What we have already done

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Our warehouse is powered by solar electricity

We currently generate a large proportion of our electricity from solar panels on our warehouse. For the winter months where there is less sun, any electricity that we have to buy, we get from 100% renewable sources.

 Reduced our plastic usage by 35%

As mentioned already, we know this is not nearly enough, but it's a start and we are happy to have been able to make some reductions.

Saved 1,200 miles of plastic tape a year

As part of our reductions we have also reduced plastic tapes, partly by changing plastic tape to paper, and also by printing boxes with "Fragile" so that we don't have to use "fragile" tape.

We have raised £15,411.08 for the charity Plastic Oceans UK

Along with the help of our customers, we have raised £15,411.08 for Plastic Oceans UK to help support the fantastic work they are doing.

For us, it's important not only to try to reduce the impact that our business has on the environment, but we also want to do what we can to help the problems caused by plastics that are already polluting our planet.

We have been certified as a 100% Carbon Neutral company.

We have been a carbon neutral organisation for several years already, (helped by our usage of solar panels and renewable energy). But this year we were independently assessed, and certified to be a Carbon Neutral Company

We want to know your questions!

If you have any questions about this initiative and what we are doing, in our partnership with rePurpose Global and the project in India, please send your questions using the form below:

Please note, you will not get a direct response from our team, but we will then release answers to as many as we can in future communications and FAQs in the next few weeks.

Message from Joe about our Plastic Recovery Initiative

Watch the video below for a (slightly more rambling) message from Joe (one of our founders) about the main ways we feel we can make a positive impact on the global plastic situation:

What is the Certified Plastic Recovery Program?

When supporting any initiative, it's very important to us to make sure that our commitments are actually having the effect that it should in reality. For this reason, we chose to work with rePurpose Global and get a Plastic Neutral certification.

Our pledge to remove as much ocean-bound plastic from nature as we use in our packaging...

At Buy Wholefoods Online, we are very proud to announce our commitment to remove at least the same amount of ocean-bound plastic packaging from nature as the amount of plastic we use in our packaging.

For those of you who have been with us for a while, you will know that we have spent literally years relentlessly working on reducing plastics in our business. We have reduced almost all plastics used in our delivery boxes and we have spent countless hours and resources researching alternative packaging options. We will give more updates about the progress on this journey soon.

We will definitely keep pursuing this mission. However, currently many products can only be packaged and protected using some form of plastic packaging.

We have made sure that almost all of our packaging is fully recyclable, and we will soon be launching some initiatives to encourage our customers to make sure this gets to the right place to be recycled.

However, we also want to do something more to tackle the plastic issue, as this is very much a global problem.

That's why we are proud to announce our commitment to remove an equal amount of plastic from nature as we use in our products and packaging. We would also like to announce our partnership with rePurpose Global with whom we have decided to partner to put this commitment into practice through their Certified Plastic Recovery Program. This guarantees that the plastic recovery and certification is completely transparent and verifiable.

To become certified with rePurpose Global, we have:

1. Measured our company's total plastic usage.

2. Committed to actually continue to reduce plastic usage.

3. Recovered the same amount of ocean-bound plastic from the environment, through rePurpose Global's impact project, as the amount of plastic we use in our products and packaging.

Are we just "offsetting" our plastic?

Absolutely not. Although we are certified as Plastic Neutral through rePurpose Global's strict assessments, we do not see this as "offsetting".

We will still continue to do absolutely everything we can to reduce plastics and make sure packaging materials are recycled.

However, we feel like it is our responsibility to also try to address the plastic that is leaking into our oceans from elsewhere in the world IN ADDITION to reducing our own plastic usage.

Our Plastic Recovery certification empowers us to create an immediate impact on the plastic waste crisis, while we work hard towards our long-term sustainability goals.

Joe visiting the facility in Goa, India where the recovered waste is sorted and processed

Where do we recover this plastic from?

90% of plastic leaks into the environment from approximately 1000 rivers. About 950 of these rivers are in the global south. (You can read more about this research in this article and this study)

In India, there is a very high rate of recycling for plastics like PET bottles (in fact, much higher than the UK). However, other plastics (such as flexible wrappers and plastic bags) have a very low recycling rate, and these very often end up entering rivers and the sea, which is a major issue.

For this reason, we are supporting rePurpose Global's impact project "Saaf Samudra" in Goa, India (which means "Clean Sea" in Hindi).

Through this partnership, we are able to fund the recovery and ethical processing of low value plastic waste that would otherwise end up in the rivers and oceans.

Joe in Goa, India, meeting Clinton Vaz, the founder of the impact project Saaf Samudra

In addition to removing plastic from the environment, this project also supports the incomes and livelihoods of 25+ waste workers, and brings door to door waste management services to residents in the area.

Impact to Date

During 2023, Buy Wholefoods Online supported the recovery of 18,100 kgs of ocean-bound plastic waste.

To put this into perspective, that's equivalent to over 3 million plastic bags or 1 million plastic bottles removed from our environment!

We are continuing to recover more ocean-bound plastic waste in 2024.