Meet Package Free Founder Lauren Singer _ One Small Step _ NowThis

When you're taking those first steps to be more sustainable, you all of a sudden realize that everything you've been using, it's not recyclable, not compostable, and most likely it's single-use. Well, Package Free Shop literally exists to solve that problem. And today, we're going to get a tour with the founder and zero-waste queen herself, Lauren Singer. This is the One Small Step Spotlight. Let's do it. Lauren Singer has been zero-waste since 2012 and gained viral fame for keeping years of her trash in a mason jar. In 2017, Lauren saw a need for a store that catered to low-waste living, and Package Free Shop was born. The company has grown to over 30 people and just raised $4.5 million in a round of funding. Package Free carries products that are reusable, recyclable, and compostable alternatives to single-use products. I was here when it opened, so I'm excited to see what you've built and really show our audience the simple switches that they can make to be more sustainable. Let's do it. So this is the shop. We opened in 2017 as a pop-up for three months. Had kind of no idea what was going to happen. Opened day one, and luckily, there was like a line out the door, and it made us realize that people really were looking for a space and a place that was a community center around sustainability. It's really hard for a lot of people living in a world that doesn't align with their values. So to come to Package Free and see the products that we sell and talk to the team that works here about things like sustainability, zero waste, menstrual cups, everything, is a really special thing for people. So I'm curious to know, when you're picking products to go into the store, what are the requirements? So we have a very thick list of vendor terms. Everything from, you know, does your product have any packaging or plastic to what type of labor do you use in the production of your products. We have a really long list, and we're trying to push the boundaries for what a sustainable product looks like and really raise and elevate the benchmark for not just sustainable products, but for all products and hopefully inspire other companies to manufacture products in a way that aligns with what we're doing. It's my core belief that first, the burden of waste should always fall on the manufacturer, second, on the reseller, and then third, and hopefully never, on the individual. I would love to just go through some of the products and how these are alternatives and stuff. This is an alternative to like any plastic food containers. These are amazing. They're airtight, so you can put everything from soup to things that you put in your freezer, salads for lunch. You can reheat them in a toaster oven, and we all use them in our office. This is just organic cotton with beeswax. An amazing alternative to plastic wrap. Also, one of the most wasteful types of food that you can buy, or the most wasteful food that you buy and the most expensive food that you can buy is the food you throw away. So we have a lot of solutions for how to store food and keep it fresh longer. Reusable insulated cups and water bottles, alternative to single-use disposable cups, single-use disposable water bottles, which are entirely overpriced, incredibly wasteful petroleum products. So buying one product can save you a huge amount of waste, but also a lot of money. We have alternatives to dental floss. We have tongue scrapers, period, products, which are really amazing. This saves thousands of dollars. This is our straw bar. We have options that are accessible for lots of different price points, as well as different types of applications. So we have everything from bamboo to stainless steel to silicone. Stainless steel ice tray instead of plastic. And then we have water filters. Get rid of plastic bags, especially when you're grocery shopping, but you can use them for a million other different things, like food storage in your house or for packing. They're so cute. And you can, like, embroider them and make them really special. Cleaning is a place where you can have so much plastic packaging and waste. So getting something like a compostable dish brush, a bar of dish soap. We try really, really hard not to have anything that would be something that you wouldn't need or alternatives to things that you would buy that are less than ideal from a sustainability lens. So trying to curate just, like, typical household, but better. That's cool. I actually did not realize that until you said it. It makes a lot of sense. Everything you are selling, I might get at CVS or Duane Reade every few months. And you're like, next time, just come here. Order online. This is our oral care section. We have everything from dental floss, toothbrushes, toothpaste, in different forms as well. Because I think there's two ways to start reducing your waste. One, it's like, what is a direct swap for swap for a conventional product? So it's not like, okay, I'm going to, you know, use my regular whatever brand toothpaste and then go and use a stick. Like, it comes in a metal recyclable tube, but then we also have a tooth powder. Got it. So it's like, if you want to try the next phase of reducing waste using less packaging, we have different steps. So it's not like you have to change the way you consume or the types of products you consume. We're helping you get there in a more, I guess, in a simpler way. In a lower hanging fruit way. One small step. Deodorant, body. I love natural deodorant. Most of the time, I'll use either baking soda or one of these vegan deodorant sticks. And they're totally compostable. Cool. I also make my own deodorant as well. So there's so many different ways. We really want to provide like a full circle, like 360 view of how you can start reducing your waste. And, you know, right now when we started, there were around 40 vendors that we were working with. But now the sustainability consumer product landscape is growing and evolving so much. So now we're having the ability to give people more choice in the products that they use. You know, like, that's why when you walk into CVS, there's like a thousand different types of deodorant because everybody's body is different. Got it. This is our razor section and shaving. Again, way more attractive than your plastic razor. It's so pretty. It reminds me of my grandfather. I'm just like, I never saw my grandfather's razor, but I feel like it would look like this. Why is stainless steel better than like the plastic you're getting at the store? Well, most stainless steel contains recycled material, which is amazing. It doesn't have a petroleum origin story. And so these are totally recyclable. Stainless steel is high value. So there's an incredibly large likelihood that it'll get recycled. And then instead of buying those like super expensive plastic heads... That are like $15. They're so expensive. What? I don't even know. These are so cheap and it's just blades and you replace them. And again, you can recycle them. They're just made of stainless steel and then a little teeny cardboard box and some paper. And then getting into the hair care. Hair care is super important for me. We have this that comes in a container that you can actually send back to the manufacturer and it'll be refilled. And then if you want to take it a step further, we have shampoo and conditioner bars that don't have any packaging at all. Love it. So you're cutting out the packaging altogether. And they smell so good and they work, I think, better. Something that I'm most focused on right now, we just raised a big fundraising round. And the whole reason for that was because a lot of people would walk into the store and not necessarily take the long-term value of buying a product into consideration. So they'd be like, oh, this water bottle is, you know, 10 times what buying a plastic water bottle would be. But if used over time, you would save exponentially more money. And so the conversation of accessibility came into play. And I'm a huge believer that no matter who you are, where you come from, everybody should have access to products that are sustainable, products that are safe for our homes and our bodies and the environment. One of the reasons that that's happened is because sustainable consumer products are so new and manufactured at such small scales. So the price per unit is much higher than something like a Procter & Gamble or Unilever product where they make, you know, $100,000 a second. Our goal now is to start to bring products into the market, manufacture products at economies of scale that make them price point competitive with the products that you would be buying in your typical pharmacy. Because my goal, really, and our goal at Package Free is to make sustainable products accessible for everybody. So are you just now planning all that expansion? 2020, baby! I just love that you guys are thinking about the path, the entire life cycle of a product, which is so different than the way that we're trained to think. It's like, I'm going for the cheapest thing, never thinking about anything again. And so it's really like a new way of doing business that I think is really exciting and inspiring. I want our viewers to know, what would be the one small step that you would suggest that they take? Every person is different. Every lifestyle where you live is different. So there's not like one size fits all solution to reducing your waste. I always suggest that people look in their garbage can, see what they're already throwing away and see if there's one little thing that they can start finding an alternative for. Incorporate it into your routine and then move on to the next thing. Also looking at the cadence of how you use like your bath and beauty and cleaning products. If you have one that you're about to run out of instead of buying a new one, is there a more sustainable alternative or can you make it yourself? So really using the cadence that you're using products dictate what comes next. Lauren, you're always such an inspiration to me. Everyone check out Package Free Shop. Rose, what's your one small step?