Nicole Garcia

Whether you’re doing your weekly shop or just picking up some fruit and veg, shopping shouldn’t cost the earth. Shops that are plastic-free, zero-waste and doing their bit for the environment are popping up all over the city. Selling everything from plastic-wrapping-free produce to DIY beauty products, here are the best places to shop more sustainably. RECOMMENDED: How to build a green city

Tottex founder Luis Lopez-Smith wanted to create a space for freelance textile workers to do what they love the most, whether that was working with brands like Nike and Gucci, stitching scrubs for the NHS throughout the pandemic or making Black Lives Matter flags for car windows (all of which he has done since he set up the studio in 2018). After years of working in the fashion textile industry, Lopez-Smith realised London needed a space where creatives could make technical garments with the necessary machinery and know-how. ‘That’s Tottex,’ he says. ‘It became this collaborative, creative platform that allowed us to not just be a factory, but to have creative input over what we were doing.’ Lopez-Smith set up the first Tottex studio in Seven Sisters, where he and a group of freelancers would work to fulfil projects. But throughout the pandemic, he realised he wanted to shift the studio away from production and towards a co-working facility where people could come up with ideas, work individually and collaborate. ‘The main thing when I built this was for it to be a calm and safe space for everybody,’ he says. ‘That’s really rare for people in this industry. If you do something where you only need a laptop, you can go to any co-working space, but there’s nowhere that looks after people in fashion textiles.’ And so the move to the 230-square-metre Wood Green studio was made. The space is designed for textile workers but open to anyone who commits to keeping the studio an inclus