The Eco Swap Shop by Verdant Growth
If you’ve ever seen my Instagram, you know I’m just a guy who wants to make my life a little more environmentally friendly. I started Verdant Growth as a way of challenging myself to be better for the environment; to do things that help slow climate change, reduce pollution, and help the environment and all things living in it. I wanted to make small, incremental changes to my life in the form of mini-challenges in order to establish a new idea of what is “normal” for myself.
A “New Normal”
Some things that I’ve changed my own concept of “normal” on are:
- Getting plastic bags from the grocery store (Switched to reusable)
- Eating meat (Reduced my meat consumption to very small portions)
- Picking up trash
- Showers (shorter, often cold showers, turning off water when not using)
- Grocery shopping (Trying not to buy things packaged in plastic)
- Products that I buy (“Eco-swapping” – Bamboo toothbrushes, no-plastic or zero-waste shampoo/soaps/deodorants, etc)
I told myself if I make small changes, and keep them up for a few weeks, eventually, they become habit. They become normal. And over time and over many challenges, they slowly grow into something bigger. They make an impact. Or rather, reduce my impact, on the world. They reduce my carbon footprint – meaning my life emits less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As we all now know, those gases trap heat in the atmosphere and cause the world to warm up. They also reduce the amount of pollution (particularly plastic) that I put into the environment. In an age where our oceans are filling up with plastic, growing numbers of animals are dying every year from eating too much plastic, and we’ve even reached a point where we’re starting to kill ourselves with our own plastic garbage: you can now find microscopic plastic particles in the foods we eat.
I decided that as long as I’m doing these challenges to make myself better, why not make it public? Why not invite other people to join me too? Maybe I could influence others to be more environmentally-friendly with me. And hence Verdant Growth and my Live ECO Instagram channel and blog was born! I take on some challenges and make posts every now and then about my eco life.
The Eco Swap Shop
And now we come to newest self-challenge: The Eco Swap Shop.
The Eco Swap Shop is an online store I created with one purpose: to create a brand and a line of products that people can trust are made and sold in a way that puts the environment first. A brand that cares more about the environment than putting money into the pockets of big-shot CEOs. Why did I feel like this was necessary? What brought me to this point where I felt like I needed to create this store?
The Eco Swap Shop ‘Why?’
As I started to transform my life to be more environmentally-friendly, it was harder than I wanted it to be to find and shop for environmentally-friendly products. Sure, you can find almost anything on Amazon, but unless you already knew that bamboo toothbrushes existed, you would never think to search for one. Unless you already knew about silicone stretch lids or safety razors, you wouldn’t go looking for one. And even when I did find out about and search for these things, there was no recognizable brand that I could find to help make my decisions easier.
Think about how much a brand matters: when you think bandages, you think band-aid. When you think of toothbrushes, you think Colgate. Or at least I do. Maybe you have others you prefer, but the point still stands: our purchases get a lot easier when we see a brand we know and recognize. We worry less about whether the product is good enough. The brand feels familiar. This doesn’t really exist for environmentally-friendly products…Yet.
And so I decided to make the Eco Swap Shop.
The Problem of Funding
Now, the problem is, I don’t have the funds that Amazon or some other big brands have. I’m just a regular guy trying to make my life better for the planet. So I decided I need to start small: just establish the shop and one or two products that people need or want, and use the funds from those sales to build up a line of products.
This is where I make a promise to you and hope that you help me.
My ultimate goal is to help the environment. Climate change and pollution are some of the biggest problems we have right now, and I want to be part of the solution. I’m not here to make profits. I don’t need to be rich. What I need is an earth that still has living things on it for my kids and my family in the future. One that can support the same rich variety of life that it has now, or has had in the past.
My Promise To You
And so here is my promise to you: all profits that I make from The Eco Swap Shop for the foreseeable future will go towards one of two things:
- Maintaining the Eco Swap Shop and continually growing our lineup of environmentally-friendly products that you can use to make YOUR life more environmentally-friendly. Or
- Donating the profits to causes that are helping to fight climate change or reduce pollution. Causes that are fighting to save the earth. I currently donate every month to a foundation that is working to save the rainforest, and it is certainly one possible place that I’m considering to donate more to if the Eco Swap Shop grows to that point. That’s something I can only do with you guys’ help.
If you guys can help me with this, I promise that I will do everything I can to ensure that our products are always made and sold considering the environment FIRST.
My First Product: The Verdant Growth: Live ECO Water Bottle
Now that we have that out of the way, I’d like to introduce the first product sold in the Eco Swap Shop today!
This is the Verdant Growth: Live ECO water bottle! It’s a 750ml, vacuum sealed, double-walled reusable water bottle. It’s made without plastic, and is powder-coated to ensure you always have a good grip and that the bottle doesn’t sweat. Ever since I received mine, I’ve taken it with me everywhere I go. It keeps drinks cold for up to 24 hours and hot drinks hot for up to 12. It also just looks cool…I’m proud of it. And I’m proud to show other people that I live ECO.
If I can get 50 sales of this water bottle, I will be able to add another product to the shop, which I actually got an early sample of right here:
The Next VG Product: The Verdant Growth Bamboo Toothbrush
The Verdant Growth bamboo toothbrush! The handle is made 100% out of biodegradable bamboo. The brushes are made out of soft nylon, to ensure that you get the same feel of the plastic toothbrushes you’re used to. I’m trying to gather the funds to add these to the shop…But those will come mostly from water bottle sales (and some of my own money).
Join me?
So that’s it. Creating the Eco Swap Shop, as well as designing and producing the Verdant Growth water bottle has been a huge challenge for me, but I really wanted to do something bigger for the environment, and I hope you guys will join me in doing that as well.
Check out The Eco Swap Shop at www.ecoswap.shop or at the link always at the top of my blog and get yourself a beautiful, reusable water bottle! I can only do this with you guys’ support! Let’s make this world better.