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Located at the centre of Manchester Metropolitan University's bustling campus, and right next door to Manchester Academy on Oxford Road, you can find Want Not Waste - a student-led, zero waste shop offering all sorts of sustainable goodies. We caught up with Alex, one of the shop's volunteers, to chat about the value of zero waste stores and how students can channel their energy in a meaningful way...

How was Want Not Waste Founded?

Want Not Waste was originally founded by a university student called Lizzie, and she started it as a little pop-up shop in the student union. It was just a small thing, but it was really successful and then it moved into this space where we currently are (on Oxford Road, next door to the Manchester Academy venue). We ended up getting the whole shop space to ourselves, and through a small group of students, who’ve grown over time, now it’s the project we know and love today some three years later.

What was the original vision for the shop?

I think it was always the plan to be as environmentally friendly as possible; it was always a zero-waste shop, it was always providing refills and always about being as ethical as possible. It was started by a lot of ethically minded people who were shocked by the lack of environmentally friendly shops around campus that the university was providing, so they were just like “well, we’ll do it then!”. So, they provided what the university was asking for which is better zero-waste services, and I think we’ve carried through that ethos – hopefully we’ve done them proud!

Do students on campus have an awareness of who you are and what you provide?

It’s a bit of both. Some people have sought out for us, they’ll come in saying “do you sell dried pasta, I’m buying dried pasta”, and they know exactly what they’re looking for, they come in, they buy it and leave. And some people are just wandering around on campus and say “I’ve walked past here every day for the last three years and I’m leaving tomorrow so I thought I’d come in and say hi!”. So it’s a real mixture on campus, it’s funny. In the student community, I think a lot of people want to be more environmentally friendly but they don’t really know how, and they don’t know that we exist, or they do but they don’t feel confident enough to come in because they don’t think they’re that environmentally friendly. It's almost like a mindset that needs to be changed with a lot of students. And a lot of people are probably put off by thinking that it’s really expensive to shop zero-waste, so they go to Lidl and get their whole shop there, which does seem more convenient to be fair. But I think people are coming round to the idea that this is actually a better way of doing it for long-term convenience and money saving, and helping the planet obviously.

Always as a shop, our motto has been one person can’t do everything but everyone can do something. If you do just a little bit, if you swap out pasta and you buy all your pasta from this shop, that’s still a huge amount of plastic waste that you’re saving. All those bags aren’t now going to landfill because you’re doing that. Small changes can make such a big difference if everyone does them, we don’t expect everyone to be perfect.

Do you think there’s a big environmental focus on campus?

There are definitely people with really good intentions, and they want to do stuff, it’s just making eco-friendly platforms available to people, often they don’t know where to reach out. There is motivation, but things need to become more accessible. Like I said, we’re the only zero-waste thing on campus and people aren’t really as aware of it as they should be. Although it is improving, I think there’s still quite a bit of ignorance among the student population. Everyone knows about climate change, but people are more in denial about their impact and what they can do to help. If they realised it was as easy as popping in here once or twice a fortnight then maybe they’d feel less stressed about it.

The shop feels really positive, bright and colourful – is positivity something you’ve tried to use to engage people on climate change?

Yeah 100%, on our social pages we always promote positive eco news, we’re all about supporting all the positive vibes! There’s so much catastrophising when it comes to the climate crisis, and students and people of my generation are the absolute worst at taking everything to the extreme, tying themselves to buildings and stuff like that. We try and have a more positive outlook, not just for students either we get lots of members from the community in, so its students making a positive impact on the community as a whole.

If you had one tip for students looking to get involved with climate action and they didn’t know where to begin, what advice would you offer?

I think a lot of people tend to look outwards when thinking about climate action, and they think “where can I turn to, what can I go do”, but I think you can make lots of little changes in your life. First, look at the little changes you can make in your homes. Especially in halls, students don’t think they have the power to do things in halls, but you can actually really positively impact the environment if you have more awareness about what you’re doing in your halls. Do your recycling, get a compost food waste bin, make sure you’re of how to store your food for example. Food waste is one of the biggest things that impacts the environment, and I feel like students are notoriously bad at creating quite a lot of food waste. So I’d urge students to look at their homes and think of the small changes they can make first.