Comments on: Packaging sucks. Avoid packaging.

By: Le-Chat

Le-Chat — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:36:39 +0000

By the way to fill my own packets I go for the old-fashioned crumpled up newspaper. Never buying any, but the local ones come for free in my mail box weekly. Hoping the recipients will bring it to the paper recycling collection points.
I make my own strong envelopes from banana box paper.
And for item wrapping I use the non-staining colourful ad folders that equally come (unwanted) for free in my mail box.
For the more delicate wrapping I curb shop: looking for shoe boxes and taking the silky paper from them.

By: Le-Chat

Le-Chat — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:18:58 +0000

What worries me a lot too is food packaging. You know all that plastic to sell mini quantities of yoghurt, desserts etc. Buy a card board box to find another plastic wrapping inside… We avoid such products by mostly cooking from scratch, buying only the basic ingredients in as large a packaging we have room for to store or we will likely use up fast enough.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:03:06 +0000

Susan, thank you so much for the complement. We greatly appreciate it! I would think it could be an interesting proposition to sell shredded paper as packing material. And Silicon Valley would be very sunny for us at this time of the year.

By: Susan Davis - GreenPointCoach

Susan Davis - GreenPointCoach — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:45:54 +0000

Hi you ‘guys’ – I’m so liking the shredding idea, and just this morning saw an ad from Office Max that they have a shredding service. I’m going to check it out to see what they do with the shredded material – seems like this could be a source for a better packing material for some shippers located close to an Office Max. Here in Silicon Valley (not quite as sunny as San Diego, but almost …), we also have shredding services that shred for big corporations – wonder what they do with their shreds? Hmmm. Methinks I might have stumbled on an interesting cottage business for some enterprising, out-of-work, sustainably minded, someone!
BTW – I love getting your posts each morning! It starts my day thinking.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:39:44 +0000

Derek, now that you mention it, I have seen more of that kind of packaging and it is certainly more eco-friendly than styrofoam.

Susan, I should go to Stone Impressions to take a tour. I could certainly use a little San Diego weather right now (and I looooove the Mission Bay area)! Although it may not work well for larger companies, a while ago I wrote about junk mail and find that shredded waste to be perfect for packing material. Ideally, I would be able to stop all junk mail, but unfortunately I think that may be impossible to stop completely.

Thanks for the suggestions and comments! Your input and visits are appreciated.

By: Susan Davis - GreenPointCoach

Susan Davis - GreenPointCoach — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:06:01 +0000

Packaging! This has been one of my ‘pet-peeves’ for years! One of our vendors in San Diego, Stone Impressions, has a great solution. They purchased a heavy duty shredder and shred cardboard to use as packing material for shipments of tile. My Stone Impressions friend, Ken, said that they ‘dumpster-dive’ to retrieve cardboard boxes not being recycled properly to have enough materials to shred. The worker-guys love to feed the shredder, too, as it’s a great way to relieve anger, etc.! The shredded cardboard is easily compostable, or recyclable, too. In fact, you could use it as mulch on your garden, if you were really creative, or throw it into your composter to mix with the other organic matter!

By: Derek

Derek — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:43:41 +0000

One trend that I’ve noticed is the use of “air bags” instead of packaging peanuts. Rather than filling a box with hundreds of stryofoam peanuts, one could use a few plastic bags filled with air. Not only do they use less material, but they are recyclable.

This trend isn’t as popular as it could be, I still received the majority of my packages with stryofoam.