We love our packaging! We've worked hard to source sustainably and to use as little as possible, but we also get that the best way we can all make a difference in this world is by using less.
Did you know that around 80% off all products sold in the United States and the EU are packaged in cardboard, totalling around 400 billion square feet. In fact the amount of boxes used each year amount to approx 83 per person, on average that equates to 7 trees per person per year in paper and cardboard.*
Our products need a degree of packaging, the ceramic bird feeder and birdhouse range is fragile and our concrete bee houses and other wildlife habitats need protection within transit, making it impossible for us to get rid of packaging completely - plus sometimes the packaging completes the whole experience, particularly in the case of gifting or for our wholesale customers who are buying the range to sell in their shops.
So we've come up with a bit of a 'balancing solution' to try. We've added an option at checkout where you can choose to go packaging free. This doesn't mean that your Bee Brick will just arrive with nothing around it but it does mean that we will strip as much of the packaging back from your order as possible. This is new for us so it's a work in progress but we wanted to let you know about steps we're taking to reduce our impact and we imagine that if you were buying, for example, 5 Bee Bricks to build straight into a wall, it would be better for you if you didn't have to take all that packaging off them before you started.
In conjunction with this your orders are packed with Shred which is our recycled cardboard packaging that we create here at the Green&Blue workshop. You can read more about Shred here.
We'll keep you posted and we'll keep doing our best but we're also really keen to learn so if you have any ideas or feedback on your experience then do please let us know in the comments below or via email to info@greenandblue.co.uk or pick up the phone and call us on 01872 858658.
*Information from Cardboard balers - 2017.