Using refillable hand wash bottles and where to source refills

jennifernil

I am the treasurer for our local guide hall, and until a couple of years back also was responsible for the running of the building, buying supplies etc.

Recently, the person who now does this suggested that we should switch to using refillable pump bottles for the hand wash, on the basis that it would be more eco friendly and save money in the long run.

I can agree on the eco friendly part, and at home we have used refill pouches of hand wash which we spotted in Lidl while on holiday in Germany. However I have not seen them for sale in a Lidl store in UK.

Having looked around on the internet, I cannot see that this idea will save us any money as the proposal is to purchase 5 refillable pump bottles at a cost of £7.50, and 1 litre refill pouches of Carex at £2.50 each.

I pointed out that the bottles we currently buy could be refilled initially, and this has been agreed.

However, Carex is an expensive product, but very few other brands seem to do refills. At present we can buy 500ml bottles of anti-bacterial hand wash at Lidl for 59p each, while 500ml of Carex will cost £1.25 if we use it to refill existing bottles.

This change is therefor never going to save us money as far as I can see.

As treasurer, I cannot justify agreeing to this proposal unless we can find a source of refills at a much lower price.

I would welcome any suggestions on where we could do that.

Solarchaser

Costco do the 5l bottles of carex for I think around £5.

The pumps do wear out on the bottles eventually, but I buy maybe 7 of the 5l bottles before buying a pack of the pump bottles to replace the worn out ones.

jennifernil

Can you expand on that a little?

Do the 5 litre bottles come with a pump and you then pump the liquid into smaller bottles? Or are you using direct from the large containers?

I would start saving my empty smaller bottles, as could other parents, so we could have plenty of replacements. You are right that the pumps do wear out, and the children can be a bit heavy handed at times and break them

Unfortunately we do not have a Costco reasonably near.

Solarchaser

The bottles are just 5l bottles, no pumps on them I'm afraid, I use the pump bottles till they are empty, then use a small funnel in the pump bottle with the pump removed to pour the contents in from the larger bottle

Sea_Shell

Aren't these "personal washing" products all the same stuff really. Can't you just refill them with cheap shower gel.

It doesn't need to be antibacterial, just the act of washing PROPERLY does the trick.

jennifernil

I would agree, but the adult end users seem to think we need anti-bacterial, plus we have some medical people on the committee who have similar views!


They now expect us to provide anti-bacterial everything...hand wash....worktop cleaner......washing up liquid......floor cleaner......
even the stuff to clean the glue and paint mess off the tables!

I don't mind this as Lidl and Aldi, or other supermarkets' basic product are well priced.

We are catering mainly for children age 5 and up, so good handwashing may be a bit too much to expect.

However this expensive stuff seems a step too far to me.

jennifernil

Solarchaser wrote: »

The bottles are just 5l bottles, no pumps on them I'm afraid, I use the pump bottles till they are empty, then use a small funnel in the pump bottle with the pump removed to pour the contents in from the larger bottle

Thanks, that was what I thought.

The person who would be doing the refilling seems to think that this would be too difficult, no idea why, and that the saving over buying the pouches would be minimal, which I do not think is right.

Yellow_mango

Why not use bar soap? Cheaper and more eco friendly.

Owain_Moneysaver

One thing you can do is change the pumps to ones with lower dose. A quick look on ebay shows pumps with anything from 4ml to 30ml dose.

If you can get pumps to fit on the Lidl bottles you might be on to a winner. I think as MSErs we can assume that the pumps on retail products dispense more than needed so more product is sold. (And children's hands are smaller anyway ...)

This one is £7.99+VAT if you buy 4 or more. Typically 3 – 4ml per dose – Up to 1666 uses per 5 Litre. Less than 0.5p per dose.

Still more expensive than £5.90 per litre equivalent from Lidl though.

I think this one at £3.88+VAT is about the cheapest (46p inc VAT per 500ml). It's £4.78 at Nisbets if you think it would be inapproriate for the Guide Hall to have an account with Pubshop :-)