Itsy Eco Interview-'Unpackaged'

When it comes to green creds, supermarkets are certainly talking the talk (bla, bla, boring, boring!) but then all of a sudden a little shop will pop open and show us all how it's really done. Walking the walk, is Catherine Conway and her newly launched foodie haven 'Unpackaged'. Its interior design is as cool as a cucumber and the contents organic, fair-trade and eco too - and yes, as the name suggests she's on a one-woman mission to get us all to shop loose and package-free. We caught up with her for a chinwag..
------------------------------------------------------- Disposable packaging is sooo last century and it's so expensive! You, the consumer, have to pay for the packaging twice - once when you buy the product and then a second time to dispose of it through your council tax. In fact, for every £50 spent on food in the UK, £8 is spent on packaging. It's an insane waste of resources too as valuable materials are processed only to be used once and then dumped. So much packaging isn't recyclable either so it's a pain in the arse standing over your bins deciphering which bits of rubbish can go in which bins!
------------------------------------------------------- My favourite groovy eco shoppers and cool kitchen containers. I'm really into great design and love the super stylish food containers by Dutch designers RoyalVKB - you can buy them from Pedlars, and I've always got an eco bag from Bags2Keep hanging off my arm!
------------------------------------------------------- The most frugal, but totally genius bit of packaging design I've ever seen was. Nigel Barrow's Christmas Puddings which I sold at Christmas in the shop. They're supplied just in the muslin needed for steaming, they were perfect: stylish, rustic, retro and waste free.
------------------------------------------------------- The most ludicrous example of excess packaging I've seen lately was. I think we need to move the focus on from excessive packaging- it's a bit of a red herring and gives big shops an easy thing to focus on without resolving the major problems. It's far more criminal to sell everyday products in disposable packaging - if everyone is buying the same detergent or washing up liquid every month then how is it justifiable that it comes in disposable packaging?
------------------------------------------------------- Some might say it's an eco-sin but I can't live without um, my Chanel Rouge Noir nail varnish. It's environmentally awful but I love it. Luckily, I sell the only non toxic acetone free nail varnish remover in my shop which mitigates it a bit but nail varnish is still pretty bad for the environment - I'll work on that one!
------------------------------------------------------- If I was Prime Minister for the day, I would immediately introduce an Ireland style levy on plastic bags for all retailers with legislation to ban them 18 months later- someone needs to stick their head above the parapet on this one and the supermarkets need to stop pretending that they're supportive of a reduction in plastic bag use without doing anything about it.
------------------------------------------------------- If your favourite product is over-packaged, the best way to complain is ask to see the shop manager and tell them specifically why you're not buying the product. Ask them if they can do anything by talking to their supplier and, if not, you can write to the head of the company that makes it. I once threatened to send a power cable to the CEO of Dell with a complaint letter and it was surprising how fast their CSR team found me a place to recycle it
------------------------------------------------------- And if all that hasn't convinced you to go unpackaged, here's a statistic that will really blow your socks off The Environment Agency estimates that we have only 6 years worth of landfill capacity left at our current level of waste generation. And at 335 million tonnes per year, 6 years isn't very long

Contact The Old Lloyds Dairy, 42 Amwell Street, London EC1.
Opening Hours: Monday to Friday 10am - 7pm, Saturdays 10am - 6pm. www.beunpackaged.com