How Sydney startup Refilled plans to eliminate 100 million single-use plastic bottles

An exciting Sydney-based climate/sustainability startup launched last week with two local Australian customers – UTS Sydney and Sydney University’s Union (USU) – and one rather special global one: Google, who have installed a prototype in their Pyrmont campus.

Refilled has a very big hairy audacious goal (BHAG), eliminating 100m plastic bottles by 2030 as part of its mission to reduce single-use plastic bottle waste caused by the $44 billion global vending industry: Refilled plans to replace wasteful machines with its new swanky BYO-Bottle system.

The company hopes to disrupt and ultimately crush the reusable bottle market, leaning into the increasing popularity of reusable bottles – proud Yeti fan-boy here – to give those filling up more variety and choice than just plain water on tap.

Full disclosure: I first discovered Refilled because my employer Private Media shares a co-working space with them in Sydney.