It's easy to get so caught up in our own rhetoric that we lose sight of the bigger picture.
My mainstream business, Pure Thai Natural Co Ltd is committed to minimal-essential plastic use only. Which means yes, we use recyclable glass and metal packaging but yes, we also do have to shrink wrap that in a thin plastic film to meet international & export "tamper-proof packaging" requirements. And because it has cost us a BOMB (and a lot of wasted product which had to be destroyed) after people aimlessly handle something on a shelf, leave a finger mark, and then choose not to buy. Grubby looking eco products which don't sell are perhaps the biggest waste of time & money & resources ever.
Just yesterday, I got some very-eco-friendly people asking us to "please bubble it".
And they were slightly appalled that we don't have any right now.
So what do we do to make sure your packages arrive safely & undamaged?
We pack our boxes with shredded paper. Recycled office paper, outdated printing, shopping lists etc for the regular run-of-the-mill postal & courier orders.
And inexpensive, already-recycled brown paper for our Gift Boxes.
I can PROMISE you if you get something from Pure Thai Naturals in bubble wrap, it's a recycling effort on our part.
And yet, still, we have an extra challenge.
Every single reusable & recyclable, eco-friendly metal bottle we buy, comes to us in it's own little plastic sleeve! Urgh.
So the BIG challenge for businesses like ours committed to Less Plastic is to creatively learn to use what we receive that can't be avoided.
Yesterday, I found myself teaching a relatively new Thai staff member to please NOT throw all these seemingly useless bits of plastic from the 100ml bottles in the trash. I showed him to put them in the special bag on the bench in our production room.
Then I showed him how, once the bag is full, I turn them into little plastic-filled pillows which I use to pack bigger, wholesale orders.
He was bewildered.
"Can't we just buy bubble?"
It took TIME to explain why we don't, and to not be exasperated. People with limited formal education often don't "get" the whole concept of petroleum products and how plastic is part of that.
I was reminded again that environmental activism is something of a first world privilege.
Can't help but think how this Covid online world has taken us many steps backwards on some of these issues. And how we have a long way to go to creating better packaging solutions.
On the plus side? There is NEVER a time in our office anymore where there is nothing to do... 😆 cos there is ALWAYS paper shredding piled up, waiting. 🤣
Grateful. One Small Change At A Time.
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