The founder of an eco-friendly recycling business with a difference is looking for a buyer for the business after taking up a dream job offer.
Helen Wilson launched The Bottle Swap at the start of the pandemic, after cutting short her travels around the world to make it home to Sunderland before global lockdowns came into force.
Based on the traditional milk round, The Bottle Swap operates a refill delivery service selling plastic-free, sustainable cleaning and personal care products to customers around the region.
The graphic artist designed all the branding, built the bottleswap.com website and has been making the deliveries herself with help from her brother and father. Demand for the service also saw her expand into a distribution hub to store all the products, on the back the of growing demand.
The business arose from Ms Wilson’s ambition to take action against plastic waste, after witnessing first-hand the impact it is having on oceans and coastal communities across the Far East. But she said her plan after returning to the North East was always to eventually take up a career in graphic design and those plans were put on hold during the numerous lockdowns.
Last October she started a fulltime job with Promote Your School, which creates artworks within schools across the UK. She has tried to continue to run The Bottle Swap alongside her day job, but it is proving too time consuming, leading her to announce the closure of the service, while also hoping someone will make her an offer and take it on.
She said: “I made the decision to close the Bottle Swap and it certainly wasn’t a decision I took lightly, but my full time job is now so demanding that I can’t give the Bottle Swap the attention it deserves. It’s just not sustainable for me to continue to try to do both.
“I’ve loved doing it, but I’m heading for burn out. At the end of the day I started The Bottle Swap with no business plan and no business background or experience - it was just something I felt really passionate about and wanted to do.
“But I’ve never yearned to run my own business, and I think I need someone else to find me accountable, and I want the security of being employed. Being self-employed isn’t really for me.
“I know a lot of people appreciate the service and I’m going to miss chatting to customers, but I’m hoping someone will want to buy the business from me - I’m selling all the stock and don’t have much left, but I’ve done all the branding, the website is all there so it’s ready for someone to take over. I’d love to speak to people who want to take it on and grow it.
“It’s got so much potential - I stopped doing advertising months ago but I’ve still been getting new customers.
“I’m a consultant for a graphic design agency called Promote Your School and I absolutely love it. It was always my intention to get a job within this sector when I came back from travelling, but then the pandemic happened which led to The Bottle Swap, which was basically a lockdown project that escalated quickly.
“My new job is 100% what I have always wanted to do. It does some absolutely brilliant things with schools all over the country and I love it.”
Ms Wilson has been selling off The Bottle Swap stock at discounted prices and had intended to continue the service for the next month or two, but final dates may have to be revised as stock is sold off.
She added: “A couple of people have already told me they’re interested in taking The Bottle Swap on, so I’m hopeful for a deal.”
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