• Home
• About
• Blog Roll

Green Journal: 5 ways to reduce packing material
October 1, 2007

Being a busy working mom, I don’t usually have a lot of leisure time to shop for household goods. So online ordering has been my regular venue, until recently when I received a big box of presents for my kids. The presents included two long sleeve shirts, two pairs of pants. Yes, 4 pieces of the clothing (see inside the red circle).
They came in 2 medium sized gift boxes, which were then packed in a large cardboard box stuffed with 50 feet of tissue paper. Seriously, was all this packaging necessary?

I started wondering about the wisdom of online shopping, the air miles, the truck miles, not to mention the absurd amount of packing material. After receiving a 3-item order from Amazon that was shipped all separately in bulky packages, I decided to reconsider where and how to shop.

First, I have become more organized about what our family needs to minimize the number of shopping trips. With my newly acquired list-making skills, I can be pretty productive going to my local stores, even when I don’t have much time. A garlic presser does not send me to a store any more.

Second, find alternatives. I wanted a counter-top compost storage bin and was ready to order from an online store. Then a friend told me that the community center in my city sold it at a subsidized price. The color was a bit boring, but the local availability and the price clearly tilted the scale away from ordering online.

Third, when I really need/want something from an online store, I wait until I have a few things to buy together. And then I make sure to ask for all the items to be shipped together. No separately shipments. Oh, here is a funny side-effect: some things that I really “need” don’t seem so important after a week of waiting.

Fourth, I have been using the old-fashioned customer feedback. I make a note of online vendors that minimize packing material and write email to encourage their continued practice. I do not order from online vendors who send me more packaging than the ordered items, and write email to inform them why I am no longer their customer. A bit peculiar, I know, but how else would the merchants know?

Last but not the least, reuse the packing material.

CindyW at Organicpicks

If you enjoyed this entry, please subscribe to the Organic Picks Blog

Previous related entries:
Reusing packing materials
Reduce, reuse, recycle blog carnival
Recycling with Kids
How people are reducing their plastic consumption
Sentiments with no paper

Copyright 2007 Organicpicks