Zero-waste shops can be found all over the country – I have two within a five-minute walk from my house. In fact, here in Bristol, we are also lucky to have an old converted milk float, renamed the Oat Float, the city’s first mobile zero-waste shop. It’s amazingly convenient – you can visit it at a designated fortnightly location, or club together with friends and neighbours to book it to come to your street. In our neighbourhood, there’s no excuse when it comes to buying a Tupperware container’s worth of rice or refilling a bottle of washing-up liquid, instead of single-use plastic alternatives.
I’d like to be able to buy compost, plant food and other sundries the same way, but it’s harder than you might think to find suppliers. It’s surprising, because in some ways the industry has long since adopted waste-free products, with reusable ton-bags of materials such as soil and gravel, which can be delivered, paper seed packets and cardboard packaging for some items. However, even these aren’t always strictly zero-waste: some are single-use items that create unwanted material, which if not binned, needs to be recycled. Given that gardeners are likely to be a receptive audience, it’s frustrating that a vast range of gardening products are sold in plastic packaging, and most zero-waste shops stock very little in the way of garden-related paraphernalia.
While the concept is clearly still in its infancy in this sector, the future looks bright. In 2021, an industry trade event held at the Islington Business Design Centre saw the launch of several award-winning products, from paper pots to refillable fertilisers.
The Irish garden product manufacturer Hygeia is behind the development of a drinks vending machine-style unit for two of its products: Goulding Concentrated Tomato Feed and Nature Safe 100 per cent organic Liquid Seaweed Plant Food. “It’s still in a conceptual phase,” says Tom Stolworthy, Hygeia’s UK manager, “and despite Covid-19 hindering our roll-out, we’ve had a great response to it within the trade. We’re excited that the British Garden Centre Group trialled it in one of their stores, along with a handful of independent stockists, and hope to see it become widely available.”
We can do our bit by asking for bag-for-life compost and refillable fertiliser in our local garden centres and zero-waste shops and, of course, choose eco-friendly alternatives where possible. Here’s a round-up of useful products currently on the market.
