The confident consumerism that is Spring Fair’s abiding hallmark is steadily being tempered by softer message – the environment matters and consumers are demanding we respect it. You didn't have to look too hard at the NEC this week to find suppliers with a green story to tell.
Nine years ago, inventor Dan Dicker set up a company to make eco-products from re-cycled coffee cups. He called it ashortwalk – because the factory (initially a shed) is close to the North Cornwall coast and he always wanted to work and live a short walk from the sea. You may have seen some of their products at Glee a couple of years ago – house numbers and signs, among others, that mimmicked slate but started life as plastic cups.
The range has since balloned and now includes indoor and outdoor products like sundials, plant labels, clocks and themometers – and a brand new range of bird feeders designed to take kitchen scraps that might otherwise end up in the black bin. Also interesting is a clever new plant pot holder designed to fit between the boards of a standard lapped fence for vertical decoration.
Naturally, the company has an insatiable demand for for raw material – no longer just old coffee cups but something very close to the heart of gardeners everywhere…old plant pots.
The company have already persuaded around 20 garden centre stockists to carry their plant pot recycling point in-store. Its header board tells the story: “A redundant plant pot one week, a birdfeeder the next – true ‘closed loop’ re-cycling.”
There isn't a keen gardener alive who doesn't want to do something about the growing mountain of old plant pots in the garden shed, and with more and more garden centres now accepting them back for re-cycling, this must be an idea whose time has come – with the bonus that customers can see for themselves how their discards will be turned into useful garden products.
Simon Dicker (Dan’s brother), the company’s sales director, says that another 20 garden centres happy to take the re-cycling point could give them critical mass to roll the initiative out nationwide. Surely, another opportunity for the garden centre industry to claim a significant eco Brownie point.
Information 01872 57500
www.ashortwalk.com
Elsewhere, a new company called Green Corgi showed an sculpted fruit bowl handmade by gluing 128 different pieces of laser-cut recycled cardboard together. A water-based impregnation makes it water- and dirt resistant.
The company, who used Spring Fair as their launchpad, represents independent international product designers. The products, unique and innovative in functionality and design, include glassware, lacquer trays, glassware, fine bone china, new bone china, coat hangers, hooks and pegs.
Green Corgi's founder David Grey with the recycled cardboard fruit bowl.
