Last month, Karen Parsons opened the doors to Mainline Green Home, a Berwyn boutique she hopes will be a one-stop shop for all things eco-friendly. “My goal when I was doing the buying for the boutique was to find beautiful and useful items that just happen to be green,” she says.
The shop is filled with wares made from re-purposed items—oak barrel staves from California wine country transformed into a pub table and stools; super-unique purses and accessories by English Retreads, a Colorado company that uses reclaimed truck inner tubes; clocks made from recycled bike chains and gears; and vinyl records shaped into bowls. Parsons also carries luxurious Caldrea cleaning products and all-natural, hive-based Naked Bee skin-care items, shampoos and more. “Sometimes items are green because they’re very useful,”
Parsons says.
One particularly useful item is the Laptop Lunch Kit, a thermal zippered carrying case that houses a large snap-shut tray, five reusable, microwave-safe food containers, a sport bottle, and a stainless steel fork and spoon—so no more brown paper bags or plastic bags for lunch.
And Mainline Green Home even has a special area with toys and books set aside for kids, so parents can shop in peace. “I want this to be a community-based shop,” says Parsons. “A place where people love to shop—and practice good stewardship of the Earth and resources while doing so.”
Berwyn Primary Shops, 812 Lancaster Ave., Berwyn; (610) 639-3650, mainlinegreenhome.com.
