A BRAND new ‘zero waste shop’ will open its doors in Helensburgh this weekend.

The facility in East Clyde Street will sell goods entirely free of plastic packaging, including dry foods such as rice, pasta, beans, herbs and spices, with customers able to fill their own containers with whatever quantity they need.

Refillable laundry and cleaning liquids, and other ethically-sourced or locally-made products, will also be sold at the shop, which is part of ‘Cube Life’ – a new events venue created by James Steel, of RB Steel Removals, and freelance events planner Linsey Craig.

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James has set up a new business specialising in designing and building bespoke containers for use as homes, offices, shops, workspaces and gyms, after branching out from the removals trade in 2017 by developing used storage containers for other uses.

Cube Life, at 33 East Clyde Street, has already held a free open day last month and other events are planned including a street food festival at the end of September.

The launch of the new shop comes hard on the heels of the setting-up of the new ‘Plastic Free Helensburgh’ group, a gathering of like-minded local residents aiming to reduce the size of the town’s carbon footprint and, eventually, to see Helensburgh gain official ‘Plastic Free’ status.

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Following this Saturday’s launch, the new shop will be open five days a week every week, including weekends, though the exact opening hours have yet to be confirmed.

Linsey said: “The shop is really James’s initiative via Plastic Free Helensburgh – we are both entrepreneurial people, but James is an ideas kind of guy and is also very ecologically-friendly, so together we thought ‘we can actually make this happen’.”

Saturday’s launch event, which will also feature a pop-up coffee bar, will run from 11am until 4pm.