By Megan Sayles
AFRO Staff Writer
msayles@afro.com
Northwest Baltimore native Fran Ngong is on a mission to eliminate single-use plastic pollution through her eco-conscious store, Fran’s Organic Bodycare and Apothecary (FOBA) Refillery.
Located in the Fell’s Point neighborhood, the business is Baltimore’s first common goods refillery. There, shoppers can bring in their own containers and fill up on household essentials, like laundry detergent, dish soap, deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and oils, that are made with clean ingredients.
After designing her own line of natural bodycare products, Ngong wanted to open the refillery to cut down on the waste that beauty products often create.
“The beauty industry is one of the biggest contributors to single-use plastic waste. At one time, there was a strong focus on bottled water, but the beauty industry is so impactful because there’s such a focus on beautiful containers and jars and no focus on what happens to those when you finish with them,” said Ngong. “As I started to develop my line, I didn’t want to contribute to that waste.”
Single-use plastics are items that are designed to be used once before being thrown away, like bottles, jars, bags and wrappers. However, they take hundreds of years to decompose. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. generated 35.7 million tons of plastic waste in 2018. The majority of it was burned or ended up in landfills, with less than 10 percent actually being recycled.
Aside from overflowing landfills, these plastics break down into microplastics, which can then contaminate waterways, soils and the air. They also have a heavy carbon footprint as producing and burning plastics emits an enormous amount of greenhouse gases each year, fuelling climate change.
Educating people on the waste the beauty industry creates has been one of Ngong’s main objectives in running FOBA Refillery. She started a recycling incentive program at the store to further this goal.
“The way that it works is if for every six empty tins that you bring in of our No. 1 seller, which is our ‘FreeMe All Natural Deodorant,’ we’ll give you one for free,” said Ngong. “What we’re saying is bring them in—don’t throw them away. We’re in this together.”
Ngong’s stepdaughter, Mackenzie Jansen, has been working at the store since it opened. She grew up being exposed to organic body care through her birth mother. When Ngong came into her life at 10 years old, her knowledge deepened even further.
“Essentially, I think Baltimore needs this,” said Jansen. “You see the trash on the streets, how people don’t really care and how much product is wasted and thrown away. But, you really could be saving your bottles, bringing them back here and refilling them.”
One of Jansen’s favorite parts about working in the business is teaching customers about how the refillery works.
“When people come in and I tell them exactly what a refillery is, their eyes light up,” said Jansen. “They realize there are ways to save and hold on to what you have.”
Sustainable living has long been a part of Black communities, often out of necessity. Enslaved people survived by preserving food, reusing materials and finding creative ways to stretch limited resources.
As Ngong put it, African Americans are not wasteful people. As she continues to grow FOBA Refillery, she wants to host classes for families to learn how to make their own soaps, deodorants, detergent and other household products.
“When I grew up, we were at the hems of our mothers’ and grandmothers’ dresses and aprons, learning the basics to raise our households. If you teach children while they’re young, they can grow with it,” said Ngong. “We want people to learn how to make these products so they can teach their children. Then, we won’t have garbage on the streets, and we’ll have better communities.”
