Zero waste movement spreads across London

This is London’s zero-waste ‘Topup Truck.’

It used to deliver morning milk to bleary-eyed Londoners.

Now, it's got a new lease of life as an electric-powered, package-free, goods delivery truck.

After being furloughed from her sales job in 2020, Ella Shone used savings to start her new business delivering package-free food and household products around London in a former milk float.

Customers book a visit from the 'Topup Truck' online and then purchase good such as lentils, pasta, olive oil, shampoo using their own containers.

"So the idea is essentially to make it easier for people to shop zero waste, so they make a booking and I bring it to them, they bring their containers outside, they tell their neighbors, the neighbors jump on board. We also post our location on our website so other people can get involved and fill up in a location that's nearer them."

Shone is aiming to meet a demand which is rapidly growing.

From a low base a decade ago, the market for unpackaged bulk goods could hit $1.5 billion by 2030 in the European Union, according to a report by Zero Waste Europe.

The average UK household struggles to recycle even half of its waste.

Source: Statista

But recycling manager Ander Zabala is just one of a growing number of Londoners who are reshaping their lives to reduce waste.

He now manages to fit a month’s worth of non-recyclable waste into a jam jar.

"This is my laundry liquid bottle. I've used it all the last three years, so I probably saved about six times, about 30 bottles in three years. Not many, so not many bottles, But if you times it by the number of households that could do this we could save billions of plastic bottles a year just by having a refill attitude to shopping."

"So recycling is good, but refilling is much better and reusing is much better."

"I spent the first two weeks stressing myself to death. There was so much information out there as to what you could do and things I couldn't do myself because I didn't have the means - locally I didn't have those refilling stores back then. But I pushed myself and that pushing myself did stress me and my husband a lot. But we did get there in the end."

As the zero-waste movement gains popularity in the UK capital, Ella Shone is planning a crowdfunding campaign to grow her 'Topup Truck' business, and hopes her work will inspire even more people to go as waste-free as possible.

"It would be good to see big corporations kind of doing this, and good to sort of, if this could initiate change, you know, outside of this small little sphere, then that's brilliant. And hopefully that this is the start of a kind of circular movement. It can inspire other people to start circular businesses."