What can I do to make my packaging more reusable?
The first step is to assess how much packaging do you need. Are you overly packaged? Do you have to include a 32 page black and white instruction information guide or can you put it on the Internet? Why can't you make a little video on showing your assembly of the product so I can go online and just watch the video and then assemble the product? Do you have to have multiple layers of packaging? Do you have to have a cardboard box and then more packing and then another type of box and then a gift box and then a gift ribbon box, all to send a picture frame? Why not go to assessing minimal packaging standards with biodegradable packaging materials? Instead of having your cardboard box and your Styrofoam and all of those bubble wrapped pack and ships why doesn't the industry go in and engineer a reusable, returnable packaging solution? When I buy the product, I'm also buying a packing container that I can continually reship with. Right now, reshipping containers are primarily cardboard which as we all know is ubiquitous in pack and shipping. Even Amazon is shipping with cardboard. When you look a how they're shipping, they're shipping with minimal packaging. They have a little flat sheet and they have a little shrink-wrapped item. They could do the right thing by converting that to 100% biodegradable packaging. It might cost them a little bit more for packing and shipping. I think consumers would want to pay that because right now we're paying anyways because we have to fill up our landfills. We have to pay waste management to pick up the trash. We also have to pay more taxes to manage these expanding landfills. At some point somebody has to pay. I don't think our environment should bear the brunt of our over-packaged consumer goods and the key is getting the manufacturers to understand the importance of redesigning their packaging to fit their product so the consumer can get it with a little amount of packaging with the elimination or reduction of the environmental impact.
