The LOTI Heroes Campaign
Being obsessed with all things London, we try to experience as much of the city as possible, from eating out at new openings to visiting the latest exhibitions or heading down to whatever crazy event or festival is taking place. Along the way, we meet so many amazing, inspiring Londoners, those creative individuals who contribute to making this city the best in the world. While we have been celebrating our favourite people for years now, in our weekly LDNERS interviews (and soon to be podcast), this week we’re launching a brand new campaign, LOTI Heroes, to highlight those extra-specially brilliant Londoners who are striving to make London and the world a better place, through charity, social enterprises, ethical fashion and sustainable living.
Each day this week we’ll be bringing you five Londoners in five different categories that we think are truly inspirational. Today is all about Eco Warriors, the individuals helping us to help the planet whether that’s by ditching plastic or using wasted food to make tasty drinks and snacks. We think the five below are doing great things and we hope you enjoy reading their stories.
We Want YOUR nominations
But that’s not all – we want to hear your suggestions too. If you know a Londoner breaking that’s on the frontline of tackling environmental issues for the good of the city and our planet, please get in touch using the form at the end of this article. We’ll add the best to our own to create a list of our favourite Londoners championing change for the better and announce the full LOTI Heroes list in early July.
Tom Fletcher | Rejuce
Tom Fletcher turns fruit and veg destined for the bin into juices with his company Rejuce. He lives and breathes his work, living in a flat right above his production kitchen in Hackney Wick. He chose Hackney Wick after researching for his dissertation in Food Waste and discovering that there was a huge edible food waste site just by the Olympic Stadium and deciding that he had to do something about it. Rejuce aim to use all food waste from the farms they work with. So far, farms and packaging plants have reduced their food waste levels by 75% since working with Rejuce; this equates to 300 tonnes which is very impressive!
rejuce.co.uk
Chloë Stewart | Nibs Etc
nibs etc. is about making delicious snacks from ingredients that would normally be thrown away, to fight food waste, and enable customers to reduce their carbon footprint. nibs etc. was launched as a food and photography blog in 2015, about upcycling leftovers and no waste recipes. Chloe then landed upon a brilliant food waste product – juice pulp – that she began to collect from juice bars to make into granola. From there business has blossomed, winning at the WeWork Creators Awards (twice) and setting up at Borough Market where she now sells crackers, brownies and loaf cakes alongside the granola.
nibsetc.com
Ingrid Caldironi & Bruna Martins | Bulk Market
We all know that unnecessary packaging, single-use plastics and other non-recyclable materials are terrible for the planet both in their manufacture and in their disposal. But avoiding them isn’t always easy unless you really search it out. Enter Ingrid Caldironi’s Bulk Market, a zero waste shop in Hackney where you bring your own containers, fill them up with everything from rice to dog biscuits and head home with zero packaging.
bulkmarket.uk
Ben Todd | Arcola Theatre
As Director of the Arcola Theatre in Dalson, Ben Todd has been responsible for making it one of the greenest venues in the UK. With a mission to make it the world’s first carbon-neutral theatre, he has implemented several initiatives over the years to help the theatre reach this goal, adopting greener practices and technologies as well as helping to raise awareness about climate change. From the early days, Ben had solar panels and a carbon-neutral heating system installed and has continued to find new ways to further improve the former paint factory’s environmental impact. If you think about all the bright lights in a theatre it’s clear that lighting is a massive drain on resources and in 2017 Ben teamed up with Phillips in install low energy LED stage lighting which resulted in a 36% power saving. It’s an amazing effort and shows what can be done by companies if a bit of care and thought is put into what energy they use and what they do with waste. There are some great shows on all the time at the Arcola so this is definitely a great one to support – just make sure you walk or hop on your bike to get there!
arcolatheatre.com
Marta Tarallo | Bottega Zero Waste
When it comes to single-use plastics, beauty products and bathroom essentials are some of the worst offenders – liquid hand soaps, shower gel, and shampoos often come in packaging that can’t be recycled. Moving away from these products is clearly an essential step to reducing our plastic consumption but of course, we all need to stay clean at the same time! The zero waste beauty movement is gaining traction now as big brands such as L’Oreal pledge to make all their packaging recyclable by 2025 and lush opening its first packaging-free shop in the UK.
However, we wanted to introduce you to a Londoner, Marta Tarallo, who makes beautiful hand made soaps from all natural ingredients with traditional methods. This means she produces no waste when making them and the soap’s packaging is obtained using algae skimmed from the surface of the Venice lagoon interlocked with FSC certified and sustainable wood. How good is that! Marta also runs soap-making workshops so if you’re feeling inspired, you can learn to make your own. With natural materials and no unnecessary chemicals, the soaps are good for your skin too, so you can have a clean body AND a clean conscience.
bottegazerowaste.com
We want to hear about the people or brands you know of that are really tackling environmental issues for the good of the city and our planet.
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