The holidays are upon us once again, and as with every gift giving season, you’re probably expecting a haul of orders for family and friends to arrive at your door, (if they haven’t already). Your business might also be facing a similar problem with the rise in purchases towards the end of the calendar year. Holiday recycling is a great way to help keep your boxes under control.
There’s a lot of discarded boxes to deal with during this time of year, and whether it’s your family or your business, you should look into holiday recycling as we head towards the start of a new year.
Recycling is always an important topic, but when there’s a larger influx of boxes and packing material flooding into your space, don’t fall back on taking it all out to the dumpster. While you might be piling up on waste, a great deal of that can be used again either as gently used packaging or turned into new material to be used later on down the road.
Corrugated packaging is one of the easiest things to recycle, and it’s actually the most renewable material we have on the planet! If you haven’t considered recycling before, think about this: recycling corrugated board helps conserve energy and save natural resources. It also decreases the amount of gas that’s released into the air and cuts the amount of pollution in half. When you recycle corrugated, you help contribute to making the planet a better place, and if you’re a business, your customers are sure to notice.
Recycling one ton of corrugated board can help save up to 700 gallons of water and 46 gallons of oil. A ton, is well, a ton, but think about how much corrugated you find yourself in possession of over the holidays. You’re not alone. If everyone pitched in on holiday recycling, it’d make a big difference.
Your boxes can be turned into a number of new products — not just a box. This holiday season, when the corrugated starts piling up, why not give your boxes a second life?
Take Advantage of Holiday Recycling This Year and Put All Your Leftover Boxes to Good Use
When that first trash day arrives after all the festivities are over, make sure you haul all your corrugated cardboard out with your recycling. You might also want to check to see if your area has a day set aside just for recycling pick up to make sure everything gets sent to the right place. If your area doesn’t offer recycling, you can still try and find a local recycling center to drop everything off.
If that still isn’t an option for you, don’t give up! Try reusing some of your boxes throughout your home or business to keep them in the sustainability cycle. For boxes that are in your home, you can reuse them for all sorts of purposes. From storage to sending gifts to family members far away, your boxes have a value that lasts long after they arrive at your house.
For businesses, you can use these boxes again for shipping out your products. Just make sure they’re not damaged and there’s not a lot of excess room for your products to move around freely. Remember, a snug fit is a secure fit! You can also just keep them on hand for emergency backup if your stock gets too low.
Let’s not forget about the material that’s inside your packages either. It’s a lot easier to dismiss the inner packaging materials like peanuts or plastic lining as trash but these should actually be recycled as well! Typically just about everything included in your packages to protect what you ordered or fill the additional air space is recyclable. With these materials, a lot of businesses like grocery stores or even UPS will take the excess materials and reuse or recycle them in their facilities for you if a recycling center isn’t available.
If you want to make a difference in other ways, consider asking friends and family members to look into holiday recycling as well, and if you’re a business, try and catch people right from the start. Your packaging can be customized in just about any way you want. Why not ask your customers to recycle your packaging by printing it right on your box? Encouraging recycling on your packaging is a great way to get people’s attention, and it also shows your customers this is a topic that you care about. More and more consumers are paying attention to ways they can be more sustainable, and if you show that your brand supports that, it’ll be easy to create a few new loyal customers.
This holiday season, don’t forget about holiday recycling. The end of the year always means a larger amount of trash so do your part to help make your carbon footprint a little smaller.
