Meg King
Filling up at Burgess Hill Town Centre
"Sometimes companies that brand themselves as eco-friendly, especially in supermarkets, turn out not be at all. But everything at Scrapless definitely is!"
Scrapless is an independent minimal waste, bulk food and lifestyle store in Burgess Hill. It makes sustainable waste-free shopping easy and convenient for the residents of Mid-Sussex. We talk to Scrapless founder Meg King.
Meg, how would you describe Scrapless in a nutshell?
Here at Scrapless we help the community reduce their waste whether it be packaging, plastic, consumption or food waste. Saving bottles or just saving waste from landfills is essentially what we do. We enable people to bring their own containers, refill them and get the amount that they need rather than the amount that's prescribed.
What prompted the idea?
Before I opened up Scrapless, I was a regular visitor down in Brighton refilling everything just for myself. There are plenty of lovely shops that offer this in Brighton. Another major influence would have been the three weeks I spent volunteering in Ecuador back in 2018. I was part of a team building 'hygiene stations'. These were essentially toilets for the very remote villages in the middle of the jungle. We were also teaching English but most of my work there was on the construction side. Inevitably, as part of the experience we had to bring more items with us especially as we could only bathe in a river. So we were encouraged to bring eco friendly shampoo, body wash and to clean our clothes in a kind of bathtub. While we were out there we saw so many things that you might not expect to find. For example you don't expect to see lots of Coke bottles in the middle of the Amazon jungle, just lying on the side of the road. It was so unexpected and became a big motivator for my own personal journey culminating with Scrapless. "Why don't I open my open shop?" I thought to myself one day after going many times to Brighton to refill, and the vision just grew and grew! It's about creating something that greatly reflected my own values. And here we are in Burgess Hill!! It's so rewarding doing something that one really cares about. I now have two employees and a volunteer. It is going very well.
So when did Scrapless open?
We opened in October 2020. I crowdfunded ahead of opening the shop. I held a crowdfunding party and the Burgess Hill town council leader came to that, and was very interested in helping me set Scrapless up. The crowdfunding developed its own following and I guess right people saw it. The town council offered to help me set up. Their support has been very good, helping me set everything up and open. The town council had this plan to encourage people with small businesses to open at certain locations in the town centre at a reduced rate, mainly just to help get new initiatives off the ground. When I first saw the building it was a very bare unit. It didn't even have internal walls and the floors was in a terrible condition. The whole unit needed a lot of work. Scrapless paid the council for some refurbishment out of the money we had been raising through crowdfunding. I also had some personal investment from a family member too which was a great help with getting everything set up.
"It's so rewarding doing something that one really cares about."
Who shops here?
We have a lot of regular customers and we're enjoying getting to know them all. And I am delighted to say it continues to grow. Every day, throughout the year we get new people coming in for the first time. We get people who are curious who just passed by wondering exactly what Scrapless is. It might be their first experience of of a shop like this. We get people that do the weekly shop in here and others who come to refill once a month. I have some customers that have gone from having a full bin bag full to put out every two weeks to not having anything to put out at all!! Scrapless is an opportunity to give ourselves better food where there's nothing processed or has potentially harmful chemicals. So it's about the food we consume, protecting the environment and saving the planet.
Where does the stock from from?
We get our stock from a variety of different places. A major emphasis for us is to buy local, so we support many local businesses. A lot our breads and our eggs and a lot of our eco home produce is all local. The majority of the rest comes from Infinity Foods in Brighton. All of our cleaning liquids are UK based and they're all circular - the company collects the containers, washes them out, refills them and sends them out again so there is no waste in the supply chain. So literally nothing goes into landfill. There's a only a few select companies that do this and we are fortunate to be working with two of them. Sometimes companies that brand themselves as eco-friendly, especially in supermarkets, turn out not be at all. But everything at Scrapless definitely is!
How To Shop At Scrapless:
Weigh
Bring your empty container over to the weigh scales and hit 'I have an empty container to weigh' and it will print out the weight of your container.
Fill
With your newly weighed container (or one of our free paper bags) fill on up with your chosen goodies. Fill up as you'd like. Bare in mind: in your own container they can't take any out.
Weigh (again)
Head back over to the scales. Hit the 'I have a filled container or bag to weigh' button, and find the category your product would come under. Scan the sticker previously printed OR press the paper bag option if you used one of their bags or branded bottles. This will take off the weight of your empty container. Finally, hit the big green button.
Pay
Once you have weighed everything up and have finished exploring, head to the till to pay for your zero waste items! If you have a Scrapless loyalty card, this is where they will scan it!