Unpackaged
- Posted by Guest Post on November 26th, 2007 filed in Environment, Food and beverage, Retail
As I was walking through a local supermarket, I just got this crave for sweets. I went to the stand that was selling them and I started picking several types of goodies. The lady at the counter started putting them in separate bags and placing price tags on them. I ended up with many empty bags for which I had no use - now or in the future. Then, I tried to see whether there was a friendlier approach to my occasional crave for sweets.
Luckily, it just happened to stumble upon Unpackaged. This is a shop that sells food (including sweets) without any packaging and it has several advantages over its competitors. The cost is way smaller than that of products with fancy packaging. Moreover, unnecessary packaging is a waste of resources at every level: to produce, store and transport, remove and dispose of (if possible). And best of all, you can take as much as you want.
It relies on the fact that people bring their own containers, or reuse one bought at the shop. Everything they sell is organic, but for the tea. I think this type of shop could have quite some success in Romania due to the low cost and their policy of reusable containers.
Wouldn’t it be nice that whenever you want something to just have it right around the corner and be able to take as much as you crave for?
This is a post written by one of our readers. Dan, thanks for sharing your idea with us.
Written by Guest Post
November 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am
I supose this idea is good in general. I am a romanian and I can tell you that in part this is already done in small stores, for instace you can buy cream or olives this way.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Well it should be done for almost everything in the store (chocolate, flakes, fruits, biscuits, groceries and so on) not just olives or cream. An the idea was to bring a container not take a disposable plastic bag, which is the most common approach, that you use it for throwing away the trash afterwards. Anyhow, thank you for the comment!