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If the footage in ‘Blue Planet II’ had you promising not to even look at single-use plastic again, you'll know how hard it is to avoid it while shopping in London. But thanks to a handful of pioneering shops (Bulk Market in Dalston and Thornton's Budgens in Belsize Park to name a couple) stocking your cupboards sustainably is getting easier.
The latest to join the troupe is Re:Store, a larder and household essentials refilling shop based in Hackney Downs Studios – a little community of artists and indie businesses between Dalston and Clapton.
Re:Store
The new store, which opened last weekend, invites customers to dig out their old lunch boxes (or buy containers at the shop) and fill them to the brim with wholefoods, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, tea, cleaning products and loads more.
Many of the items on sale are sourced locally, too. You can stock up on Mission coffee beans, roasted a couple of miles away in Clapton and delivered by electric van, and Ombra pasta made in an Italian restaurant in Bethnal Green.
Lifestyle products and fare from small-scale producers also line the shelves, including award-winning vegan cheese from Kinda Co, Beeswax wraps made in Essex and natural soaps made in London.
The oceans might have suffered as a result of plastic, but it looks like the tides are turning.
Feeling inspired? Check out 29 small ways to save the planet.
Plus how to go zero-waste in London.