Two years ago, an outlet for sustainable living was created in Burgess Hill and has since seen thousands of forward-thinking, planet-loving individuals come through the door on their zero-waste journey. As the store approaches its second birthday later this month, founder Meg is keen to spread the word and encourage more people across Mid Sussex to shop Scrapless. Mid Sussex’s first low-waste refill shop, also comes with an online store offering both ‘click+collect’ and a home delivery service.
Regular customer, Sarah, says: “There is such a great range of products available, I am able to do the bulk of my shop at Scrapless, saving money on many items and not adding heaps of plastic to landfill waste!” Scrapless offers customers over 300 products in packaging-free refill options: for both food and cleaning. The edible range includes (mostly organic) food cupboard staples (such as pasta, rice, pulses and grains, and more), two freezers full of loose fruit and veg as well as bake-at-home pastries, sweet treats and snacks, and twice-weekly fresh bread and pastries! Check out the full range, inc. household supplies, online at www.scrapless.co.uk.
As a Community Interest Company, the team is on a mission to provide the people of Mid Sussex with convenient solutions to save waste and money, but also to support other local businesses too. The store stocks a selection of locally made products many of which are great gift ideas to treat yourself or your loved ones whilst supporting local makers. Once you start shopping without buying new packaging each time, you realise how much of your supermarket shop goes towards the product’s container! For example, by shopping zero-waste, you can buy 40g of Paprika for 52p, a whopping 72% cheaper than from the local supermarket. You most likely already own suitable containers for everything you use, so why not simply refill those, and save the extra costs. One regular customer always opts for Scrapless refill options when trying out new recipes: “It’s great to be able to just buy what you need for a recipe that you haven’t made before. Refilling means that I can take a recipe with me and just buy one tablespoon of spice or 100g of butter beans. If the kids love it, then I can stock up properly next time, knowing that I haven’t wasted anything, and saved money!”
The team understand it can be a little daunting trying out a new way of shopping… especially when we are used to doing things a certain way. But, shopping at Scrapless is really simple: Pop into the store and buy what you need. We encourage you to bring your own containers (such as jars, bottles etc) or use the paper bags provided in-store. If you’re bringing things in to use, you just weigh them first so that you only pay for what you top up!
We’ll happily show you the ropes and give you a hand with your shop. The most important thing to remember is that you don’t need to start big. Perhaps pick one or two staples from the food cupboard that you get through a lot of, or the cleaning products running low, and make the decision to refill next time round! The famous Anne Marie Bonneau quote, says it all: “We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.” The same goes for shopping at Scrapless. Visit us in-store at 25-27 The Martlets, Burgess Hill, RH15 9NN or online at www.scrapless.co.uk. Follow the Scrapless journey online via Instagram or Facebook @scraplessrefills. We look forward to seeing you soon.