Why I Started Package Free Shop

Five years ago I had a realization that even though I cared deeply about environmental sustainability, I wasn’t living that way. So I made a massive change in my life and decided to go Zero Waste in an effort to align my day-to-day actions with my values for environmental sustainability.

Fast forward and that decision has taken me many places both physically (for talks and conferences), and emotionally (I am now happier than I have ever been), and has afforded me the ability to take control of not just my waste, but also my life’s work through starting three companies all aimed at reducing waste, Trash is for Tossers, The Simply Co., and Package Free Shop.

Package Free Shop is my newest business, and the reason that I am writing this post.

Years ago I realized that there are so many incredible brands out there making products that help us to reduce waste and eliminate the need for single-use plastic. But I also realized, through being an individual living a Zero Waste lifestyle, that finding all of those products required a lot of time, a lot of internet trolling, and frankly, it just was just not convenient.

So I decided to change that.

I created Package Free Shop because I believe that as consumers we all should have convenient access to products that help us reduce our environmental impact. I also started Package Free Shop to empower amazing mission driven entrepreneurs who are dedicating their lives to tackling plastic pollution and waste and help their businesses to grow in a way that was sustainable.

Along the way, I met Daniel who stepped away from his company to help me to open Package Free Shop as a popup and make this dream a reality. He has now returned to run his company full-time, and I am so honored to be continuing the mission of Package Free as the sole founder and CEO of Package Free Shop, especially as a business that is women and minority owned and operated.

In the almost nine months that Package Free Shop has been open, we have helped the brands we carry to scale at a rate so quickly that many have had to take on additional employees since we have driven so much traffic to them, we have worked with brands to shift their shipping materials completely away from plastic, and have even inspired brands to remove packaging from their products altogether.

We have also enabled our customers to keep 21,598 plastic water bottles, 683,280 plastic bags, 229,000 single-use cups, and 903,448 plastic straws out of landfills.

But this is just the beginning!

I am so proud to be the founder and CEO of a company whose mission it is to educate people about Zero Waste, inspire the conversation about reducing our trash output, and provide solutions for single and multi-use plastic products that are irreparably damaging our natural environment.

I look forward to continuing to grow, to learn, and to expand with all of you as we continue to “Think Outside The Box” and help make plastic pollution and waste a thing of the past!