Zero Waste Shop plans and realities

Congratulations on managing to set that up! It looks amazing and I think you should be really proud. I would never have imagined that Skye would have a Zero Waste [section in a] shop!

I live in the Welsh Valleys and, just yesterday, my partner and I found a small-but-sweet stored named Zero Local just a short drive from us. That was a pleasant surprise too! The world is definitely changing for the better in this regard.

I was giving this some more thought and I wondered whether you'd considered selling individual toilet rolls? You could buy in bulk from eco companies like Who Gives A Crap (who wrap their rolls in patterned paper and thus are very resellable!) and then sell them individually. This would save some plastic from the supermarket bulk packs (wrapped in film) and, to boot, you'd be supplying a sustainable paper (I'm always suspicious of supermarket greenwash).

Congratulations Nancy.  We are talking back to the future.  When I was growing up. biscuits came in 10 pound metal tins that were returned to the company by the store owner. We bought biscuits by the pound and they were put into paper bags or you took your biscuit barrel up to the shop.  The best was a penny of broken biscuits in the way home from school.

Mum used to go to the PDF (Preserved and Dried Fruit) shop with her jars and crocheted bags.  They had some paper to wrap things up and string to tie.  The paper had the scraps wrapped into it and this was buried in the garden.  The string was saved to tie up the tomato plants and all in all very little if anything went to the tip.  There was 1 X 22 litre metal garbage bin emptied once per fortnight.  The council workers went through the waste, collected the bottles and metal for recycling.  This was their little kick on the side.  It was dad's job on the weekend to give the bin a wash out and the water went into the garden.  The bin never smelled bad.  There were always a few sheets of newspaper in the bottom to stop and cling-on.

Now we have "Health Officials" who are completely risk adverse listening to the vested interests so we have to have everything over processed and over wrapped.  Our local butcher is always arguing with local health inspector.  He is a 4th generation butcher and uses an apple gum butchers' block.  Eucalypt species have a bacteriostatic oil in the wood so his block is always clean.  We have lost the art of reuse and minimising waste.  Zero waste shops urgently need to overcome the vested interests and the institutionalised rigidity of health officials.  Health Officials need more education on natural bacteriostatic solutions available and the downside of ingesting plastic slivers that become lodged in the gut.  We use reusable jute bags and light weight drawstring bags to put loose vegetables and fruit in.

I like the idea of the school kids painting bags that can be reused.  So many great ideas.  Thank you Nancy for sharing and starting this post.

Luke Mitchell wrote:I was giving this some more thought and I wondered whether you'd considered selling individual toilet rolls? You could buy in bulk from eco companies like Who Gives A Crap (who wrap their rolls in patterned paper and thus are very resellable!) and then sell them individually. This would save some plastic from the supermarket bulk packs (wrapped in film) and, to boot, you'd be supplying a sustainable paper (I'm always suspicious of supermarket greenwash).

The 'who gives a crap' is cute, but personally I think the transport miles takes some of the lustre off.  We do have 'ecoleaf' or 'essential' which are paper wrapped (in 4s) from UK, or at leadt EU recycled paper.  There is always a downside, although you're probably right they'd sell pretty well.  I will look at them and consider them properly.

Nancy,
I have been thinking more about your Zero Store.........  To share the love, if you have a craft group or some aged care residents, they may be able to make string shopping bags to carry the groceries in and smaller cotton crocheted bags to put loose vegetables in.  Both can be washed and reused.  It is a way of sharing with the community as well as further contributing to zero waste.
Cheers

Paul Fookes wrote:Nancy,
I have been thinking more about your Zero Store.........  To share the love, if you have a craft group or some aged care residents, they may be able to make string shopping bags to carry the groceries in and smaller cotton crocheted bags to put loose vegetables in.  Both can be washed and reused.  It is a way of sharing with the community as well as further contributing to zero waste.
Cheers

Paul, we do have a very local textile craft group, I'm not sure if they're up and running again yet post pandemic, we are still a bit restricted here in Scotland, and many of the members fall into extremely vulnerable categories, vacinations notwithstanding.  Most people here are very good at bringing in their own shopping bags.  A 5p bag fee was brought in a few years ago, and it really is amazing how much difference it made.  From giving away 20 or 30 bags a day, I rarely sell one now.  We also, as I think I mentioned above, keep good cardboard boxes for customers to take to help contain their purchases.
I would really like to have more people use reusable fruit and veg. bags and must look into this more.  When things have quitened down a bit -we're pretty much peak season for tourists just now.

