Even though most people don’t realize, on average Australian’s use 130kg per person of plastic each year, with only 9% of that being reusable. This is a serious problem, something that most people cease to realize.

When given a project at school, with the only guidelines being that ‘it had to help make a change’ myself and my friend came up with ‘EcoPoint’ a business idea to re-sell products that minimize single use plastic.

After making a basic plan, we researched how, and what we were going to sell so that it was achievable but also something that could make an impact. After weeks of research, we came across silicone food covers, a product that can be used to cover tins, bowls, or even fruit instead of using glad-wrap or zip-lock bags. We purchased these products cheaply and then packaged them up to be resold. After doing this, we realized that this wasn’t enough to start a small business at our school, so knowing that it was the festive season, we thought it would be cool to sell plants in pots as sustainable gift ideas. This paid off, as at our year 8 end of year celebration, we sold all our plants and silicone food covers in just a few hours.

After this success, we proceeded to start selling our products in our school’s pop- up shop, Runway. Since that time, we continued to sell these silicon food covers and plants that we have propagated ourselves. This may not be making a huge difference, but it has inspired many people to live a more sustainable life.