Unpackaged
by Bonnie Alter, London on 03.14.07
We all know that excess packaging is the curse of food shopping. Here is a solution that is so simple and obvious that it’s audacious. Catherine Conway has set up a stall at an outdoor market where she sells affordable organic and fair trade dry foods such as nuts, grains, beans, rice, sugar and dried fruits. Unpackaged. You bring your own container or she will sell you a handy reusable one. That’s it. When you run out, you come back for a refill. It is convenient, clean-looking( everything is displayed in stacked, clear containers) and stylish, as can be seen by her logo. She won a competition for young entrepreneurs with unique ethical business ideas and got six months training from experts and now she is expanding to a second locale in London. Mainly she is on a mission to change people’s habits when it comes to “evil packaging”. As she says: “While some packaging is recycled, most ends up in landfill sites and some packaging is just difficult and often impossible to recycle. Recycling is certainly part of the solution, but it will only work if we use less packaging in the first place and adopt more reusable ways of doing things- it is this ethos of reuse that Unpackaged is based on”. Bravo. :: Unpackaged
That's great. :) You can reuse containers at some other select locations. I'd love to see a list of places where you can do so.
I believe that Noah's natural food stores around Toronto let you re-use the containers for their grind-your-own nut butters, for example. (Can someone verify that for me? I'm not positive.)
I think most coffee shops let you bring your own travel mug.
There is a beauty and cosmetics store in a mall near here which used to sell containers of bath salts which you could refill (you had to buy a container from them once, but then could refill that container). I don't remember the name or know if they still do it, but I could certainly find out.
when i go shopping i have about 4 bags that i reuse to put such materials in. For example when i buy bulk yogurt raisins i use the bag i have been using for the last 6 months instead of grabbing a new one. When i get a load of apples i use a bag ive had for just as long. Its very easy to do, i use plain bread bags because they are fairly sturdy and can take a sticker peel or two. just bring them in with your own bins or cloth shopping bags and your good to go!
wow... except, well I know of numerous Food Co-Ops that have been doing this sort of thing since the 90s.