(Edited spelling)

I'll share a few of the things I've noticed about the zero waste area: what has worked well, and what has been ....more challenging.

First I'm still really proud of the visual effect of the main weigh out larder area. It looks good and fits the slightly old fashioned nature of our store.  My locals and visitors have generally noticed and have made positive comments.  Several of my locals use it regularly, and many are bringing in their own containers, or reusing ones they have brought for the purpose.  
I'm a bit disappointed that some people still seem to prefer bags over the reused containers that I have provided.  I'm wondering if it's still the needing things new and percieving them to be cleaner than a second hand pot?  I'm frustrated by this a bit, especially since making sure the pots are clean takes quite a bit of effort on my part, rewashing pots that have been brought back in, labelling and weighing them.  
Some of the product lines are selling very well, particularly the oat cereals, muesli and baking ingredients. Pasta is generally slower than before, people are picking up (much more expensive!) packaged pasta instead.  I had made the decision to not go for the 'eco hippy' option on the weigh out, but do the biggest selling products, so as to make the biggest difference in terms of packaging. This has the dual effect of making the cheaper products even better value, since I buy catering packs and pass on the saving, and if people can't be bothered to go zero waste, at least they are buying the organic option instead!
The climate here has meant that I'm probably going to go back to packets for salt and sugar.  They are both tending to clump a bit due to our humidity.  It was worth a try however.  The sugar at least was in paper packaging before.  It gives me the opportunity to try something else in it's place.  It's a pity, since for salt and sugar, the ability to buy only what you need really helps visitors.
The humidity is also not helping the zero waste freezer.  This has been popular with some of our elderly residents, who like the ability to take just a portion or so, rather than have family packets of peas or fishfingers filling the freezer.  Unfortunately the glass lid is getting condensation which is dripping down inside affecting one of the display pans, and the general ice build up means I'm having to defrost quite often (which is a pain when freezer space is limited and we're busy with long shop hours).
Only one of my local customers really doesn't like the concept - or at least has been able to articulate this rather than agreeing with everything and then shopping elsewhere! It was difficult to find out what her concern was 'I just prefer a bag' translated eventually into her having a concern about cleanliness with open containers particularly in the freezer.  I guess the Covid situation doesn't help this.  With the best will in the world we are still reliant on clean hands with a self service system using the same scoops and dispenser handles.  I'm moderately relaxed about this myself, since almost all the products will be cooked before eating, although the theoretical risk of touching shared surfaces remains.  I've helped her by selling her bulk bags of some of the products so she gets an unopened bag of oven chips for example.
The other challenge I've had is in the liquid household dipensers.  I've tried to use 5l refill bottles on their side for some if the toiletries, with a tap fitted in place of the screw cap. The liquids are very slow to dispense this way.  They are quite viscous, so flow slowly with gravity, and the taps do not allow an air bleed, so a vaccuum builds up and the flow becomes a very slow trickle!  The alternative is pumps, but these are messy and hard to dispense into a container, rather than just dose out for use.  The other problem I have is that the 5l containers are not designed to sit on their sides and are slowly slumping off the shelves!
The bottle refill station has proved popular, and we have managed to displace some bottled water sales with this.  The cafe over the way have directed people over to us for refills, so that is good.
After a six month period the Zero Waste Scotland grant team will be analysing the effect we've made, and I will be able to rejig things slightly then.

Hi Nancy, I wonder if you have an Instagram account? The zero waste shop in the next little town has it and it is quite interesting to see whether they have some kind of sale, or some "soon-to-expire" dairy products in the mini-fridge, or ask for donated jars.
I am not a habitual customer yet but I like that I can get quite an array of things like dishwashing liquid, dental floss or sourcream in returnable glasses.

BTW, my son visited the shop on the school's "sustainability day" (the school is a 15 minutes walk from the shop if you walk slowly).

