What Happens to my Donated Jars?

We thought we’d give you a little behind-the-scenes look into what happens to your jars after they’re donated. We hope this will give you some insight into the process and why we have such strict rules around labels & cleanliness. These jars are offered for FREE in-store for customers to fill up, or if we're at capacity they go into our Jar Exchange for folks to take home - perfect for preserving, crafts, storage and more!

When you donate jars, the first thing we need to do is store them! We only process 1-2 batches of jars per day so chances are we’ll need to find a spot for your jars until we next run a load. This is why we ask for you to bring them in a box or bag you can leave behind as it can be a little overwhelming to have to unpack 30+ jars and find a spot for them in our wee little store.

When we come to run a load of jars, we firstly inspect each jar for any labels or sticky stuff, debris, dirt and even a bit of rust on the lids. Any issues that cannot quickly be remedied means that jar will be sent to our recycler. Remember! This is a free service we offer our community, and it takes about an hour per day to maintain… that’s about $250 per week spent on wages each and every week to keep this program running. This is why we request labels be removed - we simply cannot afford to pay someone to do it for you!

Also, these labels and sticky glues can dislodge in our dishwasher, which can cause it to block up which leads to a costly repair bill… which happened about 6 months after we bought it back in 2020. We won’t make that mistake again!

Next up we place all jars upside down onto our dishwasher tray, and run them through for 1-2 cycles. The rinse cycle on our machine hits about 90c, which is sufficient to kill most bacteria, viruses and fungi. 

Meanwhile, the lids are placed into a bucket of HOT water, with some of our Vigor All Purpose Cleaner & Disinfectant added in. These soak for ~15 mins to dislodge any dirt/debris and ensure the lids are properly cleaned and disinfected.

HOT clean jars & soaking lids.

Instead of hand drying everything, we quickly give the jars a loud tap against the tray before turning them back the right side up. This quick action removes most of the water, and leaving them upright when they’re still piping hot means the moisture inside mostly evaporates. We pour the lids through a sieve and then place them onto another tray so they drip dry.

Drying jars & lids

We give them some time to dry, and then come along and quickly dry them with a fresh towel. We then match all the lids up, weigh each jar and record the tare weight, before placing them out on our Refill Station for you to use in-store.

That’s pretty labour intensive, right?! That’s why we ask you to only use these cleaned jars in-store… it’s not fair for us to do all that work for folks to just walk off with them. Of course, if you want jars to take home you are welcome to help yourself from our Jar Exchange - just remember that these jars have not been checked or cleaned by us so you’ll need to do so when you get home!

Clean pre-weighed jars ready for you to fill up in-store!