Plastic Free Whitstable Business Champions: Buttercup

The raison d'être of Buttercup, the children's toy shop on Harbour Street, is selling toys, books, clothing and the like. The stock is made from natural products including wooden boats, woollen clothes and cloth books. The owner, Mary-Jane, set up the business 14 years ago, becoming one of Plastic Free Whitstable's first Business Champions. She said that eliminating single use plastic is fundamental to improving the legacy we leave for our children and she plays her part by removing it from her business.

As well as reusing and recycling, Buttercup no longer uses plastic bags, sticky price labels or plastic sticky tape and has even stopped writing with biros, using pencils instead. Greetings cards don't have cellophane wrapping and Mary-Jane lobbies her suppliers to remove plastic from their packaging.

Buttercup has found some things have been easy to change and others, such as finding suitable soft toys have been harder. (Soft toys are either stuffed with recycled plastic or corn starch.) Buying with a conscience and being true to the cause of eliminating plastic has added to their business costs but it matters to their customer base and has become easier as the years have gone by.  

https://www.buttercupwhitstable.co.uk/