merely ‘Is this package reusable?’ but ‘Can this package be reused safely, conveniently and enough times within a functioning system?’

Why reuse belongs at the heart of a circular economy

A circular economy seeks to eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials at their highest value, and regenerate nature. Reuse directly serves the first two principles because it prevents a packaging item from being produced and discarded for every transaction. It preserves the value already embedded in manufacturing, and it can reduce demand for virgin material before waste management becomes necessary (Ellen MacArthur Foundation).

This is why reuse and recycling should not be treated as interchangeable. Recycling is essential at the end of a product’s useful life, but it begins after waste has been created and can involve material losses, contamination, energy use and downcycling. Reuse intervenes earlier. It changes the delivery model so that fewer short-lived packages enter the economy in the first place. Good circular systems use both: repeated circulation for as long as the product remains safe and functional, followed by responsible recovery of its material.

Why reuse and refill matter for global plastic pollution

Packaging is a central pressure point: about 36% of plastics produced are used in packaging, while 85% of single-use plastic food and beverage containers end up in landfill or as mismanaged waste, according to UNEP. The problem cannot be solved only by collecting more waste downstream while production of short-lived packaging continues.

UNEP’s 2023 systems-change roadmap estimates that existing solutions could cut global plastic pollution by 80% by 2040 if they are implemented together. Within that pathway, reuse options—including refillable bottles, bulk dispensers, deposit-return and packaging take-back schemes—could account for a 30% reduction (UNEP, Turning off the Tap). This makes reuse not a lifestyle niche, but one of the principal market shifts required alongside elimination, better recycling and careful material substitution.

The environmental case still has conditions. Reusable systems have an initial material footprint and may require transport, water, energy and detergents. Their performance improves as containers complete more rotations, return rates rise, breakage and loss fall, transport distances remain efficient, and washing is appropriately scaled. UNEP’s life-cycle guidance therefore recommends fit-for-purpose reusable alternatives, local sourcing, durable but not excessive design, efficient use and a context-specific assessment rather than a one-for-one switch to another disposable material.

The case for upstream action is especially relevant in Vietnam. The Viet Nam National Plastic Action Partnership reports that only around 11% of the country’s plastic waste is collected and segregated for recycling (Global Plastic Action Partnership). Refill and reuse do not remove the need to improve collection and recycling; they reduce the volume of short-lived packaging that those systems must manage.

How Refillables Đong Đầy makes reuse practical

Refillables’ core model is deliberately understandable. Customers bring their own containers, choose household and personal-care essentials, and pay by quantity or weight. The transaction removes the need to purchase a new primary package each time and can also help customers buy the amount they need. Behind the counter, however, the more consequential work is with suppliers: changing how products arrive, reducing disposable transport packaging, increasing local sourcing and showing that packaging elimination can be part of normal commercial operations.

The regional study Unpacking Reuse in Asia classifies Refillables Đong Đầy as a business-to-consumer ‘refill on the go’ model. At the time of the study, the enterprise reported more than 111,500 containers diverted, approximately 1,400 monthly users across its stores, and customer savings of 5–45% depending on the product. These figures should be read as a publication-date snapshot rather than a live impact counter.

The same case study emphasises two forms of value that are often overlooked. First, refill can improve affordability when customers avoid repeatedly paying for packaging and can choose quantities. Second, the shop creates a practical reason for suppliers to rethink delivery and packaging. Earlier research by the University of Manchester’s Sustainable Consumption Institute likewise described Refillables Hoi An as one of five Southeast Asian business models reducing single-use plastic, with supplier collaboration central to the model (Vilella, 2020).

The model is also evolving. After participating in CIRCO training in 2024, Refillables developed a concept for standardised, durable reusable containers with replaceable parts and clearer product information—an example of moving from ‘a container that can be reused’ toward design for repeated service (CIRCO Hub Vietnam case story).

From a shop to place-based infrastructure: Hoi An Eco Hub

Refillables Đong Đầy addresses plastic pollution at the point of purchasing and supply: it prevents packaging and changes how products move between suppliers, retailers and customers. Hoi An Eco Hub works at the wider place-based level. It connects practical environmental learning, source separation, resource recovery, community participation and collaboration with local businesses and institutions. Together, the initiatives show why circularity is not delivered by one storefront or one waste facility. It needs an ecosystem of prevention, repeated use, sorting, recovery, education and shared responsibility.

This local role has been recognised in regional documentation. GAIA Asia Pacific’s Plastic-Free Hoi An case study identifies Refillables Hoi An as one of Vietnam’s zero-waste stores and highlights its role in helping a tourism destination move away from plastic. The value of Hoi An Eco Hub is complementary: it makes the city itself a learning environment where residents, visitors, schools and businesses can see how prevention and recovery fit together.

Taking local practice into national circular-economy dialogue

Refillables Đong Đầy’s contribution is not limited to retail operations. Its experience has entered national conversations about the conditions needed for refill and reuse to grow in Vietnam.

