The Circular Shop

Aim

We are asking for £2,500 to cover the shop rent for six months so that we can give the project as good a chance as possible to take root.

• Local Shop Promoting Zero Waste Circular Economy

• Needs Support to Pay 6 months Rent to Let the Project Take Root

• Providing

  • Local Recycled Eco Sawdust Briquettes

  • Tool Library

  • Micro Eco Pop Up Shop Spaces

  • Local Dried Weymouth Seaweed Powder

  • Informal House Retrofit Advice

• Committed to Sharing Our Experience and Learning

The Big Idea

A local shop which promotes and supports the development of the circular economy, at a hyper-local, neighbourhood level. A place to borrow, buy, sell, learn and tell stories around sustainability.

Back Story

Towards the end of lockdown in 2021 Weyforward CIC employed six young people on the government's Kickstart Scheme. We tasked them with getting a number of sustainability projects going that we had sitting waiting to get going. The fab young people moved things forward really well before their six month employment period was up (and five out of six are now in full time employment or higher education!). We now need to help the projects grow and flourish in the Weymouth community. Towards the end of the first phase of the initiative we rented a small shop in one of the poorest parts of Weymouth to enable us to keep things developing and have a public facing presence to trade from. This is now called The Circular Shop and it is a space that we hope, like nature itself, will take root and become part of a nurturing and resilient local network to prepare for whatever climate change will bring in the future.

Products and Services

Currently the Front of Shop contains locally sourced recycled sawdust fuel briquettes for open fires and stoves. These are just 6% moisture and burn far cleaner and hotter than seasoned and kiln dried wood. We sell them by the kilo but at bulk prices, so they are very cheap. This is our way to try to help local people to tackle fuel poverty in a time of escalating energy prices. 

We have also marked out a few 1m2 spaces for micro pop up shops that we hope to rent cheaply to local makers and creators who use recycled materials to create fantastic new products to sell to the local community.

The Middle Room contains lots of donated tools for Weymouth's own "library of things", called WeyShare, to loan out for a small fee. Items such as pressure washers and carpet cleaners that would normally be used once a year and take up valuable space in someone's home. We will add informal house retrofitting advice provided by a local resident whose net zero carbon Victorian terraced house was listed on Dorset Greener Homes and had a paper published by the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee and hope to add a repair clinic soon too as we have a close relationship with Repair Cafe Weymouth! The room also has a small area to host tiny audiences who will listen and ask questions of local sustainability pioneers and experts as we record the conversations for a series of podcasts that we hope will inform and promote the shop and its mission. For example a local expert forager, allotment gardeners, sustainable artists and successful house retrofit pioneers will be invited to come and talk to us and our community via the podcasts.

The Back Room will be used for milling dried local seaweed to create a powdered food flavour enhancing additive which is extremely nutritious. We have acquired a commercial milling machine to do this (which could also be rented to home bakers who wish to mill their own flour) and are building a drying greenhouse in the backyard made from recycled uPVC double glazing units. We already have local health food shops and local restaurants interested in buying the product. We might also sell Weymouth Dried Seaweed online! There is so much we can all do to become more environmentally conscious but a lot of people don't know where to start. The most important step for us is to secure the future of the shop for the next six months whilst all of these services establish themselves and grow to produce a sustainable income that will cover the shop rent of £375 per month.

Sharing Our Experiences and Knowledge

We are committed to sharing what we are doing and how the shop operates, what works and what doesn't work, with the wider world and particularly other UK local communities who might wish to follow us and set up their own Circular Shops. 

If we can keep the shop going we feel certain that it will find a place in the heart of the local community and do a lot of eco-good for many years to come. Do please help us to keep it open and looking out for the community and the planet. Thank you.

This project successfully funded on 12th April 2022