SUSTAINABILITY
IMAGES From reusable cutlery to plastic- free sweets and snacks, the Full Circle stall can help you work towards a zero-waste life
as much influence as I wanted to. So I started thinking about what’s causing all the problems that we’re trying to fight, and the answer is consumerism: the pressure, collectively, caused by all of us. So we just went for it: full circle,” she explains, smiling. Johanna’s career switch coincided with what she describes as a ‘quarter-life crisis’. “I thought I’d rather work for myself and do something that’s meaningful and aligns with my ideals. In a workplace you can’t always be yourself,” she says.
I started thinking about what’s causing all the problems we’re trying to fight, and the answer is consumerism: the pressure, collectively, caused by all of us"
The trio hadn’t known each other for very long before deciding to go into business together, but the road has been smoothly paved so far. “When we started, we’d only been friends for a short while,” Johanna laughs, “but we just went for it. We work together really well, the three of us.” Emma continues: “All of us are from a science background, so we don’t jealously hang on to ideas: the ideas we have don’t define us. If one of us says ‘No, that’s a really bad idea’, we let it go. It wasn’t until eight or nine months in that we were like… ‘Oh. That really could have gone wrong!’” Full Circle started life a little over a year ago, trading lifestyle items: the first event took place in Ipswich. “None of us had any experience in retail – it’s been
a real learning curve,” Johanna laughs. “We only did events at the weekend, because Emma was still working full time: we collected second-hand items to help build the stall.” Emma shows me a picture of a neat but small stall from their first day trading, with a photo of their current, expansive set-up next to it (you can see this shot for yourself on Full Circle’s Instagram). “That’s an old duvet cover,” says Emma, pointing at the first stall. “The only thing that was new was the table!” The Full Circle offering expanded to include food products and household cleaning solutions, all refillable from the stall on the market. Customers now bring their own containers to refill (though there’s always a small stash
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ISSUE 05
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