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Speaker 1 00:00:08 Happy veganic Mary. The city of Evanston is celebrating this month with the opening of a new zero waste store eco and the Flamingo, the co-founders and owners, Jackie McCarty, and Bethany Barbuda opened their first store in Chicago in may of 2020. Then with the encouragement of city officials, they had a grand opening and ribbon cutting for their Evanston branch this past Friday, Bethany Barghouti co-founder co-owner and head of business development and administration for eco and the Flamingo explains what a zero waste store is.
Speaker 2 00:00:37 I mean, the main difference between us and like a regular grocery stores that our products are refillable, the majority of them. Um, so all of your, like kind of dry goods, staple goods, um, like food wise are all refillable. So you can bring in your own containers.
Speaker 1 00:00:55 She went on to describe all the items they have, including oils and vinegars, cleaning supplies, shampoo, and conditioner, bars, health, and beauty items, coffee, tea, and raw materials. And then about how she and her partner were inspired to start their business.
Speaker 2 00:01:08 And I was traveling a lot at the time and in Europe and the middle east, and saw a lot of like in Europe, a lot of zero waste stores, and then in the middle east, a lot of like bulk food purchasing and things like that. So, um, when I saw, when I kind of like was seeing that, and then I saw the actual like zero waste model in Europe, I was like, oh my gosh, why doesn't Chicago have one of these? And we were talking about it. And we really both wished that there was something like that in Chicago
Speaker 1 00:01:37 Seeing the success of their first Lincoln square store, Evanston officials reached out to encourage them to expand their impact in Evanston.
Speaker 2 00:01:44 I've tried to estimate, but it's something around a thousand to 1500 containers that are not being put in the landfill per month at our store, which is, I mean, not like, I mean, it's a drop in the bucket, but it's still, I mean, for our community is a pretty significant amount and that's just what the one store. So as things ramp up in Evanston, then it'll be, you know, hopefully double that number.
Speaker 1 00:02:06 Julie Kaylene, the associate director for sustainability at Northwestern describes within their strategic sustainability plan, a section that looks at the university's impact on waste and resource conservation.
Speaker 3 00:02:18 So we do look at procurement initiatives within the university, um, and work with the universities procurement department, um, as well as other vendors on campus to try to reduce waste, uh, when it comes to packaging or, um, um, how we buy things for the university at a, at an institutional level,
Speaker 1 00:02:40 She applies the same idea to the student or staff perspective when shopping for yourself
Speaker 3 00:02:44 And a store like Mingo really is a great opportunity for folks to start to look at, um, how much waste they generate and, um, a really easy way to start
Speaker 1 00:03:01 Weinberg freshmen. Duardo, Andrati, wasn't familiar with zero waste stores, but could be interested in checking this one out.
Speaker 4 00:03:08 I think like the zero waste is kind of like an ideal people strive for, but the idea is to just minimize the amount of waste that you use, like avoiding using like plastic bottles, that kind of stuff. And then it just uses many reusable like resources,
Speaker 1 00:03:22 Barbara Cooper co-founder of organizing for plastic alternatives. OPA works to reduce plastics on both the local and legislative scale.
Speaker 3 00:03:30 I think it's important to know that only about 9% of plastics ever produced has ever been recycled. This is horrifying. And, uh, I think that we are under the delusion that has been created by the plastics industry. That plastics are truly recyclable. When if anything, they have become less and less recyclable because there are so many kinds of plastics,
Speaker 1 00:04:04 Ops involvement with eco and the Flamingo began after they put out a survey finding that 80% of people were dissatisfied with the amount of plastic used in most grocery stores.
Speaker 3 00:04:13 After we got the survey that people were dissatisfied with Dennis, for volunteers to go around to different, uh, grocery stores and, uh, rate them on their use of bulk items, sustainable packaging and things like that. And, uh, actually eco and Flamingo was the only place that came out within a score.
Speaker 1 00:04:46 Cooper emphasizes the importance of voting with your dollars.
Speaker 3 00:04:50 No, that when you're spending your money there, you are supporting people who are truly concerned about the environment and are actually doing something about it, as opposed to the greenwashing that we're getting from all these companies that, uh, continues to produce packaging that is really not sustainable in any sense.
Speaker 1 00:05:20 Bethany emphasizes the importance of growing their business with core values in mind.
Speaker 2 00:05:25 We never want to have growth that that requires us to do anything ever against like our initial starting values. So growth, but only as fast as we can keep it. I think the sustainable.
