Modesto’s only refill bar sells eco-friendly products in a bring-your-own container style

Reduce, reuse, recycle is a phrase ingrained in our heads, but one Modesto shop truly embodies the movement.

Ecosource Refillery, in the Frontier West shopping center on Standiford Avenue, is the city’s only refill bar and zero-waste shop.

The shop sells sustainable, nontoxic and eco-friendly products including personal care, home care and accessories.

What does it mean to be sustainable?

“Being in tune with the environment, not harming the environment, trying to use nontoxic products, trying to reuse things as much as you can,” said Ecosource Refillery owner and Modesto native Erin Sperry.

Sperry sources the products she sells from small businesses — some of them local — that use ethical business practices.

She works with closed-loop companies, meaning when a product jug is empty, she rinses it and sends it back to the company, which sanitizes, refills and redistributes it.

How to use the Modesto refill bar

Customers can purchase a container from the store (between $2 and $10) or bring their own.

“Anything works,” Sperry said. “You can bring in your shampoo bottle, you can bring in an empty, clean but used spaghetti sauce jar.”

There’s even a basket with free, used containers that customers have donated. During a Thursday morning visit, the basket contained a handful of free containers — including a plastic hummus tub.

Sperry weighs the container then tares the scale. Then, customers fill the container with whatever product they like and Sperry weighs it again. Products are priced by the ounce.

Ecosource sells products like shampoo and conditioner, body lotion, sunblock, bug spray, laundry detergent, cleaning products, toothpaste tablets and much more. Accessories include reusable straws, linen coffee filters, bags and “un-paper” towels.

What else does Ecosource offer?

Ecosource Refillery is a TerraCycle drop-off point. TerraCycle is a company that takes hard-to-recycle items and recycles them, Sperry said.

Recyclable items through this program include razors and their plastic packaging, plastic snack pouches and caps, Bimbo Bakeries bread and bakery bags, condiment packets and all brands of performance nutrition packaging.

“I collect it and then TerraCycle sends me a shipping label and I send it off to them and they will intentionally recycle,” Sperry said. “Easy peasy.”

Ecosource does not make a profit through the recycling program.

Another perk of the store: it has a corner where children can draw and play while you shop.

Sperry is also available at the shop or over the phone to answer questions about living sustainably, eco-friendly products and anything else she may be able to help with.

Customers don’t have to go all in at once to living sustainably, she said. Her advice is to use up what you have at home and start replacing products with nontoxic options as you see fit (hand soap is the easiest to start with because people tend to have less of an attachment to it, Sperry said).

“Even if you only change one thing in your house, that’s fantastic,” she said. “Let’s just do the best we can to be good citizens of this planet.”

For more information, call the refillery at 209-767-0514, visit its website www.ecosourcerefillery.com or visit the store at 1367 Standiford Ave., Suite D.