What about those other Christmas trees?
Spruces and firs aren’t the only trees working hard at the holidays.
The winter holidays are supposed to be a time of peace and love and spending time with people we care about. But turn on the TV, and it seems like the way we’re supposed to show that love is through frenzied gift giving. And of course, these days gift giving means a whole lot of online shopping. The United Parcel Service, United States Postal Service and FedEx expect to carry a combined 1.9 billion packages this holiday season, and with all of those packages comes a mountain of packaging.
Using the estimate that one tree can produce 151.6 boxes, it will take roughly 12.5 million trees to produce the boxes for those 1.9 billion packages (assuming for simplicity’s sake that those boxes will all be roughly the same size). Trees are the unsung heroes of the planet, drinking in CO2 and giving us nice clean oxygen in return. It would probably be in our best interest to hold onto as many of these air purifiers as possible, right?
But a whole lot of trees are wasted on boxes that are used once and then tossed away. Or even worse, boxes that are unnecessarily bigger than the item(s) they’re carrying. We’ve all been here:
Sure, cardboard can be recycled in a lot of places. But it takes years (or even decades) for trees to grow large enough to be harvested, so it will take a while for those 12.5 million trees to be replaced. Luckily, there are some companies trying to tackle the problem of wasting resources and money on unnecessary packaging.
RePack
The Finnish company RePack offers reusable packaging that retailers can ship their products in. Customers just have to drop the packaging in any mailbox and it’ll be returned to RePack to be prepared for its next use.
Over 30 stores offer RePack shipping so far, and many give discounts for using it.
PackSize
So far, RePack is only available in a few countries. For companies elsewhere, fitting the packaging to the product can at least save a little on excess cardboard. PackSize’s On-Demand Packaging system gives companies the power to create their own boxes that are the perfect sizes for their products, cutting down on oversized packaging.
Original Unverpackt
Some retailers are taking it a step further and ditching packaging altogether. Naked grocery stores like Berlin’s Original Unverpackt (Original Unpackaged) are a growing trend in Europe and Canada. In naked grocery stores, goods are sold without packaging. Just bring your own container, weigh what you need and be on your merry way. Original Unverpackt does have an online store, but they ship orders in reused boxes.
Packaging isn’t going away anytime soon, but with a little creativity, companies can get better at fitting their packages into the circular economy. Or at the very least, at saving a few of those other Christmas trees.
