Scandinavia Is Getting Its First Zero-Packaging Supermarket

In 2014, a new food market in Berlin called Original Unverpackt opened its doors to the public, offering patrons an array of produce and foods sans packaging. Their goal? To eliminate trash before it’s created, according to The New York Times. The "pre-cycling" trend seems to be spreading across Europe: According to Food Tank, a similarly designed store called LØS Market will open in Copenhagen, Denmark this summer.

LØS Market plans to sell 400 organic products from locally sourced farmers and vendors. Customers won’t be taking these foods home in a plastic shopping bag. Instead, they will place them in their own containers brought from home, and use free empty bottles provided by the store for liquids like wine, oil, and soap. When shoppers are done with the bottles, they can be returned for washing at LØS Market and given to new visitors. For dry goods, patrons will be given compostable paper bags.

As Scandinavia’s first zero-packaging supermarket, LØS Market’s aim is to reduce the some 343.9 pounds of packaging waste produced per person each year in the European Union, Food Tank explains. Since Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash in 2012 and recycled and composted only 87 million tons of it, we can definitely learn some lessons in pre-cycling from across the pond. 

[h/t Food Tank]