I started Grove Market because I was tired of buying a “compostable” sponge that fell apart in a week, then finding a plastic core inside.

Here’s the bar we use for home goods:

• If it only works once, it isn’t sustainable. Refill bottles, wooden brushes, glass, linen — things that survive a year in a real kitchen.

• Packaging counts. A bamboo dish brush in a clamshell is still plastic.

• Materials should be named. “Eco-friendly” is not a material.

Sellers who can pass that bar can list. Shoppers who are done guessing can shop here.

If you make kitchen, cleaning, or refill products without the greenwash, join as a seller. If you’ve been burned by Amazon’s eco aisle, stay close — the catalog is being built now.

If you've ever bought something labeled sustainable and felt worse two weeks later, you're not wrong. Recycled plastic packaging on a product that still falls apart is not a values purchase. It's marketing.

At Grove we only list independent makers who can answer three questions without flinching:

1. What is this made of, and where did that material come from?

2. Who made it, and under what conditions?

3. What happens to it when you're done using it?

If they hedge on any of those, we don't list them. That's why the catalog stays small.

The people we sell to already feel the guilt of everyday consumption. The job isn't to soothe it with a leaf logo. The job is to give them one object they can keep.