Meet the owners

When my kids were in elementary school in Delaware, I volunteered in the cafeteria, mostly helping kindergarteners stick straws into drink pouches and open snack bags. I quickly became astounded with the waste! The custodians emptied the numerous garbage cans between every single lunch period! The Styrofoam trays for hot lunches were the worst of all. The dumpsters were emptied daily during the week. I could see the trash and $$$ literally being tossed without a care in the world for our earth and knew there must be a better way!

I was lucky enough that the powers-that-be caught on to the money-saving aspect of the waste-saving ideas I had proposed: comprehensive district-wide composting and recycling in all 24 buildings! In order to make this enormous undertaking a success, I knew I needed to teach the students and staff WHY we were going to all this trouble to sort out our waste, in addition to HOW to do it! In addition to my hands-on managing in the cafeterias, the district agreed to hire me to teach in classrooms K-12, as long as I was able to integrate my lesson into the curriculum. No easy task to adjust my lesson for every grade from K-12, but I accepted the challenge and never turned back!

After a whirlwind period of less than a year getting 10 schools up and running with the new waste-reduction programs, and winning a national award for being the first public school district to implement post-consumer composting, Dave was offered a job in New Paltz, NY. I had to leave the most fulfilling job I had ever had, in addition to the students I formed a close bond with in my ecokids after school club!

Once in NY, I jumped into local volunteerism by starting a composting/recycling program at the popular Taste of New Paltz event, before becoming the full-time recycling coordinator at the Gardiner transfer station. While in that position, I initiated many programs to further sort and redistribute unwanted items to reduce the negative landfill impact. Some of these initiatives included a composting program, bike swap, paint swap, book swap, holiday “shop,” electronics recycling, textiles donation, baby/kids gear donation, a vegetable garden, and general rescuing and selling of usable construction and household goods – in addition to disassembling and sorting metals to improve return on scrap metal profits. During my tenure, I also volunteered to start up the Gardiner Repair Café to help educate people on the benefits and joy of repairing rather than tossing beloved but broken treasures.

After two years, town officials decided that all that reuse could be a potential liability for the town, so it was time for me to move on. The constant witnessing of dumpsters filling up day after day had an enormous impact on me; it led me down the road to starting up an estate sales / clean-out business to give people a way to re-home belongings when relocating, as an alternative to landfilling perfectly good household items out of sheer desperation. In conjunction with this new career path, I opened an antiques/odds-n-ends retail shop to further the mission of re-homing items leftover from the estate sales.

During the 6-year period of clearing out peoples’ homes, I saw more plastic bottles filled with scary chemicals under sinks and on garage shelves than I care to recall (and paint can after paint can after paint can! That’s why I started the New Paltz Paint Swap!). So my path shifted from recycling and composting … to repurposing and re-homing … to finally the most difficult arm of the three R’s: REDUCING. I struggled personally to eliminate my own home of plastics, especially in the kitchen and bathroom. Making my own household cleaners and trying to find new uses for yogurt containers and bread bags was not enough. I realized that most people don’t have the time to find alternatives to excessive packaging, and I knew I needed to do something to make it EASY for ordinary folks to become conscious consumers.

With zero retail experience in the food / personal care / refillable goods realm, I took a huge leap of faith that my passion for trying to change the world within my reach to protect our natural world as much as humanly possible would pull me through, and become the foundation of a successful business model. Luckily, I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel; refilleries were popping up all over the world! I had plenty of role models, even right here in the Hudson Valley. When I saw the ZeroPlace building being erected during the pandemic – a net-zero-energy multi-use structure with a solar rooftop, geothermal heating/cooling and EV charging stations – I knew that would be the perfect home for Second Nature Refillery!

Finally, in June 2022, a few months after ZeroPlace opened its doors to its 75 residents, I signed my lease for a 775 SF retail space on the first floor. After an intensive five-month build-out process – during which reuse and repurposing was a constant underlying driving force in keeping with our mission – I opened the doors to the New Paltz community on November 19, 2022! The store will constantly be evolving, but it is off to an exciting start!

We offer plastic-free goods in bulk, encouraging consumers to bring their own empty, clean containers over and over again to refill with fresh local produce, pantry items, personal care, and cleaners like laundry and dish soaps. Tooth brushing tablets, deodorant in paper tubes, refillable shampoos, plastic-free make-up, shaving bars, bamboo dental floss and toothbrushes, and handcrafted “naked” soaps that we will cut-to-order are just a few of the personal care products we offer.

We are partnering with local artisans, bakers and makers of earth-friendly consumer products such as package-free breads, coffee beans in recycled/refillable tins (roasted around the corner at retail neighbor, Dry Fly Coffee Co.!), perfume-free candles in repurposed vessels, handcrafted soaps and sanitizers, and eventually upcycled gifts like jewelry and textiles. We are getting great feedback so far, and taking requests for items that are difficult to find plastic-free, such as tofu, yogurt, cheese, salad greens, kids’ crafts and toys, pet supplies, and so much more!

Future plans that have the common theme of reducing waste of all shapes and sizes include … a community compost drop-off, a bread share, eco-friendly craft workshops, tea and story time, educational movie nights, a picnic / party supplies share, and so much more!

We hope you will join us on this journey to lower our collective footprint on this earth that gives us everything, gives us life itself. Come, be inspired, share, learn, invite friends, and give us feedback … we are all in this together!