Three years ago, a trip to Iowa introduced Central Coast Refillery’s owner, Tracy Anders Young, to a business concept she didn’t know existed.
She was visiting her husband’s family when ads for a nearby “refillery” started popping up on her social media.
“I thought, ‘What the heck is a refillery?’” she said. “So the more I dove into it, my next question was, ‘Why doesn’t every town have a refillery?’”
That question followed her home and became Central Coast Refillery, an Atascadero shop that gives people an alternative to tossing out bottles that hold everything from laundry detergent to shampoo.
Now, the business is celebrating one year of refilling those containers.
Since opening in August 2025, customers have refilled 69,012 ounces of household and personal care products, which Young estimates has kept 5,751 containers out of the landfill.
“That’s a lot for a year,” she said. “That’s absolutely awesome.”
The concept is straightforward: Customers bring containers from home and refill them with however much product they need. The store carries laundry detergent, hand soap, shampoo, castile soap, pet shampoo, and even liquid toothpaste.
“Coming into this, I had no idea all of the things you could actually refill,” she said. “Once you start diving in, … there really is a lot of opportunities to create less waste.”
Customers don’t even need to bring a container. A community bin near the front door holds donated jars and bottles that anyone can grab for free.
“I will honestly do anything to keep a container out of the landfill,” Young said. “I have a lot of community members that will bring in used jars, containers, all those Mason jars we have hanging out in the top of our pantry that we don’t know what to do with.”
Most of her products come from Rustic Strength, a small family-owned company in the Ozarks. Its products are graywater safe, and the company participates in a closed-loop program for its bulk containers.
“When these containers are empty, I compile them all on a pallet, send them back, and then they sanitize, clean, and refill,” she said.
But owning a refillery hasn’t made her household perfectly waste-free, and she doesn’t expect that of customers either.
“By no means is my house perfect right now,” she said. “But it’s a journey. I think it’s a journey for anyone, and it’s small changes.”
She encourages customers to finish what they already own rather than throw something away to switch to refillable products.
“I would always prefer that someone finished what they currently have instead of just throw everything out and start over,” she said. “I want them to make those conscious mind shifts to, ‘OK, this one’s empty. I can actually bring this in and refill it.’”
She also wants to challenge the idea that those changes automatically cost more, pointing to the shop’s concentrated castile soap, which she said costs 3 cents less per ounce than Dr. Bronner’s.
“I think the big brands have done a good job with their marketing of making us think that it has to cost an exorbitant amount to bring a beautiful product in your home, which is simply not the case,” she said.
One year in, she credits Atascadero and the surrounding community with helping the idea catch on.
One customer told her she had been out to lunch with friends when the shop came up in conversation.
“She said, ‘You’re that store that everybody’s talking about,’” she recalled.
“That was pretty special and powerful as a reminder of how incredibly strong small communities are and how supportive they are,” she said. “This area is shifting into a thought of being more conscious of what we’re putting on our bodies, in our bodies, and what’s going into our homes.”
The store also carries also goods from local artists and small businesses that may not have brick-and-mortar shops, including handmade clay soap dishes, jewelry, and a soap bar made with cacao beans from Templeton Chocolate.
For the anniversary, customers can also purchase special gallon-size containers or 64-ounce growlers. Products refilled in those containers will receive a 10 percent discount going forward. And for every purchase of refillable pet shampoo during the celebration, the shop will donate 10 ounces to Woods Humane Society, with a goal of donating 5 gallons.
Fast fact
• Mujeres de Acción is celebrating the leadership, creativity, and contributions of local Latinas with SLO County’s first National Latina Day Mixer on Aug. 20 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Hola SLO in downtown San Luis Obispo. Hosted in partnership with Hola SLO and Ulloa Cellars, the event will honor four local women whose work spans business, wine, advocacy, and art: Hola SLO founder Sandra Olea-Courter, winemaker Sam Mogull, community advocate and cultural ambassador Claudia Olsen, and Santa Maria-based artist Helen Yanez. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com. ∆
Staff Writer Chloë Hodge wrote this week’s Strokes. Contact her at chodge@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Aug 20-27, 2026.
