When you place an order with us, we see it as an opportunity to show you what we care so much about. Whether that’s in store or online. That doesn’t just mean that we love providing you with the best equipment or sharing our passion for watersports. Sustainability is key to our family life and we put it at the heart of our business decisions, too.
In the last two years a lot more of the business has been happening online, which means more shipping and packing and all that comes with it.
When faced with more online orders we sat down to see how we could pack and ship orders in the most sustainable way.
Sustainable Packing Materials
While it remains the cheapest option out there, we just couldn’t see ourselves using polyethylene envelopes! A lot of products already come wrapped in plastic, which protects them, and while there are many companies changing from oil-based plastic packaging for their products to more sustainable options, they are not yet as widely used as we would like.
So we decided to use mostly cardboard boxes, only recyclable paper tape, and no plastic filling materials unless we are reusing something that was shipped to us.
Cardboard boxes are amazing and our preferred packaging option, however, with the rise in global shipping in the last 3 years, there have been cardboard shortages worldwide. The price of cardboard has increased significantly and the production process is not without drawbacks either, using a limited resource in wood pulp and water in the production process for corrugated cardboard. In order to keep our shipping prices low and free for orders above a certain value, we had to look at other packing materials to complement our range of cardboard boxes.
For smaller items that don’t require boxes, we now use a mix of both - 100% compostable mailers and Kraft paper mailers. These are used depending on the items you are ordering, their size and weight. For shipments outside of Ireland we only use boxes to protect your order on the longer journey.
Both have advantages and disadvantages. The compostable mailers have a second resealable strip so you can send them on another journey if you like and once finished, will decompose within 18 months in your home compost. Pretty impressive when you compare that to the hundreds of years it will take a plastic bag to dissolve!
They are made with 30% cornstarch. However, the other main material is a biodegradable polymer called PBAT which is derived from petrolchemicals, i.e. oil. So while this polymer is a lot better than conventional plastic, because it is highly biodegradable and will not leave any toxic residue in your compost, the production process is not ideal. That’s why we have been looking at Kraft mailers to replace the compostable bags.
The Kraft mailers have a shorter production process than corrugated cardboard so use less resources and they can be reused or recycled. They work for some of the items we ship, but as we need to make sure that the bags don’t open in transport or get damaged, not everything can be shipped in these mailers.
So in a nutshell, we use no conventional plastic in our own packaging. For about 80% of our deliveries we use cardboard boxes and the other 20% are split between Kraft mailers and compostable bags which we are slowly phasing out.
We don’t claim to be perfect, but we aim to cut out as much plastic as possible in our own processes so we don’t add to the problem.
Reduce
Part of our sustainability mission is also to save on packaging and Co2 emissions caused by transporting your parcels. Therefore we will ship your items in one box, one delivery wherever possible. As we have a shop in Dublin and a warehouse in Sligo, sometimes an order placed will have items coming from both locations. Rather than shipping these individually, we transfer stock once a week and will ship those orders from one place in one parcel. This might add a couple of days to the delivery time, but we hope you agree it’s worth the wait.
Did you know that our courier DPD are adding more and more electric vans to their fleet in Ireland? This is a great change and one we love. We have an electric car, too, that we use for the majority of our trips between Dublin and Sligo.
Reuse
We reuse wrapping materials and boxes from our suppliers frequently and we hope you reuse the boxes you get from us, too! So if you get a box that doesn’t look 100% perfect, then it’s probably not on its first journey and already has a story to tell.
Recycle
All our boxes and Kraft mailers can then be either placed in your home recycling or if you have a garden can be shredded/ripped up and added to your compost bin as some of the brown/carbon element of your compost mix. Our compostable envelopes can be placed in your home compost.
We use our waste cardboard to mulch around productive trees or to create new growing areas in our garden.
Working with our suppliers towards bigger change
We are only one retailer, but we are working with global businesses who supply us with the stock we sell to you. In our conversations with their representatives, we have made it our mission to push for more sustainable solutions on their end, from changing away from plastic tape on their boxes to recyclable paper tape to using plant-based plastic packaging or replacing plastic packaging with cardboard-based alternatives.
A lot of change is happening in the watersports industry right now, more sustainable materials are being used in the production of wetsuits, surfboards, changing robes and more and more suppliers are looking towards manufacturing locations closer to Europe to reduce Co2 emissions. These changes take time, but we are determined to contribute as best we can to them by making the sustainability of our suppliers production a part of our purchasing decisions.
One of the first ones to change from plastic tape on their boxes to a recyclable and compostable paper tape were O’Neill. Look out for a future blog post on how we turned an O’Neill wetsuit delivery (well the boxes anyway) into a veggie garden.
