The Source is where conversations begin about sustainability and end with a giant bag of dark chocolate granola.

Most of us have our favourite places to go in Toronto. For me, one of them is Leslieville’s zero waste bulk foods shop, The Source.

More than a specialty bulk foods store offering a wide range of high-quality products, the shop is a source of inspiration and information for Toronto’s growing green community. There’s always a conversation about where our food comes from or how to substitute one type of product for another ‌to reduce our carbon footprint.

Open since October 2021, The Source already has its fair share of regulars who, like myself, are excited to join that conversation and fight climate change—one scoop at a time.

“We have a large extended family of regular customers who have elected The Source Bulk Foods as a natural extension to their kitchen pantry, and we love you all,” said Charles Peronnin, The Source’s Regional Franchise Partner for Eastern Canada.

From baking powder to bee pollen, it’s an eclectic pantry and home to over 450 bulk foods, including organic whole foods, cooking liquids and oils, healthy snacks and sustainable personal and household products. You’ll find just about everything at The Source, but you won’t find single-use plastic.

Charles explained the closer to home you can source a product, the easier and economically viable it is to move that product around without generating packaging waste.

Ye old circular economy is making a come back in Toronto

The Source works with small local food producers to get away from the fossil-fuel-driven ecosystems of food supply.

Until the plastics industry scaled up and explored the versatility of petro-chemicals circa World War II, the predominant supply infrastructure was a closed loop. Wooden crates and barrels, robust jute bags and glass bottles were integral to a circular economy, said Charles.

“In today’s economy and supply chain environment, the application of closed-loop systems is challenging,” he said, pointing to regulatory food hygiene constraints and transport logistics as two of many reasons. “Most suppliers just won’t play along, even if they wanted to.” 

Besides inspiring consumers, this zero-waste bulk foods shop hopes to influence other retailers and suppliers to push for more closed-loop systems since ‌the real shift needs to happen upstream.

A closed loop system has other benefits beyond environmental, including recycling local dollars into the local economy and supporting diversity in our local food systems.

6 zero-waste bulk products we promise you’ll love

1. Crickets – Yum. Or rather tasteless in my breakfast smoothie, but full of protein. Because of its neutral flavor, cricket powder can be used in a variety of recipes, including baked goods and salad dressings for an extra boost of energy.

2. Pomegranate Powder – I easily consume more than the “recommended” 2 litres of water a day with pomegranate powder from The Source. It’s like refreshing Kool Aid but for adults. Organic pomegranate powder contains both punicalagin and punicic acid–two antioxidants that are up to three times as effective as green tea. 

3. Bergamot All-Purpose Cleaner – Fill up your home with a beautiful bergamot fragrance every time you clean.

4. Lavender Mint Hand and Body Wash – Impressive. A little drop under running bath water  will fill your tub with a thick layer of bubbles and a magnificent aroma for a relaxing soak.

5. Mylk – Locally sourced, low-waste plant-based and closed loop, the shop’s plant mylk concentrates are the gold standard. Just mix the concentrate with water and shake it up for fresh plant mylk.

The guilty pleasure is all mine

Charles is fanatic about the Vanilla Malt Granola which comes from an East Toronto chef who bakes it on-demand in small batches.

No batch ever tastes the same.

“The difference in the richness of flavors between a freshly baked small batch granola and standard industrialized production is unimaginable until you’ve had the opportunity to taste the difference,” said Charles, describing the Vanilla Malt Granola as a journey through childhood. “It blew my mind the first time I ever tried it and, six months later, it continues to surprise and delight me nearly every morning.”

But that’s not his only guilty pleasure. While this zero-waste bulk foods shop offers brown paper bags for scooping, they encourage customers to bring in their own jars to fill up (or refill).

“One of my guilty pleasures is walking a regular customer through their first time carrying their own container,” said Charles. “At that point I know that we’ve convinced one more person to challenge their usual approach to food consumption, and possibly start forming new mindful shopping habits.”

