Best Eco-Friendly Packaging for Soft Goods?

February 18, 2009 9:04 AM

I'm looking for good, sturdy, eco-friendly shipping options for soft goods - mostly clothing. Something that won't fall apart or soak through before the customer receives their item, but also something that won't sit in a landfill for 400+ years.

We'll be shipping lots & lots of clothing (and other soft goods, which will probably ship in cardboard boxes) soon and I'm looking for some of the best eco-friendly shipping options. I hate to think of all the stuff we send out just getting thrown away & best case scenario being recycled, worst case scenario sitting in a landfill for generations.

I found this thread about "out of the box" creative packaging solutions, and EcoEndure eco friendly plastic packaging and my favorite the ship-n-tote (mailer turns into a tote bag) but don't think we can justify adding $4-5 per shipment for the cost of packaging.

This blog post compares packaging from various tee shirt companies - they all look like varying degrees of clever design on plastic to me.

What good eco-friendly packaging options exist, or have I found all of them? (and I'm not above "why not ship it in a UPS zipper sleeve?" type advice.)

(Ideas for how to "delight" the customer with packaging also welcome.)

posted by Muffy to clothing, beauty, & fashion (12 comments total)

My company (currently hibernating until the economy picks up...*if* it ever picks up), was a very green-based, ecologically aware business. After consulting with folks at A&M about sustainability and shipping practices, we chose to use the USPS cardboard packaging. It's recycled material, and it recycles. (They're also the lowest cost provider by weight.)
posted by dejah420 at 9:22 AM on February 18

My thought seemed similar to yours-- that perhaps you could purchase small canvas bags and then spray them with fabric waterproofing. Of course, it's going to be a bit pricey, but the canvas bags would be a neat addition and you could probably buy them for at least a bit cheaper in bulk. Plus I even found an environmentally-friendly spray on waterproofing here.

Good you for trying to reduce your ecoimpact.
posted by big open mouth at 9:24 AM on February 18

Edit: environmental impact, not ecoimpact.
posted by big open mouth at 9:25 AM on February 18

Interesting, I wasn't aware that USPS had a Cradle-to-Cradle certification. Any idea how, specifically, they make their bubble mailers sustainable? I'd love to know who their supplier was too (or do they make their own?) so I could get some stuff custom printed.
posted by Muffy at 9:27 AM on February 18

Something that won't fall apart or soak through before the customer receives their item, but also something that won't sit in a landfill for 400+ years. [...] This blog post compares packaging from various tee shirt companies - they all look like varying degrees of clever design on plastic to me.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but what's wrong with a package made of card or cardboard? I mean, card will withstand a bit of rain in the delivery process, and is one of the easiest materials to recycle.

When I first ordered from Threadless, which was a few years ago now, they sent my 4 t-shirts in what was essentially a USPS flat rate envelope - a large, all-card envelope. It recycled just like a cereal box or anything like that.

If you want to be more visibly environmentally friendly, you could probably find a card envelope which didn't have shiny printing, and smack a nice green recycle symbol on the back and some text saying "I am recycled, please recycle me again"
posted by Mike1024 at 10:10 AM on February 18

I just thought those envelopes would too easily rip and/or wouldn't be big enough to fit a few articles of clothing at once, though I guess at that point a cardboard box would make the most sense.

Surely there's a reason most clothing retailers (Gap, Threadless, Victoria's Secret, etc.) use plastic currently.
posted by Muffy at 11:37 AM on February 18

Some clothing items I order get delivered in plastic bags. They have less volume and lower shipping costs that bulkier cardboard or bubble wrap mailers. If they do go in a landfill, at least they take up less room. Canvas bags or reusable totes are a neat idea, but I think a lot of people would end up throwing them away.

Personally, I am delighted that the USPS can cram my plastic bags in my mailbox, which saves me having to wait in line to pick things up.
posted by yohko at 12:33 PM on February 18

If there is a business in your area that receives a lot of standard packaging, you might be able to pick up boxes from them. I worked in bookstores for years, and we always had a lot of good quality cardboard boxes, as well as mailing envelopes. You could have mailing stickers printed that say "MyLittleCorp re-uses cardboard packaging to keep costs down, and limit our environmental impact." Make the labels big enough to cover the existing shipping label and use big black marker to XXX out the rest.
posted by theora55 at 12:47 PM on February 18

Plastic bags fit in the mailbox. Got it.

There's a ton of businesses in my area that get standard packaging, that's a concept worth exploring, but we're hoping to do better volume than what we could get by begging. Cardboard takes effort to turn into boxes (and a bit of skill - I used to work in a factory) and I'd rather not set any part-time help we may hire off with box cutters and tape on construction projects.
posted by Muffy at 1:48 PM on February 18

I just thought those envelopes would too easily rip and/or wouldn't be big enough to fit a few articles of clothing at once

Found a picture of the threadless package I described. Turns out it was a USPS flat rate envelope. It seemed a pretty durable form of packaging - after all, it's USPS who would have the hassle and take the flack if a parcel broke apart in shipping, so it makes sense that USPS envelopes would be up to the job.

Perhaps you could buy one or two envelopes and try putting things in, to get a feel for whether they would suit your application.

Plastic bags fit in the mailbox. Got it.

Of course, if you used a card envelope smaller than about 250mm wide and 25mm thick, that would fit through most letterboxes too.

If you feel you have to go with plastic to best serve your customers, you can get biodegradable plastics.
posted by Mike1024 at 2:48 PM on February 18

Also, USPS lets you order bulk shipping products online...and they're free.
posted by dejah420 at 9:11 PM on February 18

I do lots of shipping, and I never buy new packaging. It is all re-used. Mostly cardboard off the street or from grocery stores that re-use boxes instead of giving out plastic bags. Sometimes, I arrange to take loads of packing materials from specific companies or the local university.

Basically, the idea is to use large boxes as a source for sheets of corrugate. These sheets are then cut and folded into boxes like so. Well, not exactly like that, because something has changed on Mefi's back end that messed up my diagram in that thread. It should look like this:

--------------------
     ] object [
--------------------

Anyway.. There is virtually no reason for a sub-industrial scale operation to put money into packaging unless it is about image.

(Ideas for how to "delight" the customer with packaging also welcome.)

I see.. :P
posted by Chuckles at 2:59 AM on February 22