As the legislation around non food is very different to food, we shall be separating our supply chain blogs by Food and Non-Food products.

Our first step in conducting this research was to audit our suppliers to see about the waste prevention practices already in place, highlight areas of improvement and see if there was any interventions we could make to make our supply chain less wasteful.

Here is a list, supplier by supplier and their associated waste prevention info. For some suppliers we have a producer spotlights. These have more detailed information on them : )

Anae, France
Washable sanitary pads made of organic cotton which uses less water than standard cotton. They can be reused for many years. You can wash them in a machine with normal washing so no extra water used. On average, a menstruating person throws away 115 – 135kg of pads, tampons and applicators in their lifetime. Menstrual products that are properly disposed of (put in the bin and not flushed!) create *200,000 tonnes of landfilled waste every year in the UK. They are sent to us with other items in reused cardboard boxes from our co-op wholesaler Infinity foods.

Bio D, Hull UK
20 litre containers are returned to Bio-D for cleaning, refill and returned to suppliers / customers : ) Bish bash bosh!

Eco Living
These peeps supply us with organic & Fairtrade cotton buds - They spent over two years inventing and testing a new type of packing machine that would allow them to package their cotton buds in Europe WITHOUT the ever-prevalent plastic window in the packaging. Also they supply us with wooden dish brushes - with replaceable heads, so customers don’t change the handle. These have the added benefit of being compostable!

Ecoleaf - Supplier of dishwasher tablets. The tablet cover dissolves in dishwasher and box is cardboard. It arrives in a cardboard box with a larger delivery.

Earth Conscious, Isle of Wight UK - These are long lasting products without plastic packaging. They come in an easily recyclable tin or cardboard. Again this arrives in a cardboard box with a larger delivery.

Faith in nature, Manchester, UK - Supplier of body wash, shampoo and conditioner. They encourage customers to refill their 400ml bottles at refill stations like ours! Those bottles are also made of recycled plastic. It arrives within a larger delivery. We are awaiting confirmation to know if like Bio D and Fill they wash and refill their 20 litre containers. We do return them to our wholesaler for collection so we are presuming so!

Fill, Northamptonshire, UK - An amazing company to work with. The 20 litre containers are returned to the producer to be cleaned and refilled. The 5ltr ones on the shelves are refilled by us from 20ltr containers. This is so we have more space on the shelves for slower selling items. All products delivered by electric vehicle with other products.

Friendly Soaps - The packaging is made of recycled materials. There is No bi-products in the making process so no wastage. Arrives in a cardboard box with a larger delivery : )

Georganics, Sussex, UK - Supplier of dental products. Toothbrush heads can be returned for specialist recycling as not possible in household waste streams. Get Loose can take customer toothbrush heads and return them to Geo Organics, once we have enough to make the postage worthwhile. We sell refill packs for mouthwash tablets so only need to buy one jar. Geo Organics continues researching and changing product lines to be the most ethical. Items come from wholesalers with other products reducing postage packaging.

Gin58 Hand Sanitiser, London . Made with 80% alcohol, which as a Gin company they had a lot of! The first Gin company to start making sanitiser once COVID hit. The organic waste they make from the gin making process goes to the farm that they also buy produce from. Its delivered to us by electric van, alongside other stocked products, saving individual journeys. The containers returned to the company for refill.

LoofCo. Scrubbers for dishes, vegetables and humans! Made out of the luffa plant, and parts of the coconut. They show how many different purposes can be given to the same material. Made in Sri Lanka and Egypt. Delivered to us in cardboard boxes via larger delivery with other items.

Moon Cup, UK. Sanitary Product : ) Made in the UK. An awesome example of a profitable company selling a forever product. The packaging is plastic free and in recyclable packaging. The cotton bags that come with the Moon Cup are made in a carbon neutral factory. They have fabulous content on their webpage supporting the transition to their products meaning their mission is more successful and they save more waste. Check it out! Again they are delivered in cardboard boxes via delivery with other items.

UpCircle, Dorset, UK - Supplier of beauty products. These darls commitment to waste prevention is amazing! For example they have transformed over 450 tonnes of used coffee grounds into sustainable skincare products. The Moisturiser made from discarded argan shells can be bought ‘loose’ in store in customers' own containers. The bulk container is returned to UpCircle when empty for cleaning and refilling. Postage packaging is all cardboard coming directly from Upcircle.

Who Gives a Crap, China - Rolls are twice the size of normal rolls with a smaller inner tube to save space. This saves of transport space and space in your storage spaces at home! WGAC have researched the packaging of the rolls, determining that thin grade, individually paper wrapped rolls, were better than thicker plastic wrappings.

…………………………………………..……….So now comes the Areas for Improvement/Research………………………………………………

Faith In Nature - Hygiene Products
Do they clean and refill their 20 ltr containers?

Friendly soaps
We think there may be an option to have these bars loose (without the cardboard packet). This is on our research list to see if our suppliers can make this happen.

LoofCo
Is it possible for them to use UK based materials?

UpCircle
Recently they have more products in bulk. We are looking in to making more space in store to accommodate this. Once we manage to get the shelf space we shall provide more refill options of UpCircle beauty products.

Cardboard
Can we give away our big boxes to no dig gardeners / people moving house? This would give them a second or third life before they are recycled.
Better yet could we work with Hackney City Farm to find space on site so packaging can be saved, stored and sent back to suppliers in big enough batches that make the returning transport carbon neutral?

We found out that the carbon saving of using 100% recycled cardboard vs virgin cardboard is 28.1%. One research project we want to do is to audit our suppliers to see which type of cardboard is used. If we find any of them to be using virgin cardboard we shall try to persuade them to use recycled cardboard, otherwise we might have to find another supplier that uses recycled cardboard!

Linking independent suppliers to our current lovely wholesalers.
Upcircle, SoSeas, GeoOrganics and Eco Living all send deliveries via separate couriers. This means more vehicles on the road. We want to find out what the barriers are for them trading via infinity infinity or fill? This could reduce a lot of cardboard waste, including boxes and packing.

Life Cycle Analysis
We want to research the CO2 emissions for all the different types of packaging from our suppliers along with the disposal/resuse impacts.

Next Stage : )
Our next blog post will detail how we get on with investigating and implementing the above areas for improvements.

https://www.citytosea.org.uk/campaign/plastic-free-periods/periods-and-the-environment/
https://biod.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Bio-D-Sustainability-Report-2021.pdf