This week, the official launch is taking place of a new haven for environmental positivity in Derry.
The Zero Waste North West hub is a fantastic mix of household items, cleaning products, food and even toys and nappies to help families and individuals step away from a throw-away culture.
As well as providing items to buy, the Zero Waste North West volunteers also run classes to help people learn essential skills such as bike repairs, creating beeswax wraps to replace cling film, and sewing together reusable female hygiene products.
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Ruth O'Callaghan from the UseLess Shop spoke to MyDerry at the start of the launch week.
She said: "The UseLess hop has everyday essential items, toothbrushes, tooth tabs, dish brushes and bars of washing up soap, takeaway cups made from rice husk, shampoo and conditioner bars and menstrual products.
"We are trying to get things made locally as much as possible as well in Northern Ireland, when I started there was not a lot going on for sustainable and reusable products so now I’m really pleased to find other companies who are making items to fantastic standards.
"We have fairtrade food and household products available, like coffees, teas, sugars honey, granola to chocolate and cleaning products that can be bought in bulk.
"Also in the hub we have life cycles, this is a system set up to save bikes from landfill, bikes are brought here and Monica repairs them and gets them road worthy again. We also accept donations for old bikes or kids bikes.
"Monica does classes too so people can learn how to repair their own bikes that may just have simple issues."
The Zero Waste hub is an important stop for families as well as for purchasing household items, with initiatives such as the nappy library and toy library.
Ruth said: "The nappy library has kits made up of a lot of different types of reusable nappies. There is a small fee for rental to find the right kind of nappy to suit your child and then you can purchase whatever kit suits you.
"There are ones with buttons, velcro, lots of different inserts for absorption, potty training ones, newborn ones and we are looking to expand the range in the future as well.
"We are really excited about the toy library, it will work just like a normal library, come in and take a toy for your child to play with and return it when you’re done.
"There is a small fee but it helps to reduce over-buying of toys, or if a child doesn’t play with particular toys, we are getting more toys in that could be too expensive or large to keep at home that kids will only want to play with for a short while."
For the volunteers at the Zero Waste North West hub, it is important to integrate environmentally friendly products into the city centre.
Ruth said: "Making products and teaching people how to do them is so important to us, for example I have been teaching people how to make beeswax wraps to eliminate cling film in their house.
"It is a lifelong skill and reusable continuously and it is so important not only to provide products but to also teach these skills.
"With us being here it gives people a place to come and purchase items and learn new skills, it is very important to have it in the community. We want to be like the tree having our branches spreading out to everyone and for them to know we are a welcoming place.
"Derry is the first city in Ireland to become a zero waste city so it is important that we implement that and get people knowing how to live a more zero waste lifestyle."
Zero Waste North West is located at 84 Spencer Road and is open every day apart from Sunday from 10am until 4.30pm.
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