The pictures not that exciting is it? But as time goes by I realize how critical it is that businesses share what it is they do, not in a grandstanding way, but in a "let's all do the best we can to lessen our footprint" kind of way. 

We have always done the best we can to tread lightly in this world, to reduce our footprint as best we can. It's also how we run our shop. 

It's the simple things - we each have our own hand towel. There's a stack in a bin, and we change them over as needed. 

It's the same as the cloths used for wiping down counters, we keep a stack in a bin. It saves on the countless amount of paper towel that seems to be ubiquitous in so many food places. 

We only use stainless steel pots, scoops, colanders etc, instead of plastic. One, we don't want to have our nuts soaking in plastic when dehydrating and two, these last way longer than if plastic. We have been using these pots for seven years and they are still going strong. They cost more initially but last forever. 

We recycle all of the plastic bags that our nuts and seeds come to us in. We are fortunate that living in Vancouver means we have a great recycling facility that we can take all plastic bags to. So that's what we do. Do we wish there was less plastic coming to us? Yes we do, but at this time that's what we've got. 

All of the boxes that come to us with our nuts/seeds get broken down and offered to the community for whatever they can do with them. Whether it's moving or other storage needs. All with the caveat that after they are done with them, they also pass them on, or recycle them.

Any nuts/seeds that come in paper bags will either be broken down and used by us to fill any gaps in boxes when packing orders, or are taken to recycling. 

Even though we have very little nut/seed waste, things like walnuts etc always have powdery bits in them, these get composted, or, in the case of things like macadamia nuts, well, the powder at the bottom goes home with us and gets made into our own version of a vegan parmesan topping. We usually have about two cups (at most) of compost created here in a month.

Our garbage? Bits of tape pulled off of boxes and string from bags is about it. It's less than a small shopping bag every couple of months.

And of course we continue to do our best to provide local Vancouver customers with Bring Your Own Container options to eliminate plastic there as well.

We, like so many of you are trying, fumbling, and doing what we can to do better, waste less, and be part of something good.