Waterloo business a one-stop-shop for all your bulk, package-free needs

When one Waterloo woman began her zero waste journey, she was struck by how difficult it could be to find certain package-free bulk items, like body lotion and laundry detergent. 

Sure, traditional bulk stores offer dried goods like rice, pasta, and spices, but other items, like bulk liquids are typically harder to find. So, in 2018, Ellin Park opened her own shop in Uptown Waterloo, Zero Waste Bulk. 

“I wanted a one-stop-shop where you could get all these different things without packaging, and without having to travel to different specialty stores to get each thing,” she said. 

NU Grocery in Ottawa was the first zero waste grocery store to open in Ontario in 2017. Park’s store followed closely behind, opening the following year as the second zero waste grocery store in the province.

“But now, three years after being open, there are at least a dozen zero waste stores in Ontario. It’s kind of catching on,” Park said. 

As a one-stop-shop, they offer things like shampoo bars without packaging. Recently, they added bulk makeup — something Park says she has wanted to try since opening the store. That includes bulk foundation, blush, bronzer, as well as things like deodorant and toothpaste. 

But they also offer more conventional zero waste bulk items like pasta, rice and spices. The freezers are filled with package-free vegan products that conventional grocery stores sell in packaging, like Beyond Meat products.

“Other than bulk foods and bulk goods, we also sell sustainable alternatives to everyday products. So for example, kitchen products, like alternatives for paper towels and disposable Ziplock bags. We sell  reusable straws, reusable takeout cups, coffee cups, bubble tea cups,” she said. 

In the store you will also find things like soy candles from local makers — Park says they try to sell locally made products as much as possible. 

While overall, things have been going well for Zero Waste Bulk since opening, Park says the pandemic set them back a bit as they were only open for about a year and a half before it began. Being in Uptown Waterloo, they rely heavily on foot traffic, and because of repeated lockdowns and capacity limitations, fewer people were walking around and stopping in at the store. 

However, she says they were able to adapt accordingly, offering pre-packaged online orders for a few months, using compostable packaging and deposit jars. 

They still have the option to order online and pick up in store, but they are open for in store shopping as well. 

Park’s own zero waste journey started around 2016. She began by trying to declutter her home and get rid of things she didn’t use. 

“And then as I was doing that, I realized there were a lot of things I didn’t need to buy in the first place,” she said. 

In fact, she says she didn’t realize how much more she could do towards sustainability until a few years ago. 

“A lot of people believe that if they recycle, then that's kind of like the best thing that you can do. But when I learned about waste, I learned that recycling isn't actually a good solution because you're still producing a lot of waste. And then recycling is basically waste management,” she said. 

“So what you actually want to do is reduce that waste in the first place, so that you have less to recycle, because things like plastic can't truly be recycled,” she said. “And that was one of the main things that really motivated me into reducing my waste, especially plastic waste, because before I thought that plastic could be infinitely recycled.”

Park says the lifestyle change didn’t feel overly challenging because she took it in stride. 

“I took small steps at first, remembering to bring my own bags to stores when grocery shopping, and then using my own coffee cups to get filled with coffee and takeout containers for restaurants, bringing my own utensils and just trying to avoid plastic. So little by little, I began reducing my waste.”

As Zero Waste Bulk encourages BYOC (bring your own container), it allows customers to reuse containers they would normally recycle, like pasta jars or yogurt tubs. 

They also accept container donations, which are sanitized and weighed before being placed on a shelf in the storefront for customers to use. 

The containers can be bought for a $1 deposit, which will be returned when the container is brought back. 

“So those are for people who aren't ready with their own containers or maybe they didn't bring enough containers,” Park said. 

When people bring their own containers, they are weighed at the front before being filled with bulk goods, so when they pay, the container weight is deducted from the price. 

Many of their first-time customers don’t already live a zero waste lifestyle — in fact, some of them might not even know what that is. 

“They just stumbled in because they were curious, and then we let them know about the concept of trying to reduce packaging waste.”

After which, she says, most of them turn into repeat customers. 

For those looking to adopt a zero waste lifestyle, she says it’s probably easiest to ease into it like she did, otherwise it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Thus, she suggests adopting one habit at a time, like bringing reusable bags to the grocery store.