We may be used to the blaring brands and excess packaging of supermarkets, but in many neighbourhoods in Nottingham a more sustainable option exists for buying groceries in independent zero waste shops. We spoke to Liz Thomas, a director and volunteer at Sherwood’s Waste Nott, to learn how the small not-for-profit is making an impact by cutting down unnecessary packaging and waste.
Thank you, Liz for chatting to us at LeftLion! Could you please share your journey into Waste Nott and what initially motivated you to volunteer for the organisation?
A group of us sat down to talk about what can we do to help climate change, and we came up with an idea... “Let’s open a zero-waste shop!” I was a retired university lecturer in education, and we had quite a diverse group of people from different professions so we found a shop on Mansfield Road initially, and thought we’d give it a go as we had nothing to lose.
We opened in 2019. We’re open four days a week and we worked all the way through COVID. I’m passionate about environmental causes; I listen to the world news and get quite upset with climate anxiety, as a lot of us do. We have very supportive and loyal customers, and what’s exciting for me is that we’re getting a new generation of shoppers seeking us out. So that’s my journey from education to playing shop!
Waste Nott focuses on reducing waste and promoting sustainability within the community. Could you please explain Waste Nott's key actions and efforts in waste reduction, and how this makes an influential impact on the local community and the environment?
The principle of a zero-waste shop is to bring in and reuse your own containers. Customers will usually have a big bag of bottles, jars, bags that they’ll want to recycle, and then they’ll bring those in. We work with a company called Sesi for all our cleaning products - they deliver in recyclable large plastic tubs. We sell the product from the plastic tub, and when they deliver for the next order, they take the empties away.
We've also been instrumental in talking to our manufacturer and asking them not to use plastic sacks to deliver pasta or rice. We encourage our customers to recycle their batteries with us, and their cartridges from printers. We’ve got someone who comes in once a fortnight, takes our cardboard boxes from our supplier, and uses them in their allotment for compost or covering ground.
What are some of the biggest challenges you encounter in promoting waste reduction and sustainability within the community? How does Waste Nott address them?
We have been to Nottingham College, talking to staff and students there, so we’re getting known in the wider city community. I think that’s where our concentration lies in the city of Nottingham. There are other zero-waste shops dotted around, but unfortunately not enough.
Something we’re trying hard to change is [the idea that] because it’s a zero-waste shop, it’s going to be more expensive. People are surprised when they come in - we always compare our prices with Sainsbury’s. Most of the time we’re cheaper. Sometimes we’re not. But it’s usually the organic stuff that will be slightly more expensive. We stick to our ethos of trying to source locally. We recognise we could buy stock much more cheaply elsewhere. But we refuse to do that, and we explain that to our customers.
The beauty of our shop is that we have people come in to buy just enough for what they want - a 100g of something, rather than having to go into the supermarket, and buy a 500g bag and then have it sitting there (and probably going off by the time they’ve used it!)
Can you share a memorable experience from your time volunteering at Waste Nott?
We’ve won an environmental award for the shop in 2023! That was a biggie for us. And seeing customers return is always a delight. But I think one of the loveliest things that happened was a group of pre-schoolers coming into the shop to buy ingredients they were taking back to the nursery to cook; I found that quite moving, to see and listen to them about how exciting shopping can be.
We’ve saved 45,000 bottles from landfill. Okay, we’re one shop, but wouldn’t it be nice to think if the big supermarkets could do that too
Looking ahead, what are some of the future goals/projects Waste Nott has in the pipeline? How can community members get involved or support these initiatives to further promote sustainability and waste reduction?
We need to get better at our social media, that’s for sure! But we have a great website now, with videos explaining how to shop in the store; we have Instagram and Facebook, which we regularly post on. But we could do a lot more!
I think that’s going to be the main way, as people want to shop and interact, and we need to go with that to get the message across. Being present at festivals is also a good one. We were involved with Green Festival, and we’ll continue to work with Nottingham College and go into schools.
What advice would you give to anyone who wants to make more sustainable shopping choices and to improve their environmental impact?
If we shop differently, think ahead, save all our reusable plastics to date, people could push for more shops in their area and persuade supermarkets to do what they started to do for a while, like taking single-use plastics back. I don’t think things will change until that pressure is there. It’s too easy for us all (and I include myself) to just nip down to the local supermarket.
Because we’re asking people to reuse plastics for their toiletries, and for their cleaning products, we’ve saved 45,000 bottles from landfill. Okay, we’re one shop, but wouldn’t it be nice if the big supermarkets could do that too! It’s down to the individuals to make the pressure.
You can visit Waste Nott at 69 Haydn Rd, Carrington, Nottingham NG5 2LA. They are open 10-4.30pm Wed - Sat, with late night opening until 6pm on Thursdays.
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