Tips for Affordable Yet Eco-Friendly Product Packaging
Any business owner that ships items out from a warehouse or production facility will be concerned with product packaging. After all, it does no good to invest many hours and quite a bit of money to create a product, only to have it arrive broken or otherwise damaged at a customer's facility. While you want to ensure you have good product packaging, you also don't want to overspend on that packaging and may be concerned with how your choice may affect the environment. Note a few suggestions for affordable yet eco-friendly product packaging for your company.
Wood crates
Wood crates are very eco-friendly because they can be used repeatedly; if you invest in high-quality, thick wood, you can usually use wood crates almost indefinitely. They can be made to fit your product specifically, with inserts built into the crate or with slots that will hold your product safely on the pallet underneath it. Wood crates will also usually come with detachable walls so you can easily stack them and store them when not in use.
Styrofoam peanuts
You may not think of Styrofoam as being very eco-friendly, but note that it takes a long time for Styrofoam to break down and it easily suffers lots of wear and tear while still holding its shape and flexibility. You can collect Styrofoam peanuts from any shipment and keep it in a bag for almost unlimited reuse. If you need to collect it from an end customer for reuse, note that the weight is so light that they can ship it back to you very affordably, and you can use it again and again for your shipments.
Plastic cases with inserts
Like Styrofoam peanuts, it takes quite a lot to break down or otherwise damage plastic cases and plastic inserts. These can be good for smaller items you want to ship, and especially if you're shipping more than one item at a time. The plastic case inserts create slots for shipping multiple items in one case, or they can be custom made to ship parts that need to stay separated during shipment. As an example, you might have plastic inserts made to hold different parts of handguns, computer equipment, or anything else that is delicate and which will need to be assembled by the end user once your item arrives. You can then also continue to reuse the case and inserts repeatedly for shipments, cutting down on waste and the harvesting of virgin materials for new shipping materials.