Hello hello SuperForest
Catherine Conway’s shop Unpackaged is a store in London that believes most packaging is unneccesary. It sells, seemingly in the style of the General Stores of the Old West, or the sweet shops and their pick’n'mix of my childhood, goods you want to buy, without the packaging you don’t want to throw away. Bring your container, pick what you want – rice, lentils, you name it, fill it up, and away you go!
And if you forget, you can – for a small fee – purchase reusable containers you can bring back on your next visit. How it works:
1. Remember to bring your containers* from home
2. Come to Unpackaged and say hello
3. Choose the product and amount you want
4. Take your goods home in your own containers (if you forget, we have reusable bags)
5. When you’ve run out, come back for a refill, simple as that!*Containers: bring anything you like, there’s nothing to date that we haven’t been able to refill (even our lovely friend who likes putting lentils in old water bottles!) Bring glass jars, tuppaware, old takeaway cartons, brown paper bags, plastic bags, old packaging.. if it’s heavy, we’ll weigh it first, if it’s light then just refill and we’ll weigh at the end.
And it’s successful! In fact, they’re about to celebrate their second birthday this week. I love that the packaging we consider inevitable can be a choice! Such a simple idea, so nicely done.
I don’t know if you can find a store that works the same way in your own town, but in terms of saving on packaging, I have a couple of simple ideas that are totally easy to work into your own life (or at least, I do):
1. carry your tote everywhere! If you’re female you likely have a purse (and if you’re a guy, you probably have those seemingly inexplicable pockets where you put all of that stuff I’d usually keep in my purse) – if you have room for the novel and the hairbrush and the myriad of mystery items, you probably have room for a tightly rolled tote down there at the bottom, no? For those spontaneous shopping missions where you go out to buy ibuprofen and come home with shoes (me? no! never). Even when you’re just picking up your sandwich from the deli on your lunch-hour – do you need a bag? why, no! you don’t! (thank you for asking) Win!
2. home takeaway boxes. Maybe you don’t cook so much as you’d like. Maybe you have one place you collect from on a Friday. Either way, I haven’t met an establishment that you can order takeaway from that, other than an odd look, will object to providing you your low-effort dinner in your own reuseable containers.
3. don’t bag your fruit. You’re buying 4 apples? 6 limes? they’re going to weigh them and you’re going to wash them anyway – what does it gain to put them in a plastic bag together?! My 3 kiwis are just as happy loose in the tote in their hairy skins as they would be isolated in their weird hirsute-fruit-ness alone.
4. regular cutlery. Like 2 above, just because you can’t prepare/eat food at home, doesn’t mean you need to use throwaway cutlery. SuperForester Iman takes a regular knife and fork with her so when chowing down outside she doesn’t need to use plastic (I think this is a great idea – thanks Iman!)
Fill your boots (or other hollow items) SuperForest!
Much Love to You
P
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