I’m watching the Simpsons on an overcast March afternoon before I go to see Robert Farmer in his studio. It seems fitting: with his pop-culture obsessions, penchant for the sacrilege, and 80’s inspired adolescent colour schemes, Rob seems like the kind of adult Bart Simpson would look up to.

I could say a lot about his background, but what I’ll say first is: Rob is a cool guy. He’s who you’d meet at a bar and have a totally unanticipated but welcome conversation about why the acid wash trend should’ve died 20 years ago. He has an infectious smile and a raucous laugh; it would be hard not to like him. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Rob reminds me a lot of the guys I grew up with in my own rural town. We’re living the same neighbohrhood, and he’s not afraid to tell me where the good coffee is, and where to never go. Mercury Espresso is a local favourite. Rob hosted a Hot Dog show inside for patrons and neighbours.

Robert is a self-made artist, with a few foundation courses from Emily Carr and Kootenay School of the Arts in Nelson, British Columbia. He used to work in computer illustration, but quit soon after he’d started. He tells me he was working too much and enjoying none of it. I ask him if he’d ever go back to it: “Absolutely not. I’d say: ‘Fuck you, there’s nothing you can pay me’.”

As I take in the space, I’m greeted by a pepto-bismol, Molly Ringwald Pretty in Pink corridor. He later tells me, “Pink is my favorite color. So I thought, why not paint the wall?” Robert Farmer is a house-painter by day, and canvas-painter by night. It’s pretty easy to see the connections between his two lines of work. There’s a perfect palette match between sakura blossoms, hearts and the Laura Ingalls Wilder style dress on an inquisitive looking kitten in his piece Lucky Charms and the wall. Rob tells me; “Sugar is the first drug we’re exposed to,” and I can’t argue with him.

Upcycling plays a major role in a Robert Farmer artwork. As I’m toured around the studio, I’m shocked by how many items Rob has managed to recycle, sometimes even twice. Even his drafting table is a curbside upcycle. Sanding pads from his painting jobs have been his latest effort, since he lives in an abundance of them. Little multiples sit on his wall, featuring middle America idols such as Beavis and Butthead, the Kool-Aid man, Hamburger Helper and the signature hotdog.

Value village canvases are also a favorite, with an otherworldly hotdog foregrounded on a J.M.W. Turner style landscape adorning one of his walls.

Collage using old scraps of comics, roadmaps, and whatever else Rob can get his hands on figure prominently in a portrait of Star Wars’ R2D2. Upcycling art came to Rob in the early stages of the pandemic, and has impacted his process ever since. Stores were closed, and Rob had to use what was immediately on hand. A lot of the time, this meant work materials, or just plain old recycling. He focussed on material exploration, using destroyed art books, comic books and acrylic transfers to get the effect. Rob tells me some of his experiments were just too weird to show. Coming from a man who paints bunny orgies, I had to take his word for it.

I ask Rob about his ideal day. He tells me, interspersed through other conversations:

Waking up to a warm summer day, I’m probably wearing shorts from my night out at the bar yesterday. I’m taking my bike and a beer to Cherry Beach. And I’m going dancing where I’m going to meet interesting people. I like music I can dance to.

I leave with a hotdog multiple in hand. Coincidentally, Rob catches me not two days later eating a hotdog on my work lunch. There’s something poetic about full circle endings.

The plastic waste spilled like milk across my kitchen floor, but I did not cry. 

Instead, the mountain of disposable containers collecting in my kitchen earlier this year filled my eyes with clarity and opened them to the insidiousness of single-use plastic. The issue for me isn’t how long single-use plastics take to decompose (hundreds of years), but how easily it gets into our homes. 

Hidden behind seductive brand names and attractive colours, single-use plastic is pretty much invisible — until it’s in a clear plastic recycling bag headed for the plastic blue bin. In my attempt to repurpose (upcycle/reuse) ALL the plastic packaging that snuck in, I realized some serious lifestyle changes were in order. The demand (I’m guessing) for my repurposed plastic butterfly strands and bleach hut bird houses – as cute as they are – will never be enough for the amount the plastic coming in, unless I make a conscious effort to change.

