Brushes. Bags. (W)Heat Bags. Deodorants. Clothes-lines and Pegs. Tampons. Nappies. Books. Pens, Pencils, Notebooks, Folders and Files. Glass – bottles, flutes, goblets, jugs, tumblers, beer and wine glasses. Clocks. Socks. Candles. Water Bottles. Bottled Water (not only from an Organic catchment but also the closest source of bottled water to Berwick). Card and Board Games, Balloons. Tissues. Toothbrushes. Kitchen Foil. Toilet Rolls and Kitchen Towels. A4 Paper Reams. Lamps, Low-Energy Bulbs. Sprouting Trays. Household Gloves, Gardening Gloves. Cat Litter (as used by some Rabbits we know). Scouring Pads and Dusters. Ear Candles and Carrier Oils and more and more and bore and bore. There’s just so much! Come and see for yourself.
RECYCLED
Recycled (new products made from old raw materials and definitely not second-hand). Most of our Recycled products are also Fairly-Traded. Some are as simple as turning discarded nuts and bolts into models, some as complex as waste paper into notepads.
SUSTAINABLE
Sustainable uses resources that can replace themselves and not easily run out. Perfect are bags and mats from Coir or Sisal or Willow. Bamboo is notoriously fast growing and (wine drinkers note) Cork forests sustain a unique eco-system.
PLASTIC-FREE
Plastic Free. Not so very long ago it was all plastic-free. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Such a flexible, durable and useful product but causing incredible and unforseen damage to our struggling planet.
Science without adequate time, resources or will to test seems to always need more of the same to correct the errors…and again…and again!
Eliminating single-use plastics quickly is the first step to a solution and one that consumers can drive with their spending.
Combine it with Organic, combine it with Re-use, combine it with Fair-Trade combine it with CHOCOLATE and what’s not to like?
ZERO WASTE / REFILLS
Big thing right now combining perfectly with the drive to cut out single use plastics. We were refilling Laundry Liquid, Washing-up Liquid and Fabric Conditioners in our old shop and we moved from there in 2001 (April Fool’s Day, if you want to know).
We have self-serve hopper dispensers which we introduced in January 2019.
We won’t do ‘Scoops’ though.
All Organic, certified and controlled. We do have the top ‘5’ Rating from The Food Standards Agency showing that “hygiene standards are very good” which covers the dispensers as just one part of the whole shop.
We provide strong paper bags in which customers can catch the hopper flow, but for real zero waste be responsible: bring your own reusable container or bag (plenty of choice available in Cook-Live-Dream, the cookware shop a couple of doors away from us).
ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY
Quite probably the first Berwick independent to use eco- and ozone-friendly propellant in our fridges and freezers and quite possibly the only one still doing so. All on the back of Greenpeace’s vital Greenfreeze Campaign – those many years ago.
And I’ll tell you something, even then, in the 1990’s when it was a big thing domestically, industry was reluctant to provide Environmentally Friendly stuff commercially; at least on our scale. There was one (1) guy in one (1) company who we had to talk to (and to find!) to get what we wanted and nobody was saying who he was. Don’t believe me? Believe me! Man, ‘Weird’ wasn’t in it. Weirder is that now, 25 or so years later, the industry has all but abandoned the right stuff and reverted to what they know, understand, habitually used and (most likely) have patents on! Making the green choice ever harder.
But we are The Green Shop.
Now some think that the eco-crisis is a recent thing, or that it’s all nonsense. Wrong. Schumacher knew it, Lady Balfour (Soil Association) knew it, Fleming knew it. Lots of very clever people have know what could happen. This did not come out of nowhere, it has built up over very many decades. It is noticeable now because it’s accelerating!
Friends of the Earth (1969) and Greenpeace (1971) came into being because of the already visible and growing severity of the threats to our planet from the actions of man and (we say) his corporate greed. The Soil Association was founded even earlier (1946) for similar reasons.
The top and bottom of it is that being environmentally friendly, be that Organic, Fair trade, Local, Cruelty-free, Reducing, Reusing or Recycling is ALL down to human choice. WE are the problem. Within US lies the solution. But YOU need to take responsibility for YOUR actions.
Time to get Eco-Friendly. Time to get…
THE GREEN SHOP, YEA!
The Green Shop Berwick 