This practitioner-to-policy connection was already visible in March 2023, when ISPONRE (Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural resources and Environment) convened a sequence of national consultations to inform Vietnam’s National Action Plan on Circular Economy. On 21 March, the Institute worked with Pacific Environment and USAID to hold the workshop ‘Consultation on Priority Models in the National Action Plan for Circular Economy Implementation in Vietnam’. A representative of Refillables Đong Đầy delivered a presentation at the workshop, bringing the operating experience of a local refill enterprise into a national consultation concerned with identifying priority circular-economy models.

The contribution was particularly relevant to fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG)—the sector in which Refillables is classified by Unpacking Reuse in Asia. During consultation on the draft National Action Plan, VBCSD proposed FMCG as a priority because of its short product cycles, dependence on packaging and high volumes of post-consumer waste. Refillables added a different but necessary perspective to that discussion: not only how large producers might improve materials or recycling, but how everyday products can be delivered through a business model designed to prevent single-use packaging (TheLEADER, 2023).

On 21 October 2024, the Viet Nam National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP) and the Viet Nam Circular Economy Hub convened the national Plastic Talk ‘Enabling Refill System in Viet Nam’ at the UN Building in Hanoi. The event brought together experts, organisations and businesses engaged in the refill sector to discuss lessons, barriers and strategies for scaling. Refillables’ Hanoi operation was named among the participating refill-sector actors in NPAP’s public communication. This is evidence of sector participation; it should not be overstated as a formal policy-making role.

On 4 December 2024, Refillables Đong Đầy took a stronger convening role. It was listed as a co-organiser—alongside REED Social Enterprise and Pacific Environment Vietnam—of the conference on promoting reuse practices and circular economy in Vietnam’s tourism sector. The programme included the NPAP Plastic Talk Year-end Special Edition on opportunities for startups and innovation applying circular economy and reuse. DietPlastik Indonesia and UNDP in Vietnam supported the session through NPAP. The official event page was hosted by the Viet Nam Circular Economy Hub, then operated by ISPONRE and UNDP Vietnam.

These engagements matter because scaling reuse requires more than public awareness. Practitioners can bring operational evidence into discussions about standards, hygiene and safety, producer responsibility, financing, shared infrastructure, public procurement, tourism operations and incentives. At the same time, government and industry frameworks can remove barriers that individual refill enterprises cannot solve alone.

A Vietnamese case within Asia’s reuse movement

In January 2024, Alison Batchelor and Hanh Vu represented Refillables Đong Đầy and Vietnam’s refill experience at the Jakarta Reuse Tour and Conference, convened by Dietplastik Indonesia and GAIA Asia Pacific. The regional gathering examined how global reuse systems could be built, compared established practices across Southeast Asia and small-island contexts, and connected government, civil-society and business actors. It also initiated the Asia Reuse Consortium, with founding participation from Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. For Refillables, the significance was not simply attendance: it placed a locally operated Vietnamese refill model within a regional platform for knowledge exchange, advocacy and collaboration on reuse systems.

Refillables Đong Đầy is now documented beyond Vietnam as a regional case. GAIA Asia Pacific, Break Free From Plastic and Dietplastik Indonesia selected it for Unpacking Reuse in Asia, a report released alongside global plastics-treaty negotiations. The publication stresses that successful reuse depends on infrastructure, supply-chain collaboration, policy support and solutions adapted to local context. Alison Batchelor and Hanh Vu were acknowledged as contributors and identified as co-owners of the initiative in the launch materials.

Hanh Vu also contributed regional practitioner knowledge to Perpetual’s 2026 report Reuse Realized: Unleashing Solutions in the ASEAN Region; she was credited among regional contributors in Perpetual’s launch communication. This wider recognition places lessons from Hội An—affordability, supplier engagement, tourism, local infrastructure and behaviour—inside a regional discussion about how reuse can move from pilots to durable systems.

What Refillables Đong Đầy is proving

The most important lesson is that refill is not only about persuading individuals to behave better. People participate when systems are accessible, trusted, affordable and convenient. Suppliers change when there is a viable operational pathway. Reusable packaging delivers benefits when it completes enough cycles. Local governments and destination actors can help when they treat reuse as infrastructure and economic development, not merely as an awareness campaign.

Refillables Đong Đầy is therefore best understood as a local systems demonstrator, linking everyday purchasing to supply-chain redesign; it connects with Hoi An Eco Hub’s place-based learning and resource-recovery work; and it carries practical experience into national and regional conversations. Its scale is not only measured by the number of refills. It is also measured by the relationships, standards, habits and shared infrastructure that make repeated use normal.

Work with us

Green Youth Collective, REED, Refillables Đong Đầy and Hoi An Eco Hub welcome collaboration with tourism businesses, schools, communities, researchers and public agencies. Opportunities include reuse pilots, supplier engagement, destination programmes, training, study visits and applied research.