Being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high quality content. Please support us!

A zero waste grocery store just opened in Hackney, London! It seems that this store is one of many new destinations of the kind across the world, as packaging-free goods are gaining more and more popularity. The Bulk Market was created by Ingrid Caldironi after she adopted a zero waste lifestyle and quickly learned that it is quite difficult to maintain, considering traditional grocery stores and supermarkets are all full of plastic.

Caldironi decided to go zero waste after discovering Lauren Singer and her Trash is for Tossers blog. “I wanted to support the right businesses and be able to shop without creating any waste, but there wasn’t anything like that in London,” she told The Independent. “I always thought waste was a natural output of modern living, but it turns out to be poor design. Things aren’t designed in a circular economy mind-set yet.”


The Bulk Market offers over 300 products, all stored in glass jars and bulk dispensers.

At the store, one can get everything from pasta, legumes, and fresh bread, to bamboo toothbrushes and toilet paper wrapped in paper, not plastic.

“We apply the principles of avoiding-reducing-reusing-recycling-composting to our business model, which means that we end up with very little rubbish to deal with,” says the store’s website.

The goods do not bear any brand names and are sourced from local providers, cooperatives, social enterprises, and community farms included. Some of the products are also made on the site. Purchasing products locally makes it possible for the store to avoid much of the packaging that is required for transportation of the goods.

The store’s opening was met with great enthusiasm. Some elderly shoppers even see shopping there as a nostalgic experience, “minus the ration cards.” Caldironi has a long-term dream to create a place with a glass-walled apiary and composting facility where people could bring their food scraps and turn them into compost for their gardening.

Currently, the Bulk Market is in pop-up format and a crowdfunding campaign has been launched to help finance setting up a permanent location.


To learn more about the Bulk Market, click here.

Looking to cut back on the amount of plastic you use? Check out One Green Planet’s #CrushPlastic campaign to get started.


All image source: Bulk Market/Facebook

Advertisement