When people think about making a more environmentally friendly choice, it's easy to assume that means buying something new.
A greener bottle. A different type of packaging. A product made from another material. Sometimes, though, the simplest answer is sitting in the cupboard already.
If you've got a perfectly good glasses cleaning spray bottle that still works, using it again may be a better option than replacing it simply because the fluid has run out.
Reuse comes before replace
Most glasses cleaning bottles are fairly simple things. There's a container, a spray head and, usually, a microfibre cloth somewhere nearby.
None of those things suddenly stops being useful when the last drop of cleaning fluid is sprayed onto your glasses. If the atomiser still works and the bottle is in good condition, it can usually carry on doing exactly the same job. The cloth can be washed and reused too. So rather than buying another complete kit, you can simply refill what you already have.
It doesn't sound particularly revolutionary, but that's rather the point. Being a little more environmentally conscious doesn't always require a complicated solution. Sometimes it simply means getting more use out of the things we've already bought.
A new "eco" bottle isn't always necessary
We quite like this idea because it avoids one of the odd contradictions that can sometimes appear around environmentally friendly products.
You can end up replacing a perfectly usable item with a new one because the new version is marketed as being greener.
But if the old bottle is already sitting on your desk and working perfectly well, there is a strong argument for continuing to use it. It's already been manufactured. It's already been packaged. It's already been transported to you.
Getting another few months, or perhaps years, of use from it means you're making the most of something that already exists rather than automatically replacing it.
You don't need an EcoPure bottle
This is an important part of the idea. You don't have to own an EcoPure cleaning kit to use an EcoPure refill. If you've already got a suitable glasses or lens cleaning spray bottle from another brand, an optician or an old cleaning kit, there's no need to throw it away and start again.
Clean it if necessary, make sure the spray mechanism is working properly, and refill it with a suitable lens cleaning fluid.From our point of view, we'd much rather you kept using a perfectly good bottle than bought another one simply because it doesn't have EcoPure written on the side.
Refilling also avoids buying things you don't need
There's another environmental benefit that goes hand in hand with reusing the bottle. When you buy another complete cleaning kit, you're not only buying more cleaning fluid. You're also buying another atomiser, another cloth and more packaging.
If those are things you genuinely need, that's fine. But if you've already got them, a refill lets you buy just the part you've actually used up. It's a small change, but repeated over time it means fewer unnecessary items coming into the house and fewer perfectly usable ones eventually being thrown away.
And, conveniently, it often saves money at the same time.
Bigger refills can mean fewer replacements
EcoPure refill fluid is available in 250ml, 2 × 250ml and 3 × 250ml options, so you can choose an amount that suits how much you use.
For someone who cleans several pairs of glasses, has a family of glasses wearers, or also uses lens cleaner for sunglasses and camera lenses, a larger refill can make particularly good sense.
Instead of repeatedly buying small complete kits, you've got a useful supply of the thing that actually runs out: the cleaning fluid. The bottle and cloth simply stay in service.
Small choices still count
We're not going to claim that refilling one glasses cleaner bottle will change the world. But environmentally friendly habits don't all have to be dramatic.
Using something for longer, replacing only what has been used up and avoiding unnecessary purchases are all fairly ordinary decisions. That's also what makes them easy to keep doing. And when millions of everyday products are involved, those small decisions can start to matter.
Before you buy another bottle, look at the one you've got
So the next time your glasses cleaner runs out, have a quick look at the bottle before putting another complete kit in your basket.
Does it still work?
Is the spray head fine?
Is your cloth still usable?
If the answer is yes, you may not need another kit at all.
Just refill it and carry on.
Because sometimes the most environmentally friendly cleaning bottle isn't the newest one, the cleverest one or even the one with the greenest label.
It's the one you already own.