A group of Portsmouth’s citizens who are sick of waiting for the nation’s supermarkets to slash their plastic use are taking matters into their own hands.
The volunteers are crowdfunding to open the port city’s first ever plastic-free supermarket – with a view to one day making it packaging-free.
Some mainstream supermarkets are making strides in this area – Waitrose and Budgens have launched plastic-free aisles, while others are doing their best to ditch plastic packaging. Zero-waste stores have been popping up too – a trend these volunteers hope to follow.
Connie Fenner, 20, is one of the people leading the fundraiser, alongside Delphine Laveyne, the founder of Zero Waste Portsmouth. Fenner tells HuffPost UK if they raise £40,000 to set up the shop – called Package Free Larder – they’ll aim to open the store by the start of 2020, possibly even earlier.
“We live by the sea so we see the effects of plastic pollution every day on the beaches,” says the freelance photographer and business student at the University of Winchester. “For me it feels like, why haven’t we got one of these already? It’s the obvious solution to the plastic problem.”
[Read More: 5 shocking facts about plastic]
The shop will stock food items and household goods – with no plastic packaging in sight.
What this looks like, in theory, is a store filled with huge dispensers so people can bring along their own packaging from home and stock up on dried goods like pasta, flour or rice.
There will also be wet goods available – like liquid hand soap, cleaning products and vinegar – stored in large containers, which people can take home in their own tubs or bottles.
Any items that require packaging will be entirely plastic-free. “Eventually we’ll work with suppliers so things come packaging-free or we can give the packaging back to them,” says Fenner, who is a volunteer for the project.
“We want to make it accessible to everyone, giving people the chance to go plastic-free. Ideally in 20 years time we’ll see loads of these shops.”
Two days after the crowdfunding page went live, more than £4,500 had been raised to turn this plastic-free dream into a reality. At the time of writing, donations had reached £5,060.
“It’s so exciting,” says Fenner. “We know we’re aiming high with the £40,000 target, but because we’re volunteers we don’t have any capital to start with. All the donations we’ve had so far have been really big.”
One individual has even donated £1,000. “It blows our minds,” Fenner adds.
If enough money is raised, the store will work on a non-profit basis – so any money made goes straight back into the shop to buy more stock. The rest will be pumped into other community projects.
A couple of people will be paid to run the store, Fenner adds, but the rest will be staffed by volunteers.
“There’s a huge crack in the foundation at the moment and the crack is [made of] plastic,” says Fenner. “People are putting a plaster over it with solutions like biodegradable plastic or recycling.
“The only solution I see is to cut it off from the very beginning.”
Plastic-free swaps you can make today:
:: Swap sanitary pads and tampons for a menstrual cup or reusable liners.
:: Get a bamboo toothbrush.
:: Try cloth, tea towels, beeswax wraps or plastic containers instead of clingfilm or tin foil.
:: Use bars of regular soap and bars of shampoo as opposed to plastic bottles.
:: Sort your wet rubbish into a container and your dry rubbish into recycling to avoid bin bags.
:: Avoid releasing balloons into the sky.
:: Avoid plastic straws and cups, take your reusable cup with you.