Going full circle: our favourite sustainable brands
A new year can be a fresh start. It's an opportunity to think about ways in which we can be more sustainable in our everyday lives.
Whether it be recycled, reused, refurbished or pre-loved, here are 10 brands that promote a circular economy where nothing goes to waste.
Library of Things
Why buy when you can borrow? Library of Things is a community-powered enterprise, on a mission to make borrowing better than buying for both people and the planet.
For a few pounds a day, they make it easy for customers to rent out high-quality items from local community spaces like libraries. These include useful things like drills, carpet cleaners, speakers, gazebos and sewing machines. Library of Things has six locations across London and 10 more coming in 2022. Each location will save around 40 tonnes of waste and 88 tonnes of CO2 emissions over four years by bringing its community together to borrow.
Head over to the website to find your nearest Library of Things and start borrowing. Or sign-up to find out how you can bring a site to your community soon.
SEE WHAT YOU CAN BORROW
Good Club
Good Club is an online zero and low waste shop. that focuses on cutting unnecessary packaging out of the grocery run. They provide zero-waste groceries and household products in returnable, reusable boxes and pots.
Good Club used research to find that deliveries using their new returnable system (versus single-use packaging and cardboard boxes) will reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce delivery by 80%. The system could also remove billions of pieces of single-use plastic from the supply chain.
Browse Good Club’s 350+ zero waste (increasing to 2000+ in 2022) and 500+ low waste items across food, drink, personal and cleaning. Use code ODDBOX22 at the checkout for £15 off your first order (cannot be used with other offers, must be used before 28th February 2022, minimum order of £40). Use the link below and the code will be applied automatically.
SHOP ZERO WASTE
Circla
Circla is an online marketplace and refill service for sustainable beauty and home brands. They want to make sustainability effortless by encouraging refills to become the norm.
Circla has sourced brands that are good from the inside out – completely vegan, cruelty-free and aligning with all of their ethical standards. Place an order and they’ll deliver your products by bicycle or electric van. Leave your empties on your doorstep in your Circla bag and they’ll collect them. Your empties will then be washed and refilled, ready to be enjoyed again.
If you’re in South West or West London, shop Circla’s curated selection of sustainable products on their website. You’ll get £10 off your first offer (minimum purchase £20) with code ODDBOX10.
GRAB REFILLS
Thrift+
Thrift+ is a second-hand retailer that wants to make sure that if an item of clothing can still be worn, it isn’t thrown away. Since launch, they've given over a quarter of a million clothes, shoes and accessories a second life, raising over £1.5 million for good causes, and now process over 30,000 clothing items every month.
Through both their website and app, Thrift+ makes it easier for people to resell clothes than it is to discard them. Sellers simply order a reusable ThriftBag, fill it up and return it, for free. Then, in their solar-powered warehouse, the Thrift+ team will sift through and photograph each piece of clothing before they price and list it.
At any one time, Thrift+ has over 250,000 items of quality assured clothing from top brands available, and offers fast delivery and returns.
Get 20% off between 1st and 31st January 2022, eligible on all products on thrift.plus, with a minimum order value of £7.50.
GET QUALITY CLOTHING
Bower Collective
Bower Collective delivers award-winning sustainable home and personal care products in refill packaging to your door, to help you eliminate plastic waste from the home.
Bower Collective has made a firm commitment to putting people and the planet first and they recently achieved B Corp certification. From January 2022 onwards, their BowerPack™ reuse and refill pouches will have unique digital IDs. You’ll be able to scan a QR code to learn how many times the pouch has been reused and also how much plastic waste and carbon impact has been reduced as a result. Each Bower order arrives with a pre-paid envelope, so it’s easy and convenient to return empty pouches for reuse and recycling.
New customers can get 20% off with the code ODDBOX20 (offer cannot be used with any other offers or promotions, valid until 28th February, 2022)
REJECT SINGLE-USE
dotte
dotte is the UK’s first fully-circular marketplace for kid’s clothing – a one-stop shop to buy, sell, donate and recycle outgrown kidswear.
Kids go through 10 different sizes of clothing before they reach age 5. So it’s no surprise that each year in the UK 300,000 tonnes of clothing end up in landfill. dotte’s mission is to extend the lifespan of clothes, making sure they get the chance to be worn (and loved) by families everywhere. dotte is ideal whether your little one has had a growth spurt, it’s time for a January sort-out, or you’re looking to pass on some unwanted Xmas presents.
You’ll get £5 cash when you sign up to dotte with code ODDBOX and list your first item.
HAVE A CLEAR-OUT
KANKAN
KANKAN packages their own quality beauty and toiletries products in aluminium cans – which are lightweight and infinitely recyclable.
KANKAN wants to reveal the truth behind our beauty products, provide full transparency and change our relationship to waste. Pick from one of their two Starter Sets, which include their 'Forever Bottle' and your first refill can(s). Crack the can and pour it into your bottle. Then use your curbside recycling bin to recycle the aluminium can. The Refill and Reuse model encourages a truly circular economy, as metal is a circular resource. KANKAN also plants a tree for every can sold, ensuring they fulfil the regenerative part of the circular model.
Use code ODDBOX20 at checkout for 20% off across their range.
EMBRACE IMPERFECTION
OLIO
OLIO is a local community app that tackles food waste by connecting neighbours and businesses with each other. They help us all to share surplus food and items, such as toiletries, kitchen appliances and clothes, that would otherwise go to waste.
Half of all food added to the app is requested within half an hour of posting. And since its launch, OLIO’s members have shared 37 million portions of food. This has had an environmental impact equivalent to taking 108 million car miles off the road. It has also saved 5.5 billion litres of water and prevented 32,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions.
Download the OLIO app to instantly look for free surplus food and special finds throughout your community.
SEARCH LOCAL FOOD
Whirli
Whirli is a toy swap subscription service that offers families a more affordable and sustainable way to play.
Post-Christmas, many parents are now dealing with the January toy explosion. While our friends and family mean well by gifting our kids lots of toys, in reality, most of them end up neglected or going to waste in landfill. Stop shopping and start swapping. With Whirli, when your child gets bored of their toys, you can swap them for something else. Choose from over 1,000 toys (including the latest must-haves) to play with. All toys arrive at your door in plastic-free, recyclable and reusable packaging.
Pick up a 20% discount with code ODDBOX2022, valid until the end of March 2022.
GIVE TOYS NEW LIFE
Back Market
Back Market is a marketplace dedicated to top quality refurbished electronics, such as smartphones, laptops and tablets.
We all know the impact of waste produced by fashion, but what about our gadgets? Back Market is working to stop our obsession with buying new by offering a worthy alternative - good as new. Each device they sell has been professionally refurbished and thoroughly checked by their team of experts, then sold at a lower cost to you and the planet. Back Market hopes to make it easier for more of us to take that first step into the circular tech economy. They’ve already prevented the generation of 2,274 tonnes of e-waste.
Use promo code OddBox at the cart to receive £20 off Back Market’s range of refurbished devices (minimum spend of £250, expires 28th February 2022, only 500 vouchers available).
SWITCH TO REFURBISHED