I'm Carina, a Brazilian product designer living in Amsterdam since 2016. I'm passionate about nature, the environment, and animals, and I have been doing my best to respect our natural resources since I was a little child. My passion for these topics came mainly from the summer vacations I spent at my Austrian grandmother's farm in Brazil (on the main photo) when I was a kid. She was an agronomist pioneer in organic farming.
My grandma was a simple person happy just to have nature around her. She used to mend all her and our clothes. When necessary, she healed the body only with plants and teas. She planted and made most of her food at the farm. Because of this, most of the waste was compostable and became food for what she grew. She shared her knowledge of organic farming to empower as many farmers as possible and improve the life quality through the food we eat. So my aim now is also to share her precious teachings with the people around me, customers, and followers - focusing on our plastic consumption.
In 2019, I realized that our plastic waste is not really recycled as most of the manufacturing companies disclose on their packaging: only 9% is recycled worldwide and between 50% and 60% in the NL! I felt that I need to do something, starting by analysing a way I could decrease my own waste at home. A quick win would have been to find alternatives to the common single plastic use products in normal shops, but I couldn’t find many. Talking with friends and people around me (including at my kids’ school), I also realized that many people lack environmental education and/or they don’t know or care too much about the waste they are creating.
After that, Beewise was founded to encourage people to live a sustainable life by helping and informing them to make conscious choices with the day-to-day products they use. Beewise's mission is to reduce plastic use by making sustainable, reusable, and non-toxic products available to everyone. Our packaging is plastic-free and compostable. At Beewise, we believe that through small changes, we can collectively make a big impact on our planet!
Circular Economy
Circular consumption is all about minimising the number of products purchased, utilizing products as long as possible, and reducing waste. Having this in mind, at Beewise, we only sell products that are reusable, home compostable, and/or recycled infinitely after their disposal (e.g. stainless steel). Our packaging and labels are always in kraft paper (natural and unbleached paper) and home compostable, reducing waste material as minimum as possible.
Plastic Pollution
We are still small, but we are happy to give our contribution and help where we can. Therefore we have decided to support the Plastic Soup Foundation, giving them 1% of our profit.
This Foundation does a fantastic work combatting plastic pollution at its source. They are based in Amsterdam but have an international
focus.