Ekologi started life as a small riverside workshop in South Wales in 2011, building rustic furniture from old reclaimed pallets. The business made its mark selling rustic spice racks and started to focus on it’s most popular line, which was shelving. Whilst they still provide rustic shelving and spice racks, they want their shop to be so much more.
After two years of hard work, in March 2020 they opened a retail store, offering wholefood refills and eco toiletries. Since opening, they have expanded further to sell a section of local produce, art work and crafts and are always looking to improve and expand upon their product ranges.
They’re a small team of like minded individuals who want to help reach the Welsh Government’s goal of achieving zero waste by 2050, by being at the forefront of innovative and progressive manufacturing and retail methods.
They need the public’s help to make Ekologi a success now that restrictions are lifting.
Their goals are as follows:
– Offer a wider range of wholefoods at cheaper prices to make healthy and plastic free refills available to the community.
– Refurbish their garden area into a community space for customers to learn how to grow their own food and also enjoy a cup of our specialty teas.
– Hold free and paid-for workshops in store and in the garden on topics such as sustainability, crafts, herbs and tea. They’d also like to make the garden available to local yoga teachers to use for free.
– Turn their middle room into a maker-space for hot desks and for community use of their equipment such as the 3D printer – at a low cost and discounted rate for students.
– Acquire new equipment for their makers room such as a laser cutter and CNC machine.
– Start specific training for staff to increase their knowledge on technical equipment, so they can offer better guidance and support to people using the equipment
– Focus on creating temporary volunteer work-experience programmes that will give people in the community that are struggling to find employment a better chance at finding work. With relevant experience in retail, food handling, art & design, crafts, woodwork, lab technician work, general building and more, they hope to share their diverse array of collective knowledge with the community. Participants will, in some cases, not only receive relevant experience but also mini qualifications or certificates that can be used to boost C.V’s when seeking employment.
– Hold quarterly exhibitions to continue to support and promote local Welsh artists
– Offer a free waste oil collection service in store
Ekologi isn’t just a business model, but an idea. And they’d like to share that idea with everyone.
Please help the business owner Lewis Reid with his crowdfunding campaign https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/ekologi-sustainable-living
We at Cardiff Times, happened to stumble across a bench made out of plastic waste in Cardiff Bay! Recycling is definitely the way forward.