 After getting to know the various grades of single-use plastics housed in my kitchen cupboard, I concluded some are best off re-used in their present form, or as close to it as possible, than punched into to shapes. The less work involved, the better. Sunflower hummus containers became containers for hummus I made with chickpeas and my empty bottle of Palmolive dish soap went to Token in Riverside for a refill instead of the recycling bin. It delighted me recently to discover several stores in Toronto offer refill stations, which will tremendously cut down the amount of single-use plastic in my home. After loading up on shampoo at The Source Bulk Foods in Leslieville, I told my neighbour all about this trend (and tried, and failed, to give away a few plastic containers at the same time). 

Ultimately the solution requires a significant change in how we view single-use plastic. If you can see past the marketing, you may find it isn’t necessary at all. The next time you pick up a plastic bottle or container of ANYTHING, consider what alternatives are available.  Scrub your tub with baking soda and vinegar. Exfoliate with coffee. The abundance of options, likely already in your kitchen, might surprise you. 

As long as it’s cheap to produce and expensive to recycle, the world’s plastic problem will persist  – unless we pay attention and stop the demand for it. 

Fast fashion has no home in my carefully curated eco-friendly closet.

Ever since discovering the secondhand shop Petticoat Lane — downtown Cobourg in 1994 — I’ve had a passion for vintage fashion. The little shop smelled of mothballs but the ‘Three for 25 cents’ bin was irresistible with ‘new’ whimsical accessories and clothing every week: adorable cardigans, pre-loved Levi’s jeans and satin dresses straight out of the 70s. I was in love and spent so many hours digging and dreaming around Petticoat Lane. 

Second hand is stylish and sustainable

As a creative person, fashion has always been one way I’ve expressed myself, both consciously or unconsciously. By the end of high school, my closet was full of special second-hand pieces from shops around Cobourg, ON and Toronto. I also got used to receiving compliments on rare finds and weird looks from complete strangers. It fills me with so much satisfaction to share the insanely low price of a high-quality piece I just scored secondhand. I’ll then give you the name of the shop, directions, Insta handle. Whatever you need to get there. Vintage items are great conversation starters. 

Trading hard earned money for brand new clothes gives me an innate sense of remorse almost immediately after the transaction. It’s like paying for pine cones at the Dollar Store when they’re free in the park.

You are what you wear

My love of vintage clothing has become less about style (and budget) these days and more about sustainability. This shift happened around 2020 when I noticed brands like SHEIN popping up and advertising super cheap clothes all over the internet, primarily to super broke Generation Zs and Millennials. With more and more mainstream brands making poor quality pieces that are designed to go out of style in weeks, it’s no wonder the fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters. This trend has been going on and getting worse since 2001 when outsourcing manufacturing to factories overseas and cheap labour became the norm thanks to globalisation (and greed). Fast or slow, new clothing production requires tons of water, electricity and land to grow materials. ‘You are what you wear’ should be the new, ‘You are what you eat.’ 

How to thrift like a pro

When Dana suggested last week that we go thrifting at Value Village, of course I was all in and then then remembered to write a list! If you don’t have a list before second hand shopping, you’re guaranteed to spend more than what you budgeted for and leave without what you went for. Here are a few more thrifting tips: 

• Bring bags 
• If you’re going to Value Village, donate something from your closet or kitchen for a discount 
• Don’t go hangry 
• Dress for undressing 
• Learn how to discern quality 

As Dana and I looked through the aisles, along with other thrift shoppers, and talked about fashion, home decor and consumption, I felt the same sense of enjoyment I felt when I discovered Petticoat Lane. With climate change in the news and on everyone’s minds, second hand will no doubt be the first choice for more consumers in the future. I look forward to the day when wearing vintage is in vogue. Until then, I hope to let you know that SHEIN hauls are harmful to the planet and there’s nothing posh about that.

Eco-friendly products we love

This is where you can find K-media’s favourite planet-friendly products, sourced from independent shops around Toronto.

Safe for the planet skincare at Scout.

Beauty bars at Urban Bulk & Refill.

Calming candles at Good Neighbour.

A green way get rid of grime at Token.

Go plastic-free with Province of Canada