By Taeler Kallmerten

You’ve probably heard of zero waste stores by now. If you live in a major city, chances are you might even have one within your vicinity. What were considered a counterculture alternative to mainstream retail stores are now popping up all over the United States. Eco Collective is a women-owned zero waste store in Seattle, Washington. Its co-owners Genevieve Livingston, Marimar White-Espin, and Summer Hanson are the women behind the mission-lead business.

Eco Collective started in the way many of us begin our sustainable journeys– in the bathroom staring at a collection of plastic-wrapped toiletries. The idea for a sustainable store began in college when Livingston, who already lived a minimalist lifestyle, began to search for ways to minimize her beauty routine. “That really naturally led me into zero waste blogs, DIYs, stuff like that. I think the first blog I found was how to make your own toothpaste,” Livingston said. This new world she discovered was eye opening. “A lot of people didn’t have the money, the time or really the interest to really research the products and find a good switch.”She got the idea to assemble zero waste products all in one place. In other words, she united the zero waste movement with the core value of American shoppers: convenience.

Out of this experience, Eco Collective was born and in the summer of 2017, Livingston took the business to the streets of Seattle, selling in local farmers’ markets and hosting community events like documentary screenings and classes on how to mend your clothes. While she was taking Eco Collective all around Seattle, she stumbled upon a Facebook group called Seattle Zero Waste. “At the time it was like five or six gals that liked to meet up. Once a month, we would just talk about the weirdest stuff. Like, are you having this problem with your compost? ”It's a space for members of the movement to ask each other their burning questions and the group has quickly grown. Today it has over 4,000 members. Genevieve explained that Eco Collective really grew alongside them. “Sometimes we [Eco Collective] would do events together. It just kind of became that outlet and that community and we sort of built those at the same time. So no affiliation, but it just became our sister community.”

Eco Collective started to grow quicker than Livingston anticipated. In the Fall of 2018 she and her partner, Marimar White-Espin, expanded Eco Collective to a storefront in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. In 2019, the zero waste movement started to grow fast. The number of zero waste products available was increasing and people began to become more familiar with the movement.“It's one of those movements where you tell a friend and they tell a friend and then they tell a friend.”With the abundance of sustainable brands, searching through zero waste stores online can be like trying to pick a case of olive oil at Costco. With so many options, beginning your sustainable journey can lead to an overwhelming feeling of, “Where do I even start?”

Genevieve describes Eco Collective’s selection of items as personal and collaborative. Eco Collective has four core categories within the store: haircare, skincare, wellness, and journaling.“ Everything in our store, someone on our team uses and loves.” Transparency is the core value of the zero waste industry and before any products are chosen for the store they go through a rigorous research process. Summer Hansen, co-owner, manages the eco-friendly background checks. Her process goes a little something like this:

Phase 1: The deal breakers. Any products including synthetic fragrances and palm oil are immediately a no-go.

Phase 2: In-depth research. This includes, but is not limited to, researching the ingredients, materials used, manufacturing process, fair wage and ethical practices, and the packaging. Summer uses a variety of online resources as well as contacting vendors directly with any questions she has.

Phase 3: Testing. This involves someone from the Eco Collective team evaluating the product’s durability and overall quality.If a customer has any questions related to the product, all of the information is categorized in the description section.

As the zero waste industry continues to grow, it's uncertain how it will impact the future of retail businesses. “The more zero waste stores that open, the more pressure that big companies feel from consumers.” You can already see the effects of this pressure. Target now carries reusable ziplock bags. Ulta has partnered with Loop on a refill program that allows consumers to ship back their empty makeup containers. The market for sustainable products is catching on and it's indicative of the demand from consumers.“ I started a business so that I would have more capital to change the economy than I would as an individual and to see that chain up to bigger companies– that’s huge.” As Eco Collective continues to grow, Genevieve says they want to scale back on the products they offer. The goal of this is to curate a lifestyle brand and prioritize diversifying their inventory. It is vital as the zero waste movement continues to move forward that it is accessible and inclusive for every community and socio-economic status

Photos courtesy of Eco Collective