I’ve been want to have more eco friendly packaging for a while. But, and this is a big but, I already had packaging material. So, I kept using what I had, waste not want not. Right? Right, because the most eco friendly thing I can use it the one that I already have. I haven’t bought bubble wrap in years, during covid, we tried to stay home and bought a lot of things online. I was surprised how much bubble wrap came through the door. And I was happy to reuse it. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Well, it finally happed, I ran out of bubble wrap. I’m pretty conflicted about bubble wrap. I mean, it’s plastic. So I investigated other options, including paper bubble wrap replacement. Really cool stuff, but my items are so small, it didn’t really work in my tiny packaging. Well, it turns out you can buy 90% recycled content, made in America, bubble wrap! Yay! So now I have recycled bubble wrap. You can find it on Amazon, which I was really excited for, because well, free shipping.
When I first started selling beads and jewelry, I bought this huge box of padded envelopes. They lasted for years! Well it was finally time to reorder padded envelopes. Research ensued. Padded 100% paper, a good option, recycled and recyclable. Not reusable, not pretty, and they are heavy, which increases shipping costs. But the biggest problem? Labels don’t stick to them vey well, you know the thing with the address and bar code that ensures the item gets where it’s going. So back plastic? Enter EcoEnclose. 52% Recycled content bubble mailers, that are reusable! Yay! Most of what I ship is going to get turned into jewelry, so fingers crossed, my new recycled content reusable bubble mailers will get reused, they have two sticky strips, so easy peasy to use again. Happiness. Hoping that by the time I have to order again, they will have 100% recycled content mailers. https://www.ecoenclose.com/shop/recycled-mailers/50-recycled-bubble-mailers/
Then, I rand out of labels. In my search for eco friendly shipping material, I inadvertently learned about labels. Mostly printable labels, I found out, are on the silicon coated paper, which it turns out is not curbside recyclable. And don’t get started on the labels themselves. Ugh, so hard to find quality labels with ANY recycled content. I want to be part of the solution. So I can’t tell you how happy I was to find these labels from EcoEnclose, 100% recycled content! The backing papers are 100% recycled content and curbside recyclable. I can just stick the backing paper right into my recycle bin! Yahoo. m/6-5-x-4-5-zero-waste-white-shipping-label-200-labels/
There are some other small things I doing the studio to try to be eco friendly. Instead of cleaning my beads under running water, I clean my beads in a small plastic bin. Just fill it up with some water, submerge the beads and clean the bead release out of the holes. The water then gets put back into nature… I water my plants with it. I use old tshirts to clean my glass. My biggest win this year was that we installed solar panels and battery backup on the house, so my studio is powered by the sun! YAHOO! There are more things, on my list… stickers. Both expensive and not recyclable, so those are up next. Do you have any suggestions for eco friendly labels? I’m on the hunt before I run out.