{"id":3783,"date":"2019-01-22T17:53:29","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T15:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charleroi-metropole.be\/?p=3783"},"modified":"2019-01-28T19:24:56","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T17:24:56","slug":"5-questions-for-understanding-zero-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/decouvrir\/5-questions-for-understanding-zero-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"5 questions for understanding \u2018zero waste\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00c9picerie Colibri, Pont-\u00e0-Celles<\/h2>\n

\u2018It\u2019s a movement which convinced me very quickly. I randomly came across the book \u2018La famille presque z\u00e9ro d\u00e9chet\u2019 [The Almost Zero Waste Family] during my holiday. I then looked for unpackaged food to apply what I had read. I didn\u2019t find it in my area so I decided to set up my own zero waste shop. All in less than 1 year.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Val\u00e9rie set up her grocery store le Colibri<\/a>\u00a0in June 2018 in Pont-\u00e0-Celles. We asked her 5 questions about \u2018zero waste\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"l\u00e9gumes-fruits-vrac-local-bio
Loose fruit and vegetables are really popular in the grocery store<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A \u2018zero waste\u2019 shop, it\u2019s just fruit and vegetables, isn\u2019t it?<\/h2>\n

Le Colibri is a grocery store with a \u2018zero waste\u2019 objective. I sell all sorts of products that are loose or with little packaging: fruit and vegetables, obviously, and a lot of other products, such as pasta, sweets, cereals, biscuits, chocolate, shampoo, laundry products, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n

Customers come with their boxes, we weigh the container and they help themselves. Often, they are a bit unsettled by the fact they have to serve themselves. On the other hand, a lot of children enjoy it.<\/em><\/p>\n

We find all sorts of things: local vegetables, fresh fruit, cereals, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"epicerie-dechets-silos-vrac\"
A grocery store with a \u2018zero waste\u2019 objective equipped with silos and shelves<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some people say that it\u2019s more expensive to buy loose products, is that true?<\/h2>\n

No, not necessarily. Of course, customers don\u2019t pay for packaging and limit the amount of waste.<\/em><\/p>\n

What defeats a lot of customers is estimating the weight in relation to the price. When there is a per kilo price, they find it difficult to estimate the quantity of the product.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Chocolat-bonbon-vegan-bio\"
Organic and vegan chocolate and sweets are available to buy loose<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But who comes here, \u2018hippies\u2019?<\/h2>\n

Another clich\u00e9. The shop attracts all types of people: people convinced by the \u2018zero waste\u2019 movement, others who are interested in organic or local produce, and local residents who consider us to be \u2018the corner shop\u2019. In addition to the \u2018zero waste\u2019 logic, there is the product\u2019s quality and its production method.<\/em><\/p>\n

Therefore, I didn\u2019t really have a fixed type of person in mind. Women are a small majority, they are generally the ones who do the shopping, but that\u2019s still quite basic.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"epicerie-recuperation-vrac\"
Recovered pallets decorate the shop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A \u2018zero waste\u2019 shop, does it really work or is it just a fashionable concept?<\/h2>\n

I have been open for several months and the shop is starting to make itself known. People in the region are gradually finding the place. So far, I\u2019m happy. From a financial point of view, I set myself a deadline of 2 years to break even.<\/em><\/p>\n

Setting up the place and the stock represent a significantly high cost for a traditional business, especially in terms of shelves which have to be certain ones.<\/em><\/p>\n

The shop is already really popular with the residents of Pont-\u00e0-Celles<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here, everything arrives in bulk, loose. So you have to be able to store the products and put them on the shelves. For example, the silos for pasta, dried fruit, cereals… are more than 100 euros per unit. There are more than 30 of them. Fortunately, thanks to the crowdfunding campaign that I launched at the start of the year, I was able to gather 5,000 euros to kit myself out correctly.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"vente-vrac-pates-c\u00e9r\u00e9ales\"
All the food is available loose: pasta, cereals, dried fruit\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Does the shop respect the \u2018zero waste\u2019 principle, if you consider all of the deliveries, for example?<\/h2>\n

The majority of the products arrive here in reusable bins or bins that are part of a deposit scheme. Some things are delivered in cardboard. A minority are delivered in plastic (primarily the cereals which are vulnerable to humidity), but it\u2019s quite limited.<\/em><\/p>\n

In terms of my personal organisation, I have to adapt a bit. The shop occupies a lot of my time and, for example, I have less time for cooking with my children. So I reassure myself: it\u2019s pointless to go further, I have everything that I need here.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contact\u00a0:<\/strong>
\nLe Colibri
\nRue du Vieux Ch\u00e2teau 8a
\n6230 Pont-\u00e0-Celles
\n+32 (0)71 48 86 69
\nle-colibri.be<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9Pictures\/Alex Dossogne<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00c9picerie Colibri, Pont-\u00e0-Celles \u2018It\u2019s a movement which convinced me very quickly. I randomly came across the book \u2018La famille presque z\u00e9ro d\u00e9chet\u2019 [The Almost Zero Waste Family] during my holiday. I then looked for unpackaged food to apply what I had read. I didn\u2019t find it in my area so I decided to set up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[408,172],"tags":[268,259,257,283,262,258,332,112,128,155,117,161,127,39],"class_list":["post-3783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ecology","category-economic-dynamism","tag-autres-en-7","tag-autres-en-4","tag-autres-en-2","tag-autres-en-16","tag-autres-en-6","tag-autres-en-3","tag-autres-en-29","tag-children","tag-ecology","tag-event","tag-local-products","tag-organic","tag-sustainable","tag-vegan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charleroi-metropole.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}