‘Business was a way for me to cope with climate anxiety’: how opening a zero-waste store helped a college student

Boston entrepreneur Maria Vasco on her steadily growing plastic- and packaging-free empire

Maria Vasco knew from a young age that she was going to have a career fighting the climate crisis. She fulfilled her dream, but not the way she originally imagined.

As a student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, working toward her goal of becoming an environmental lawyer, Vasco spent some time studying in Spain. It was there, in the summer of 2019, that she stumbled upon a shop specializing in environmentally sustainable goods such as bamboo toothbrushes and plastic-free shampoo refills. At the time, Boston didn’t have any zero-waste stores – retailers that eliminate unsustainable packaging and only sell products that are plastic-free – and Vasco realized that she could fill an important gap in her hometown market.

As climate-conscious shopping grows in the wake of hotter summers and more volatile natural disasters, consumers have called out the environmental impacts of companies offering fast fashion and overnight shipping. Corporations like Walmart and REI have touted new sustainability initiatives, and a wave of zero-waste shops have opened in recent years. Celia Ristow, founder of Litterless, a blog tracking sustainable bulk shopping options across the country, estimates that more than 350 zero-waste stores currently operate in the US.

When Vasco returned to school after her time abroad, she won a university-sponsored entrepreneurship scholarship – which offered $5,000 plus mentoring. She launched Uvida, a zero-waste online shop, during her last year of college. After graduation, she continued running it from her bedroom in her family home in Boston, and set up pop-up stores across the East coast. In December 2020, Vasco, whose family emigrated from Colombia when she was a child, opened Uvida’s first permanent bricks-and-mortar location, becoming Boston’s first zero-waste store. The shop sells household items ranging from cleaning supplies to beauty products, as well as pet bowls and candles packaged in upcycled craft beer cans. In addition to its pop-up shops at local markets and events, Uvida also regularly hosts clothing and plant swaps.

Vasco said she struggled at first to build local foot traffic, especially in the midst of a pandemic. But business has grown so much since then that the 24-year-old recently opened her second storefront in the neighboring town of Brookline.

How did you get your idea off the ground at first?

I started with three products, and I asked my university if I could start doing pop-ups on campus. That was so impactful for me because I was able to talk to students and faculty members in person, explaining to them that this is a bamboo toothbrush, this is what it looks like, this is what it feels like. People were so intrigued by products like bamboo straws, bamboo hairbrushes, bamboo combs, toothpaste tablets, deodorant bars. I was an environmental studies major, so I was just learning about climate change every day. And this business was a way for me to cope with climate anxiety.

Where do you source your products from?

I’m always doing research and talking to entrepreneurs. We get so many samples from zero-waste small businesses all over the country, and then my team tries them and then we use our experience to decide if we should bring the product in. A lot of our products are zero-waste brands that are very small and that focus on one or two products.

What’s the importance of zero-waste stores?

It’s very important to educate people and give people these products and make it accessible to them, since they’re not always easy to find in person, at chain stores or discussed in mainstream media. So the moment people get exposure to this, they’re just like, “Oh, wow, this is actually so convenient.” For example, bamboo is naturally antibacterial. So this had a growth spurt during the pandemic where people were naturally more afraid of germs because of Covid.

Bamboo products are sustainable because bamboo grows really fast and it doesn’t require a lot of water or pesticides. A tree can take 100 years to get to the same height a bamboo tree would reach in five years.

Are there any misconceptions that people tend to have about a zero-waste lifestyle?

A lot of times people think that it’s more expensive, which in some cases it is, but in other cases it’s not. We have a very large refill station in both of our stores and a customer can come in with their own shampoo or dish soap bottle. Sometimes they’ve spent $8 to $9 at another store, but our refill station ends up being $4 to $5 to $6 and people are like, “Well, how did that come out cheaper than the plastic one-time bottles that I’m buying?” It’s because the more customers support us, we’re able to order these gallons in larger quantities, which overall lowers the price.

As a young Latina business owner, what does it mean that you have a store in East Boston, which has the biggest Latino community in the city?

The best part is that I speak English and Spanish, so whenever there are tourists and they don’t speak English, they immediately feel so welcomed that I can talk to them in their language. And I can talk to them about climate change. I can educate them about the plastic pollution problem, and a lot of the feedback that I get from Latinos is that they’re just like, “Wow, I do have these concerns also, but no one talks to me about it. I don’t even know how to talk about it, or with whom, so to see someone like you doing this career and creating this environment for your locals is so inspiring.” And the fact that I can explain this concept to them in their language makes them feel very included in the community.

Angela Yang

The GuardianTramp

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