Check out this zero waste grocery store based in Brooklyn

In The Know by Yahoo
1

Katerina is the founder of Precycle, a package-free grocery store in Brooklyn, NY.

Video Transcript

KATERINA BOGATIREVA: Part of sustainability is just avoiding to buy new things. It's more about finding creative ways to reuse what you already have, and I think that's very much what minimalism is-- it's just having less. Hi, my name is Katerina, and I'm the founder of zero waste a grocery store called Precycle.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Zero waste grocery store is basically designed in a way that customers can buy food without the plastic packaging and also to buy an amount that is good for them, helping them to avoid also wasting food. The idea was to create something that's sort of a combination of farmer's market and bulk store.

So mostly people come in to the fridge and they pick their produce, which as you can see, everything is without the packaging-- so you can just take as much as you want. The most popular items are definitely our local produce. We take pride in selling locally grown produce. It's also seasonal, so it comes with different challenges. We also offer staples like olive oil and we also have things like wildflower honey, and maple syrup-- all local.

So back in 2015, my son was in kindergarten and they had a sustainability lesson. He came home one day and he asked me a question. He said, mommy, how long this plastic will remain in landfill? And that sort of was a turning point for me. I realized that I want to make sure I don't create waste and I started looking for ways to do that.

This is a wonderful product. So instead of buying paper towels, you can just get this and you can also sanitize it and wash it in dishwasher. Oftentimes people come in because they look for these kind of options for their shopping. But if they don't, they're usually surprised like, oh, I didn't know this existed. We get that a lot. And it's very nice to see how some customers adapt this to their life and it becomes easy for them.

It might not look like it, but we have over 500 products in the store. So basically, it's enough to make a wonderful meal for any tastes and any cuisine. I know it seems like a little-- very little thing, but if everybody does something small and they change something small in their lifestyle, I think it helps.

Food waste and packaging waste is a tremendous contributor to landfill. And we all eat, we all cook, so I think it's important to have these options so each one of us can make a small contribution.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I would like this kind of shopping to become a norm or another option for anybody who wants to shop this way. I don't know if it's going to be necessarily Precycle, but I hope that there will be many other stores like this.

[MUSIC PLAYING]