Sustainability
We don't manufacture anything. We find small makers who are already doing the work properly, and bring their products together in one place.
How products qualify
Every product we stock has to clear the same bar. It has to replace something disposable. It has to be made from a material that either grew back or was already waste. And it has to be good enough that you'd choose it even if the environmental case didn't exist, because a bamboo brush that falls apart in a month isn't sustainable, it's just slower landfill.
That bar means there's plenty we don't stock. Synthetic fragrance oils, plug-in diffusers, scented powders in plastic tubs: all of it sells, and none of it is what we're for.
Where things are made
Most of what we sell is made in Britain. Some isn't, and we'd rather say so plainly than imply otherwise. Our coconut and bamboo products are made in Vietnam by the workshops that have the skills and the raw material; our herbal teas are gathered in Bulgaria; our Ayurvedic range is blended to formulations that come from India.
What matters to us is that these are small operations using natural or reclaimed materials, not that everything carries a Union Jack.
Packaging
Ralph's Orchard hand-pour candles and cold-press soap bars in small British batches, without palm oil and without plastic packaging. Packaging varies by maker and product; we won't claim every item has the same packaging approach.
Handmade variation and reclaimed materials
Jungle Culture work with family-run workshops in rural Vietnam, turning coconut shells left over from the food industry into bowls and spoons, and bamboo into straws, cutlery and toothbrushes. The shells would otherwise be burned.
Paguro Upcycle make bags, belts, wallets and jewellery from punctured bicycle inner tubes, worn motorbike tyres and decommissioned military canvas. Every piece is cut and stitched by hand, which is why no two are marked quite the same.
Where a product is handmade from reclaimed material, it will vary. Where something is out of stock, it's usually because a workshop of four people hasn't finished the next batch.
What we won't pretend
Buying a bamboo toothbrush does not offset a flight. We're not going to tell you otherwise. What a plastic-free swap does is remove one small, permanent stream of waste from your house, and if enough households do it, the demand signal reaches the people who make the plastic in the first place.
We're also honest about the limits of what we know. If you want to know where something came from, ask us. If we can't answer, we'll go to the maker and find out at info@propergreen.com.