Living a Low-Waste Life: A Conversation With Precycle Founder, Katerina Bogatireva

Katerina Bogatireva is on a mission to provide a one-stop shop for conscious consumers. Triggered by her son's questions about plastic's lasting impact on the planet, she created a space combining the best of a farmer's market and bulk store, enabling her customers to shop in a more sustainable way.

The flagship Precycle store, one of two locations in Brooklyn, NY, opened in the Bushwick area in 2018, offering produce, bulk foods and personal care goods that forgo single-use packaging and avoid excess waste. Here, customers are encouraged to bring their own clean containers or purchase reusable ones. Bogatireva figured her stackable glass jars would not only reduce waste but aid her customers' space-saving habits, and help them keep track of what’s on hand in the kitchen. The sister store in Prospect Heights, which opened in April 2023, presents a different concept, focusing on prepackaged items and containers that are fully biodegradable or returnable for recycling.

Bogatireva sat down with WLLW to share her tips for cutting down single-use packaging at home and the importance of conducting a ‘waste audit’.

If someone is eager to reduce waste and single-use packaging at home, what are some tips to get them started?

Zero-waste isn't an end goal. It's a concept that people can aspire to. It's about making small changes in the home, and while I don't want to say that everything works for everybody - it's a very individual process - there are some fundamentals that I think are helpful to consider.

Start Composting

Starting to compost is my number one recommendation. Rotting food in landfills produces methane gas and that's not good for anyone. Psychologically, when I started composting I also began to look at produce differently. If you buy fresh food that's high quality and grown locally, you may pay a little extra but you also try to waste less of it. When composting, your peelings and other food leftovers can be returned to the earth as soil; you're really using that produce to its full potential. I also feel like it's nicer to have less trash coming out of your kitchen.

Think Creatively

For me, it's just looking at something creatively and thinking, “can I do without this? Or, can I replace it?” One of my easier swaps was just a bar of soap in the bathroom instead of plastic bottles of handwash. For others, it might be preparing healthy snacks at home, rather than buying them on the go.

Follow the 80/20 Rule

Throughout my whole journey, I learned that there are ways to avoid excess packaging in any store, and that’s what the 80/20 principle really is. 80 percent [of the time] you can do well [by shopping sustainably and eliminating single-use plastics] and 20 percent of the time you don't want to compromise [or give up your favorite body wash for instance]. I always like to compare it to going on a diet. If something is very strict, it’s unlikely you'll stick with it. But if it's something you can incorporate more easily, the results are going to be greater overall.

You’ve previously talked about the idea of a ‘waste audit’. What is that?

Look at your trash and see what's in it. Perhaps you will see some patterns emerge. What is the most wasteful material in your trash bin? From there you can look at it and say, “okay, what's the solution? This is where it comes from. Can I do something about it? Can I replace that item?” Then, start reducing the waste little by little - in the kitchen and throughout the house.

Since you’ve opened Precycle, have you seen any shift in consumer behavior?

I think the popularity of low-waste living and the rejection of single-use packaging from fossil fuels is growing for sure. I've heard from regular customers saying that this [store] was really a game changer for them and that some things they never considered are actually possible. I feel people are now more willing and more comfortable to go a little bit further to create less waste.

Katerina, thank you so much for speaking with us.

Photography: Precycle, Marina Moskvina Williams