Hi Anita,
No I don't have an instagram account, thanks for the suggestion.  I started up a Facebook account for the shop and posted regularly for a year or so, but wasn't convinced it was worth the work involved (I still enjoy the plant groups though!) I have a feeling that if I set up an instragram account then I'd then have to have a whatsap account and a tw*tter account and it would never end.
We could possibly do with an update on the webpage (glendaleshop.co.uk) which my husband set up as a placeholder when we first moved up and hasn't had time to touch since.  I think we get most custom from visitors through comments in holiday let guestbooks, but our local customers know where we are and what we do.  It would be nice if more visitors didn't bring their weeks shopping with them, but we manage quite well at the moment and have actually been a bit too busy this summer.  If it is the same next year I may have to think about employing permanent staff, but that's a whole lot of burocracy we're trying to avoid at present.

Hi Nancy,
I am wondering if you were able to do an overview of how the shop is doing in the meantime?

As dance classes have restarted for one child and another child is having a weekly appointment, I am over in the next little town quite frequently and have visited our Zero waste shop more often.
Today I won in the Advent Calendar lottery, a St. Nikolaus in dark chocolate!
(Edited to add: St. Nikolaus was a bishop and the saint's day is on 6th when he brings treats to the children in Germany, not to be mixed up with Santa).

I am still discovering new things that I could buy in that shop in the future, but for the moment here are the things that I most commonly buy:
Rolled oats
Grünkern (a German kind of farro)
chocolate sprinkles (my son loves them on yoghurt)
sour cream and creme fraiche in reusable containers
almonds (from Spain)
rice (even local rice from around the corner! A young farmer started with some experimental rice and quinoa two years ago)
mushrooms, ginger or other fruits and veggies
eggs
dishwashing soap
laundry rinse
dental floss (silk)

Today I also bought freeze-dried strawpberries

Unfortunately the Earl Grey blend they have is a bit strong for our taste so I am back to supermarket tea at the moment.

I will do that Anita, I have done a little analysis of sales after 6 months and we are making a few alterations to the lines we stock loose and I was thinking it was time for an update on Permies. It's been a slightly odd year again (!)

Hi Anita,
If you would like a tea option, buy ordinary black tea and EG and make a blend to your liking. To knock back the bergamot a little, dry a little orange rind and add into the mix.

Let me know what you think of it. Happy blending

Paul, that sounds great, thanks for the hint!
Another pro would be that I can get high quality organic AND fairtrade tea in big packs in the Fairtrade shop (while the Earl Grey is in tiny packages and a lot more expensive).
Sounds like a good holiday project :-)

So I made a few adjustments to the products offered and we've been fairly happy with things ticking on. A few issues with spillages (I wonder how people manage it sometimes!) but in the main I'm happy with the ambient weight out area.

The problem I have had is with the weigh-out freezer: there are only a few locals that use it, and many of them prefer me to fetch a catering bag rather than select their own produce. I'm not sure why, but it just isn't as successful as I'd hoped, and doesn't a) save much packaging and b) pay it's way! I have been thinking that it was time to retire the weigh-out freezer and go back to an impulse ice cream sales freezer (maybe using the same freezer) over the quiet period during winter. We'll keep the more popular products like the fish fillets and croissants (maybe serve them from the back freezer). Then we had a 'problem is the solution' moment this week! We had the first of the named winter storms last weekend - Amy. It wasn't too bad for us, didn't lose power like the South end of the island did, but on the day following (Sunday) I think there was a power surge that tripped one of the shop circuits leaving the weigh out freezer to defrost...The freezer was too warm on Monday morning, so I scrapped the stock (we'll use it at home, but it isn't saleable) and turned the freezer off - the freezer itself is fine. I'm not going to restock the weigh out frozen stuff now, but was going to look at moving the icecreams around so as to make room for the new packaged stock in the main freezer.
As I was walking down to the shop this morning, I was wondering what to do with the weigh out pans - I got a load of catering gastronorm pans to put the loose produce in the freezer. I was thinking seed starting snails ....then I remembered that scoop icecream is sold in standard gastronorm pans, we have an Isle of Skye icecream company in Portree that makes delicious (if expensive) icecream. If I can work out the logistics, it seems to me that locally made ice cream cornets might be a better use for the freezer than filling it with big business impulse icecreams all packaged in plastic.... watch this space!

Ice cream served into an ice cream cone is certainly zero waste! That looks like a great idea. And it reduces food-miles too.