In the beginning of the year, I discovered the movement “Zero Waste”. The main goal of this movement is to not send any waste to the landfill and it’s very focused on the very important R: reuse. If you want to know more about it, Bea Johnson’s blog is full of information: Zero Waste Home. And in Portuguese, you can check out Ana Go Slowly.
When I discovered this, I was immediately curious because I’ve always been interested in helping the environment. For example, I remember, back when I was a child, trying to convince my mom to recycle.
But honestly, I never make radical changes and stick to them, in any way in life, so I’m hardly an example to follow in this matter. I cannot buy rice when it’s 1,1€/100gr when I can get 1kg for 70 cents. When it comes to that, I’d rather buy rice made in Portugal, instead of a regular store brand. It’s a little bit more expensive, but not 10 times more. Having said that, I truly believe in buying in bulk and there are lots of products where the difference it’s not as significant (and also depends which stores you go to!) and if you’ve the means to do that (which I didn’t have a couple of years ago so I totally understand) please consider buying in bulk.
And where can you find shops that sell in bulk here in Portugal?
When I learned about this movement, I found a Facebook group called Lixo Zero Portugal which had a spreadsheet, maintained by the group members, with a number of stores that sold in bulk. I immediately visualized a map with all these stores and, in February I launched a website called A Granel which allows you to search for stores that sell in bulk in Portugal through a map! It started with the 30 stores that were in the spreadsheet and it’s been growing steadily and as of now, there are 70 stores available! I’m currently working towards 100, adding more traditional stores and not only stores that sell only bio products. I believe doing this will allow other people, who cannot afford bio products, to buy in bulk.
I didn’t mention this before on the blog because I was meant to translate it before. I’ve to say that I could have done this way earlier, but I didn’t. I ended up procrastinating a lot in this task, 8 months to be exact! But it’s now completed and translated into English. I’m really proud of it, mainly because it was the first time that I actually launched something outside of work and told everyone about it! Most of the time, my side projects are pretty private. This one is definitely special, even more so because people are using it and I received good feedback on it.
Let me know what you guys think of agranel.pt! I’m super curious! I’ll happily accept suggestions, I’m far from expert.
2 comments
I have just moved to Braga and for my first week i had to buy soooo much plastic, besides my efforts, because I had to adjust and do a billion things and I have tried to do what I could. But now, my next shopping spree is going to be in one of the shops I have found thanks to Agranel! Thanks a bunch!
That’s great that you’ve found agranel useful! How are you liking Braga so far? I went to college there and it’s a beautiful city 🙂 There’s also a ton of small vegetable shops and they’re more willing to accept your reusable bags than major stores!