Recycling Shipping Materials Save Me TONS Of Money & Helps The Environment!
Most of my recycling/upcycling posts are about crazy items I find on my city's streets, often in plain view.
For example, I found these sealed boxes of new LEGOS this week in a clear plastic bag. Yes, I used Legos as clickbait because packaging photos usually don't cut it.
...While I'll have plenty to post on my finds going forward, the focus of this point is on recycling shipping material.
SHIPPING MATERIAL:
One-off or moderate volume shipping materials are expensive, but you might not realize it if you don't ship a lot.
I've shipped thousands of packages and would certainly feel the burden of shipping costs more than the average person... or maybe not!
After shipping over 3,150 packages, how many UNITS of shipping materials (i.e., boxes + mailers + bubble wrap + packing peanuts + styrofoam + paper padding) have I bought with my own money?
- 4,000
- 2,500
- 500
- 1
~ Pause for dramatic effect ~
FACT: The answer is 1 padded mailer. Really. The only thing I need to buy is shipping tape, in bulk.
For full disclosure, I need to say that I've leveraged free USPS priority mail shipping supplies (not insignificant), and gotten some free padded mailers from eBay from their promotions. With that in mind, I still haven't gone and bought any shipping materials at all, except 1 mailer years ago in a bind, and unavoidable tape.
Now if I can ship that much and do it mainly with recycled materials, I bet you can do the same for the packages you may ship throughout the year.
What I'm proud about and hope I can pass along to others is that you can very easily find boxes and mailers to reuse. When I'm hunting on the curbs for items to sell, I'm also gathering boxes, padded mailers, bubble wrap, and padding for shipments I'll be making the next day (or expect to need in the next week).
I often find full bags of bubble wrap or packing peanuts. These are mini gold mines for me because they make both shipping and my life a lot easier. It's also VIP packaging customers appreciate. The most valuable things I get on a day-to-day basis are yellow padded envelopes and small amazon boxes for USPS first class packages.
Examples:
When I ship large or oddly-shaped items, I build my own packages by taping them together like Frankenstein. In this case, I don't need to find the perfect packaging, I take larger cardboard boxes and give them new life by cutting them to the smallest practical size.
...This isn't for artistic purposes. It's to save on shipping costs as package dimensions play a huge factor on the rates. One inch or even one ounce can be a $20 difference on heavier packages shipped to certain regions. I highly suggest you play with shipping cost tools to see how you could avoid overpaying by doing just a little savvy trim work.
I could go on, but you get the drift.
The next time you need to ship something, try to find some materials you can recycle instead of buying them. Once you do it, you might just feel good about it and want to do it again. While we can't change the world today, every time each of does something like this, it's a small ripple that makes waves later on.
Please feel free to share this post if you feel it may help your followers.
Thanks as always for your comments and support.
That's a wrap!
LEGOS!!!! You got some cool stuff there huh!? 😆
Tonight I found over 50 Lego manuals together in a bag. I can sell many over time, and the smaller ones as a lot. I have to see if I have any really good ones that are in high demand.
man you can get a good cash out of those legos!
Great score!
Nice, I am always on the lookout for supplies but I have still purchased much more than you - well done man!
I don't know if you know but eBay still gives people with stores a $25 coupon every quarter. They just don't email it out anymore. Go here for yours: https://www.sd.ebay.com/subscriberdiscounts/viewOffer/Q3Basic2018
Another tip that I use is from the grocery store. Paper bags make perfect shipment wrapping for items in their original boxes, or just to wrap up a box.
And plastic bags? Those make great filler for the empty space in boxes and they are lightweight!
Here is a little glimpse of my crazy box and shipping supply dump, lol.
Music to my ears and a sight for sore eyes.
I've used the quarterly $25 promo for a while to get those padded mailers, but didn't see the last email (perhaps to your point). Thanks for letting me know.
Right on about the plastic/paper bags. I do use that trick often (balled up recycled printer paper also works). I bet customers are like WTF when they open our packages, but they they often write positive reviews about how well packaged their item was to keep me doing it.
I live in a single apartment, so I have to stay lean on shipping material stock. I wish I could pile up like that so it's easy to go out the door, but outside of USPS Priority supplies, I work on a just in time cycle.
Sounds like we're both on the right track here.
Do you use a lot of USPS regional rate A and B boxes? I use a decent amount of them, but I guess it depends on where you are in the country.
Never used any regional boxes. I figure that they're probably cost effective in some capacity, but I usually just use their flat rate padded mailers, envelopes, and boxes, as well as their shoe box as needed. I'll probably take a look into them since I might be missing out on some savings.
You can donate cardboard boxes/ mailers/ bubble wrap/ packing peanuts on https://boxgiver.com/.
Good idea. Hadn't thought of that.
It is a great idea. I used to collect bubble wrap and peanuts. When we moved away from Texas, I donated a lot to a shipping company. The USPS padded flat rate envelopes were my friend for a long time while I was shipping stuff on ebay. I cannot believe someone threw away new Legos! Those things hold their value better than gold!
Great idea, but some of us don't have that kind of time to be out looking for materials. I spend most of my time out and about sourcing and then when things sell I just want to go to my office and pick out an appropriately sized box and go.
I LOVE that you're able to do that, but it's just not feasible for me.
If I look specifically for shipping materials, I simply grab then in stride when moving throughout my city on errand, or in my building's recycling area. I stock up on the night runs as the pics show, but one offs are a breeze for me to find virtually any time.
It's likely a function of my city, but free boxes are virtually everywhere if you keep an eye out for them. I also take other boxes with graphics and cover them in paper/plastic bags and tape to reuse those elements. Thanks for sharing.