Our Story
OUR MISSION
Zero Waste Emporium is a family owned, community-oriented company in Victoria, BC and
Vancouver Island's first Zero Waste grocery store. Our mission to reduce the number of single-use products that end up in the landfill, or worse yet, in the ocean. We are promoting ecological awareness by offering customers reliable and sustainably sourced products that will help them reduce their
environmental footprint and empower their Zero Waste lifestyle.
We carry a large selection of kitchen staples, personal hygiene and grocery items,
all sold in bulk and completely package-free!
Original owners and founders of Zero Waste Emporium,Paula and (Nairn) were both educated in marine environmental fields. Paula is a Marine Biologist and Nairn an Aquaculture Technician. Their love for the sea and all its overwhelming beauty prompted them to make changes in their consumerist habits and waste production. When they learned that by 2050 plastic items in the oceans are estimated to outnumber fish, it was time to make a positive change!
We are passionate about finding better, healthier alternatives to our everyday lifestyle. This developed into a labour of love as they started experimenting with homemade soaps, deodorants, toothpaste and face creams. They developed kits with products and resources from Victoria, BC and the surrounding areas to help them succeed, and then wanted to share these resources with the rest of the world.
Our Promise to you!
We will ensure the majority of the products we carry here at ZWE are made with natural materials, and that those materials in the items you purchase can be reused for a lifetime and will go back to the earth at the end of each products' life cycle. We didn't come up with it, but we are certainly trying to stick with the philosophy of the Zero Waste 6 Rs - Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Rot (compost), and Recycle as the last option.
The Zero Waste torch has been passed....
I am Anna and my husband is Ari, we are the new owners of Zero Waste Emporium. We are from Sweden and have also been living in Iceland. I have been working for the city of Västerås where I was managing school, daycare, preschool and senior meals. We had a policy to serve as nutritional, local produced and organic meals to our customers. Also to follow the environmental guidelines for the city and that included to strive to reduce our waste.
We believe in a lifestyle where everyone try to produce less waste.
We can't just close our eyes for what actually happens in reality!
Recycling is good but it doesn't take away the problem that we are consuming too much. Especially disposable packaging in plastic, aluminum and paper. I think we should think about recycling as an option try to use packaging that can be reused instead more?
I see Zero Waste Emporium as a store that can offer all our customers local produced products, some ecological and seasonal products and of course plastic free.
