Spring arrives in Philadelphia and suddenly everything feels possible: The windows go up, the closets get confronted, and the urge to start fresh takes hold. But if your annual ritual involves a cart full of brightly labeled plastic bottles from a big-box store, this is the year to reconsider.
Good Buy Supply. Photo by Jason Rusnock.
The Philadelphia region has quietly developed a genuinely impressive sustainable retail scene—shops where refilling your own container is the whole point, where the owners have done the ingredient research so you don’t have to, and where shopping locally actually means something. These three stores—Good Buy Supply on East Passyunk, Ray’s Reusables in Northern Liberties, and SHIFT out in Narberth—are worth knowing about year-round, but spring cleaning season is as good an occasion as any to pay them a first visit. Small shifts, as one of them likes to say, really do add up.
SHIFT Sustainable Goods + Services
Narberth
mainlineshift.com
250 Haverford Ave.
Women-owned and -operated by co-founders Kimberley Bezak and Eleisha Eagle, SHIFT is a refillery and sustainable living shop that helps families reduce waste without sacrificing quality or style. The shop stocks more than 50 bulk personal care and household cleaning products, with liquids and powders priced by the ounce and concentrated tablets and bars by the piece. Since opening, the duo has diverted more than 75,000 single-use containers from landfills.
Beyond the refillery, SHIFT hosts workshops, clothing swaps, and recycling drives, functioning as much as a community hub as a retail shop. For spring cleaning, it’s an excellent source for refillable laundry detergent, dish soap, and surface cleaners. SHIFT offers limited-time drop-offs of hard-to-recycle items including certain glass jars and pill bottles, which can be found on their event page. Eagle was recently named a 2025 Tory Burch Foundation Fellow, joining a select group of 50 female entrepreneurs recognized for their innovation, leadership, and impact.
Good Buy Supply
East Passyunk
goodbuysupply.co
1737 E. Passyunk Ave.
Established in 2020, Good Buy Supply is Philadelphia’s first and largest sustainable general store, with over 500 products and 40-plus bulk items for bring-your-own-container refills. Founders Emily Rodia and Jason Rusnock built the shop around a simple motto: If you don’t need it, don’t buy it. Bulk products run $0.30 to $1.20 per ounce, and the Refill Rewards program earns you 20 percent off a future refill. Beyond the refill bar, the shelves are stocked with plastic-free swaps—bamboo toothbrushes, wool dryer balls, muslin produce bags—everything you need to restock your cleaning kit minus the plastic.
Ray’s Reusables
Northern Liberties
raysreusables.com
935 N. 2nd St.
Ray Daly launched Ray’s Reusables with a van that travels around the city, offering people the opportunity to purchase common household items like hygiene and cleaning supplies out of refillable containers. After building a following on the road, she opened a brick-and-mortar storefront in Northern Liberties carrying 40-plus bulk refills alongside delightful finds: plantable seed cards, paperless towels, and cloth facial rounds—many handmade by Daly herself.
The low-waste movement can feel overwhelming when you encounter it all at once—a checklist of habits to overhaul, products to source, and plastics to eliminate. What these three shops share, beyond their commitment to the planet, is a genuine warmth toward customers who are figuring it out as they go. None of them are asking for perfection. They’re asking you to bring a jar, try a shampoo bar, swap your dryer sheets for wool balls. Spring is the perfect moment to start—and with shops this good in your backyard, there’s no reason not to.
