Convenience stores are almost an essential in our lives. Apart from ready-made food and drinks, they are also convenient supplies of our daily necessities.
But when we get the better end of the deal with “convenience”, who’s at the worse end?
The answer is our planet Earth, according to The [Not-So] Convenience Store that just opened in the Bugis-Bras Basah district.
Having all the looks of a normal convenience store, your regular easy-use-and-throw products are nowhere to be found.
Instead, it offers sustainable alternatives that can be reused and recycled.
The Not-So Convenience Store is, as the name suggests, not-so convenient.
It is an exhibition-cum-shop that aims to highlight how much damage the culture of convenience has caused to the earth.
So rather than using plastic bags that will take an eternity to disintegrate, destroy our soil, and choke our wildlife, the store is encouraging us to use some hip-looking reusable ones.
Instead of finding the usual toilet paper that’s eating away our precious forests, the store also packs a selection of this household necessity made of recyclable material.
Many of us are guilty of dabao-ing food with plastic containers that are not microwavable and can’t be recycled.
But if saving Mother Earth is what you’ve been wanting to do for now, it’s not too late to start. You can try switching to lunchboxes with adorable designs as the first step.
They do require washing, and are not as convenient as their disposable counterparts. But they’ll be with you longer, are arguably cleaner and more personalised.
Othering than browsing, you can also play a part in the store’s sustainability concept.
If you have reusable bags of your own, feel free to donate them to be distributed to retailers to help cut down packaging waste.
You can also drop off small electronic items that you don’t have a place for anymore for e-waste recycling.
It doesn’t take much to help our mankind towards a better future — it really all starts with cutting down on your plastic consumptions.
There’s no denying that we live increasingly in a “culture of convenience“. We applaud the faster, the easier, and products requiring the least amount of efforts from us.
In fact, this is how convenience stores came to be such an essential part of our lives.
But did you know that one most direct consequence of such convenience is waste? Because disposables simply save us so much time and efforts.
It may shock you to know that we, as a nation, produced over 7 million tonnes of waste in 2019. That’s more than 14,000 Olympic-size swimming pools worth of rubbish.
Just like what Ms Nursalim, Creative Director at Kinetic Singapore (the agency
behind the exhibition) aptly points out:
With The [Not-So] Convenience Store, we want to tell people that there is a price to convenience — and it is being borne by the Earth.
Take a weekend and jio your friends to see how we can all play a part in saving Mother Earth.
The Not-So Convenience Store is located at the National Design Centre, just a 5-minute walk from Bugis and Bras Basah MRT stations.
The [Not-So] Convenience Store
Address: 111 Middle Rd, Singapore 188969
Opening Hours: 9am-9pm daily
Nearest MRT: Bugis & Bencoolen Station
Contact number: 6333 3737
Don’t know about you, but we are definitely going down to check the store out.
Besides doing our part in making Mother Earth beautiful again, let’s be honest, their stuff looks pretty darn cute, too.
Have news you must share? Get in touch with us via email at hello@mustsharenews.com.
Featured image courtesy of The [Not-So] Convenience Store.
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