West Knoxville Lifestyle invites readers to welcome in the New Year with a refreshed commitment to healthier homes and a healthier planet. Learn more from the founder of KnoxFill, Michaela Barnett, PhD.
Why do you say KnoxFill is “more than a refillery”?
A refillery is a place where you can refill products. Think of it as a bulk store. However, people assume we have five or ten products, but we really have hundreds of refillable products. Anything you can get that is single-use, disposable, most often plastic, KnoxFill typically has a refillable version–everything from kitchen items and cleaning products to personal care for face and body; from spices, seasonings and grains to oils, vinegars, syrups, coffee and teas.
At our new, larger location on Chapman Highway, we’ve become more than a refillery with a community spirit around sustainability. Now that we have the space and capacity to offer more services, KnoxFill is a hub for actionable sustainability and resiliency. Folks are eager for change, to participate and minimize their own impact. KnoxFill is a place where people can come together to act out of a shared love and concern for our natural environment and our community.
The 3 Rs we all learned–reduce, reuse, recycle–are in order of environmental preference. Recycle should be the last option if we can’t do the first two. Recycling doesn’t take into account the impact along the entire supply chain. So much of the impact is happening upstream before it gets into your hands and home. We never dissuade anyone from recycling, but KnoxFill offers upstream options to reuse and reduce household waste.
Our focus on Creative Reuse offers options to upcycle materials–like our thrift store for craft supplies. We also have a classroom that can be rented out for events, and where we host KnoxFill events, like our weekly bring your own craft night, fix-it fairs, mending, or making ornaments from reclaimed items. KnoxFill has become an educational and working space to learn new skills and enjoy community doing it. We’re even building a tool library or “library of things” where you can rent tools and other items for a one-off use–for example, a radon detector, a deep pot for canning, or a tool you just don’t want to purchase.
How does shopping at KnoxFill work?
Anyone can shop at KnoxFill. There’s no membership, but we do have a rewards program with loyalty points. Several thousand households in the area refill with us. We’ve grown our registry to almost 8,000 customers in just over four years, mostly through word of mouth. Our active social media presence and newsletter every couple of weeks keep folks up to date.
We have so many ways to refill. If you come in, never having done it before, we have donated containers that are checked, weighed and put on our free shelves. We also have new, KnoxFill-branded glass and metal containers for sale. Or, you can bring in your own glass and plastic containers (don’t we all just have a glut of them?). Some folks prefer to reuse plastic containers for showers and bathrooms, especially with small kids and concerns about glass breaking on tile floors. We focus on reducing single-use plastic, so if you are reusing a container, that’s a great way to reduce!
Tell us about healthier homes and a healthier planet.
There are two pieces here, inextricably linked: health of the earth and environment, and health of the individual and home. Some customers come in saying, “I love there are no chemicals here!” I tell them that everything is made out of chemicals, but our products are definitely more natural in that our makers select ingredients carefully to be healthier for you and your family, not putting in phthalates, or brighteners, or neuroendocrine disruptors. Our products are plant-based, not petroleum-based. Our refill products are often small-batched, sourced locally or regionally, with superior ingredients. I work hard to make our prices as accessible as we can, but they are not necessarily cheaper because they are bulk. Our makers are small businesses we want to support who are paying people better and committed to sustainability along the supply chain. When it comes to decision fatigue on evaluating products (ethics, materials, sustainability), we’re all overloaded. When folks come into KnoxFill, I want them to know we’ve done that work for them.
How has your team grown?
As the founder, KnoxFill has been “my baby,” but I am not the one running it day to day anymore. I spent a year recently working in Congress as a Science Policy Fellow, and my phenomenal team became the engine and the heart of KnoxFill.
Erin Witt is our wonderful General Manager who makes sure things run well day to day. Madison Spooner is our Creative Reuse Coordinator. Hallie Moberg Brauer, a longtime KnoxFiller, is our Events Coordinator. Reshmi Mehta is a Refillery Assistant and sustainable textiles expert, in charge of clothing/textile upcycling projects. Melanie Ratliff, is a Refillery Assistant and elementary school teacher by day. Maggie Tharp is Refillery Assistant and phenomenal musician. Jenny Thompson is our marketing, communications and social media whiz. Our newest team member, Lorena Hubbard, is Tool Library Coordinator. These talented women with different skill sets, passions and expertise are always thinking how to better use this space for our community. So, I get to have bigger visions based upon needs I see in our community, and our team helps execute those visions while also making their own contributions. It’s all of us. In 2026, we are transitioning to a nonprofit, which is going to make it “our baby” in a lot of different ways.
Can you recommend five sustainable practices for 2026?
- Find a refillable version of a product you use a lot.
We’re Knoxville’s only zero waste refillery, so you can refill products with us, but there are plenty of other places that refill oil, wine, or beer in Knoxville, too!
- Find your community. These problems are so big and overwhelming, it’s easy to feel like individual actions don’t matter. It takes all of us doing what we can, so find other people who are trying and looking for solutions.
- Repair and reuse what you can. There’s an opportunity to be creative to repurpose what you already have and give something a second life, which saves on the wallet, too.
- Check out TVA’s free energy audit. This is especially valuable in the winter months. A few tweaks implemented in our own household netted new energy savings.
- Borrow or share with a neighbor or someone in your network. Save money and material costs. We used to do things this way. We shared a lot and built community.
What does zero waste, zero judgment mean?
A zero waste refillery means our supply chain on the backend is closed-looped. When we get products in bulk containers, we send the containers back to our suppliers to be sanitized, refilled and sent to other refilleries. We reuse in-transit protective packaging, or if paper-based, recycle or compost it.
Zero judgment? We’re uninterested in expecting anyone to do it perfectly, where all your waste fits in a mason jar. That’s not sustainable for anyone in the system we have. It’s more about progress over perfection. If we’re all trying to do perfect, we’re not going to do anything. If we’re all doing a little bit better every day, together we can do a lot. There are so many things we don’t have control over. When you give folks an option to make small daily changes in their life for our planet, we find they are eager to do that, especially if they can do it in community.
To learn more or to donate a tool, visit KnoxFill.com.
6204 Chapman Highway, Knoxville 37920
When it comes to decision fatigue on evaluating products (ethics, materials, sustainability), we’re all overloaded. When folks come into KnoxFill, I want them to know we’ve done that work for them. – Michaela Barnett.
A scientist, entrepreneur, Congressional science policy fellow and problem-solver by nature, Michaela Barnett, founded KnoxFill in 2021 in her home while finishing her PhD in civil engineering. KnoxFill has engaged a passionate community, growing by leaps and bounds, learning and working together to reduce waste, reuse, recycle and support local makers.