Waste Innovations announces the opening of its first retail shop, The Portal, located on St. Mary’s Street off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, on April 12.
The shop is a gateway for eco-living, stocking eco-friendly, sustainable, recycled, and organic products. It serves as a stage for innovation and design by adding value to waste materials in the form of marketable products. Dr. Macpherson, director of STIRnetwork, envisions The Portal as a 'creative platform to utilise skills and encourage creativity, so that it’s not wasted'; As the saying goes, one man's waste is another's treasure. The “waste” at The Portal has been creatively modified into “treasure” for the taking!
She notes a 'current climate of waste' contributing to the atrophy of creativity. She wants to eliminate wasted creativity, skills, and opportunities by using those resources on waste materials to produce a final product that incorporates an eco-friendly solution via a people valuing means. To her, waste is not merely the clutter in the bin; it is also the disuse of talents and skills. For example, too much household and commercial waste goes into landfills, when much of it could be recycled. 'One-hundred and nine square miles of Great Britain are currently being used as landfill, not surprisingly as we send 16.9 million tonnes of waste to landfills each year,' says Dr. Macpherson.
'By the age of seven,' she added, 'forty percent of childhood creativity disappears, just imagine how much creativity has declined by the time we approach eighteen. The lack of creativity combined with the UK unemployment rate of 5.2 %, reveals a need for a creative outlet, and STIRnetwork's own creative solution to waste is The Portal.'
Standing for 'Sustainable Technology, Information & Research, STIRnetwork, founded in 2002 is a non-profit organisation, recognised as an Investor in People in 2007, that operates as the head of multiple eco-aware micro-businesses. Waste Innovations is a creative eco-marketing venture from STIRnetwork. Waste Innovations also plan to launch an e-commerce site within the next month.
7 comments:
This is great news, will definitely be having a look when it opens.
What an excellent idea. Wish there was one in every city across the world.
I am glad to see that you've been busy and active as always, Juliet. And you are still very much green :)
109 square miles of landfill. Wow. On the one hand that's just mind boggling, ew. Uck. On the other, it's amazing that that is sufficient, as much waste as people produce.
I'm sure those figures are better than the ones in America, too.
I applaud the phrase "disuse of talents and skills". I operate an ethical fashion label in South Devon and I commission British fashion graduates to not only give them a foothold in the industry, but to also give them an insight into organic and Fairtrade fabrics etc. All too often creative graduates end up only using their talent for a hobby instead of a career.
It's a tough job to turn around the great ship of BUY BUY BUY ..........
This sounds like a wonderful shop...I wish we had one here.
Tracey
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