Go Eco-Friendly With Your Shipping Supplies

Earth Day is just around the corner. While the rise of e-commerce has come with many benefits, one of the most concerning issues we face when it comes to e-commerce is the amount of waste it produces. Not only does shipping increase our carbon footprint, but packaging materials often end up in landfills.

But there are multiple ways to combat this problem, and even ways to do so without breaking the bank. While it is true that sustainable packaging is more expensive than standard packaging, there are ways to offset these costs.

One option is to allow customers to choose green shipping options when they place an order. This pushes some of the extra expenses of eco-friendly shipping supplies onto the consumer. And because your customers must choose this option, only customers who want to spend the extra money on sustainable practices will have to do so. You may also present customers with a delayed shipping option. With this option packages would be held for shipping until a larger number of products were being shipped to that area, decreasing the use of fuel.

You can also aim to decrease the amount of packaging used during shipping. Of course you need to abide by federal laws and use the right amount of packaging to protect your products, but take a look at your shipping practices and see if there’s any packaging that can be eliminated.

You can actually save money with this next tip – reduce the size of your shipping containers. Not only do you use fewer materials, but your package takes up less space, so your carbon footprint is improved. This helps you save money and helps the environment at the same time.

Consider leaving a note in the shipment asking your customers to recycle the packaging materials. If paper documents are already included with your shipments, it is simple enough to include a message about recycling on that document.

We have eco information about our shipping supplies on our website in an easy to scan chart. While all the terms are explained in detail on the website, we’re breaking them down here in quicker terms as well.

Made From:

Recycled Content – Materials created from items that were purposefully sorted to be re-used.

Post Consumer Waste – Waste that is produced by a consumer after using a product that is then re-used for new manufacturing.

Conventional Product – Products are new with no recycled content, or very little.

After You Are Done:

100% Recyclable – Item can be recycled in its entirety.

Biodegradable/Compostable – Products are able to be broken down naturally by living organisms, eliminating waste.

If you’re looking for some specific eco-friendly products, we published a post last year listing some of them on our website.