The first zero waste shop in Slovenia’s capital is this month celebrating its 1st year of foundation and 8 months official opening. Located by one of the main Ljubljana’s avenues, Celovška cesta, and a few steps away from one of the main event venues in Ljubljana, the Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, the store Rifuzl provides all of the products without packaging that would have been harmful for the environment. In this way, the store is aligned with the city’s sustainable policy and character as Ljubljana was the European Green Capital 2016 and it has also been the European capital with the highest share of separated waste collected (63%) and the ‘zero waste’ city which has already exceeded the EU’s recycling targets for 2020 by 10%.
Rifuzl’s mission is similar to Ljubljana’s – to be a part of the green and sustainable future of the world. All of the products are either unpacked or are in a green, recyclable packaging. The founders of the store started thinking about the store as they were on vacation and saw so much waste on a Greek beach where they vacationed. “We were wondering where was all this waste coming from and we decided that maybe getting back to the starting point would help solving the issue. So going back to the beginning of every product and its packaging.” They looked at similar stores abroad and then prepared the plan for their own, Primož Cigler, the co-founder of the store told for Kongres Magazine.
The store sells different kind of nuts, cereals, granola, dried fruits, pasta, cold-pressed oils, pickles veggie, cosmetics, personal hygiene products, organic cleaners, and other household products of which all are of an ecological and local origin. Most of the customers are sustainability conscious individuals, young families, parents buying eco products for their babies, like recyclable diapers, for example. Most of the customers return after the first visit as they really appreciate the zero-waste policy of the store. However, the customers are not only Slovenians but also foreigners who intentionally come to the store during their leisure or business trips to Slovenia and its environmentally friendly capital.
On the 13th of September the Rifuzl store will host the day of open door for public so that everyone who is interested in the zero-waste store and its products can check it out. The day will provide tastings of the products, workshops on how to produce as little waste as possible, and it will also include a cultural programme.
