THE mayor of Aberystwyth will officially open a new shop on Great Darkgate Street this afternoon.

The Climate Shop, which is opening in premises formerly occupied by Burton and Dorothy Perkins, is where people buy used goods in ‘trees planted’ in Kenya, instead of pounds and pence.

This is the second Climate Shop in Ceredigion, with the first opening in Lampeter’s former Post Office in April.

Veteran forester, Ru Hartwell, came up with the idea during lockdown and said: “It’s a pretty simple ‘Junk into Carbon’, project really.

“People give us their unwanted gear and we sell it to fund tree planting down in Kenya. As they grow, the trees draw down carbon and so help to keep the planet cool.”

With a floor area of 6,500 sq ft, two floors and 10 departments, Climate Shop is stocked with donated household items.

It follows on from the success of a smaller shop in Lampeter which has raised enough cash to plant 125,000 trees since April.

“The community here have really taken to the idea and they’ve given us fantastic support.” Says Ru.

“It’s a bit of a win-win all round. Less stuff goes to landfill, fewer resources are consumed in making new products, poorer local people get some cheap gear, whilst African farmers receive a helping hand and the planet gets a few more cooling tropical trees.”

Explaining how the pricing works, Ru said: “Normally whenever we buy something new, the natural world is harmed because everything has to be manufactured, processed and delivered etc. but this is a nature-positive shop.

“Here, every single purchase plants trees which support biodiversity and absorb Carbon. It costs us 20p to plant each tree so if a frying pan is priced at 10 trees planted, it will cost £2”.

Cllr Alun Williams, Aberystwyth Mayor, officially open the shop at 1.30pm on Saturday afternoon and said: “In a drastically changed economy, it’s going to take locally based innovation like this to fill the gaps in the high street, left by the old chain stores.”

Climate Shop is managed by Treeflights Ltd, a 100 per cent non-profit company (Company Number 6462199) and is part funded under the Welsh Government’s Wales and Africa Grant Scheme