Hello I'm Sarah and I am the owner of Dorseteco, I'm writing to introduce myself and to tell you a bit about my lovely little company and how it all started.
My inspiration came whilst visiting my daughter in Canada in 2018 we went into a store called 'The Bear Minimum', it was a small store full of innovative sustainable products such as reusable sandwich bags, beeswax wraps, top up body products, sustainable clothing, metal and bamboo drinking straws, I loved it, it had a great hippy type vibe and was manned totally by volunteers who had a vested interest in doing something for the planet. I'd never paid any attention to these types of products before but I loved them. It just made sense. I started thinking that such a shop made it easy for people to buy the right products; either compostable, biodegradable or sustainable, products that weren't full of single use plastics!. The cogs were turning and I wanted to come up with a way to make that facility available in Dorset. I wanted to make it easy for like minded people like me who wanted to change their habits and to do what I could to encourage others to buy better products for themselves and our planet. If we all make small changes it will have an accumulative effect. I decided to do this by attending the county market and local events around Dorset and the surrounding counties. Dorseteco was created in September 2019. We had a great run up to Christmas and then in early 2020 guess what we went into lockdown! We restarted April 2021 and we're very pleased to say growing from strength to strength.
I love this quote, it quite clearly makes you think, that we ALL need to act not to sit back and expect others to do it for us.
Eco Friendly Products for the home
My search started by looking for products that I felt would be easy swaps. It's made me think about various aspects of my personal buying habits and those that I could easily change. My first change was to stop using green scourers they're full of plastic (that had never occurred to me!), a second light bulb moment for me was the ladies disposable razors I'd never thought to buy a real razor I was programmed to buy a pack of 6 razors that I'd use a couple of times and then throw away, well not anymore. I have a lovely bamboo razor and I simply change the recyclable stainless steel blade when it needs to be changed. I buy products that I would personally like to use and I try everything out so that I can honestly compare products and their properties against each other. I've always been a bit too honest, so if I don't like it or it doesn't work well it doesn't get into the range. It amazes me how my product range changes, evolves and progresses, I started with about 20 products and I now have over 200 to choose from.
Become more Eco Conscious
You don't have to be an activist, vegan or eco warrior to make changes to your habits that will help with the plastic crisis that we've created as humans. I went to a talk last year and the lady started by saying plastic is a fantastic product and she's not wrong, the problem is how we dispose of it!
Its really easy to start to make small changes, try 2 days a week with no meat, change your dishcloth to a compostable one, use a wooden dishbrush, choose a stunning stainless steel lunchbox not a plastic one, use a coconut bowl (a byproduct from the coconut oil industry) they're stunning and I guarantee every time you use one it will make you smile! These are just a couple of suggestions, you'll see from our product range what else can easily be swapped.
So to start your eco journey or if you're just simply interested in helping our planet - check out our product pages for some inspiration.