BOXES: Reused and recycled cardboard must be part of your remodel!

Your remodel start is looming (and that is a good thing).  It is now time for you to move out of the house, and hand your keys over to your Contractor.  You start your car to make the trip down to U-Haul for some boxes, because this weekend is the packing weekend.  STOP!!

?Each year, over 40 million Americans undertake the rigor of moving, whether across the city, the state or the country. If half of those people reused their moving boxes, either by repacking them, giving them to friends, family or selling them to a company such as EcoBox, no fewer than 200,000 trees and almost 300 million gallons of water could be saved. If only a quarter of them reused their moving boxes, over 100,000 trees and almost 150 million gallons of water could be saved.?

Before you pack, check out EcoBox. 

What started as a small venture selling boxes from the trunk of a Buick Riviera, EcoBox has now become a vibrant online storefront, with multiple brink-and-mortar storefronts in Austin, Texas.

EcoBox is a retailer of boxes, and moving supplies.  They offer new boxes composed of 70% post-consumer recycled materials.  To keep your belongings safe the company also offers biodegradable bubble wrap from Bio Bubble (starts decomposing into oxygen, water and food for microbes as soon as left outdoors in the elements), biodegradable starch peanuts which are also 100% biodegrable, and bleached recycled newspaper which is 100% recyclable.

But wait, not only can you buy your packing supplies from EcoBox, but they will also pick them up from you when you are done moving.   Oh and there?s more?EcoBox actually pays YOU to let them pick them up ? or donates your proceeds to a charity!  Yes, the company actually picks up your old boxes, writes you a check, and then brings them back to their facility, and reuses them. 

                    

Homeowners can sell back both boxes and bubble wrap.  As far as peanuts, EcoBox will take them and reuse them as well.  They also take back your recycled newspaper packing material.  EcoBox actually has a greater demand for the used boxes than they can supply.  Dale Malone, Managing Partner with EcoBox, says, ?90% of the customers don?t care if the boxes are used.? 

In addition to individual boxes, the company offers complete moving kits in their stores and online.  Homeowners can purchase a “kit” of boxes that also includes wrap, and other necessities.  These packages are available with both used boxes and new boxes.  Dale tells us that these actually do ship rather efficiently if purchased online.

How does EcoBox differ from your local U-Haul store?  Well aside from the business of taking back the products for reuse and recycle which is better for our environment, the company says they are more price competitive (e.g. 1/2 the price for wardrobe boxes).  Further, you won?t have to stand inline behind two others renting trucks and filling out paperwork, just to buy your packing supplies.  Customer service is key at an EcoBox store. 

To visit an EcoBox store you need to be located in the Austin, TX area today, but the company will be rolling out franchises in Texas starting in the first half of 2008.  As far as those of us not in Texas, we can make a decision to buy online and support an establishment such as EcoBox, we can continue to visit U-Haul, or there is always the option of visiting your local grocery store, and battling it out with other movers to give that precious apple box a second life.

There is another option as well for Southern California residents, and online shoppers.  UsedCardboardBoxes.com offers a similar business model to EcoBox.  They too are working hard to ?keep the trees in the forest and the boxes off the street.?  One thing UBC does do different is that their box inventory is ?rescued? from factory misprints, overruns, or customer returns that a factory no longer needs.

  

GetWithGreen.com thinks that we will be seeing more of these types of storefronts in the future.  We will let you know when we find one in your area.  If you know of one, please tell our readers now — so that we can slow the production of boxes, cutting of trees, and reuse a box that is still good!
 
 

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