Hepi Circle is Indonesia’s first refill delivery network that offers everyday cleaning products in reusable bottles. Customers buy for example a bottle of detergent at their local store (warung), pay a deposit and with their next purchase, customers return their empty bottles. The reuse habit is rewarded with a ‘hepi point’, that can go towards food or reusable products. The refill and distribution to local stores is powered by women on bikes. The pilot project has demonstrated financial feasibility and long-term potential impact – and with your support we could enable to develop Hepi Circle into a scalable social business.
(based on our sales data from the first test until now, July 2018)
Adapting to evolving lifestyles, plastic packaging is mostly designed for a single-use and immediate disposal. In Indonesia, the small-size individual packaging, known as 'sachets' is a particular phenomena. For example, about 70% of all detergent is sold in sachets. Sachets are unfeasible for recycling and are thus bound to leak into the environment.
(1) Sachets are made from multilayers that are unfeasible to recycle and economically unprofitable.
(2) Their small format has no value to be collected and is easily missed from the collection process.
(3) We found many sachets leaking to local drainage in many places in Indonesia.
Indonesia treasures some of the richest and most unique terrestrial and marine biodiversity areas, which are increasingly, threatened by future urbanization, low policy quality and in particular, increasing plastic pollution and marine littler. Estimated to be the second greatest leakage point of plastics into the ocean, plastic escaping the system also becomes a truly global challenge from here. Moreover, Brantas River in East Java is the most plastic polluted in Indonesia and #6 in the world.
Selling products in refillable containers (bottles or boxes) in 1,000 local kiosks at 4 districts in Surabaya or Gresik area (currently we're working at Surabaya border area, near Gresik).
Reducing 300 kgs of plastic packaging waste every year.
Making a plastic-free lifestlye a habit again.
Hepi Circle comprises a team of fifteen salaried and local employees.
Hepi Customers in warung
As an incentive for our customers, they receive 'hepi points' for every refill. The Hepi Points can be collected and exchanged for food or reusable products. We already have some subscribers that will collect hepi points to redeem a blender and a set of pan.
after the first week of the pilot project in January 2018
Such an exciting moment for us to write our first impact report and bring it to the warungs. Each warung receives a monthly update on the impact that all its customers are creating together by switching to the detergent in refill bottles.
support our validation phase and upscaling plan.