Zero Waste pop-up in Vancouver part of growing package-free movement

[The Zero Waste Market pop-up in Vancouver was started by Brianne Miller and Paula Amiama. PHOTO COURTESY: Jenny Peng]

Brianne Miller’s work as a marine biologist took her to beaches all over the world. Regardless of how remote the areas she’d visit, Miller always came across plastic waste in the water. When she realized this problem was tightly linked to the food system, she wanted to do something about it.

“I decided I wanted to do something tangible, to help solve those problems,” Miller of Vancouver tells Yahoo Canada News. “The plastic pollution problem is so prominent.”

And so, Zero Waste Market was born. The zero waste movement is new to Canada, though there are shops located all over Europe, including a chain in France called Day by Day, and one opening in Denver.

Miller and her co-founder Paula Amiama have been organizing monthly pop-up shops where they set up bulk food products, such as rice, dried fruit and nuts and seeds, which can be purchased and then packaged in containers brought in by customers. The goal is to make the store package free, though customers without their own containers — typically Mason jars — can buy upcycled jars, purchased secondhand, as well as recycled containers that have been sanitized.

On Tuesday, they will set up their tiny market at the Patagonia clothing store in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood. This will mark their sixth monthly event, since they started running them in October.

Miller and her partner are currently looking for space to set up a permanent shop where they will offer dry goods and wet goods like honey, as well as home care products, like soap and laundry detergent. They’re also developing a system where customers can weigh their containers when they come into the store, which will print out a barcode that will deduct the weight.

The pair works with suppliers to figure out ways to reduce waste before the food even arrives. One example is receiving the products in containers, which they then swap back to the supplier. They’re also requesting “ugly” produce from farmers — fruit and vegetable that aren’t esthetically pleasing for grocery stores — to sell for a lower price.

“The whole goal of this is to make this type of food accessible to as many people as possible,” Miller says.

The monthly pop-up shops have proven to be an excellent place to conduct market research on what works and what doesn’t. But one thing is for certain: there’s a demand.

“Someone biked about 50 minutes in torrential rain to get to us,” Miller says. “The reaction in Vancouver has been phenomenal.”