In our household and business we really try to maintain a grateful spirit but like most people, we are no where near perfect and always fail to maintain that thankful mindset for a whole week, let alone an entire year.

The photo included in this post is of a print that is displayed in our office conference room and serves to remind us of our need to be thankful. However, since we don’t use that room on a daily basis, it is relatively easy to take our many blessings for granted.

Thanksgiving Day

For most people Thanksgiving is more than over eating, over drinking, football games and planning the crack of dawn assault at the local mall for the annual shopping ritual we’ve come to know as Black Friday. That is the beauty about Thanksgiving is that it creates a time and day when all of us pause for just a moment to give thanks and appreciation to whomever or whatever we believe deserves the credit. I sincerely try to speak to my God on a daily basis but I admit on most days it is praying for what I want and need, rather than giving thanks for what He has already provided.

Prosperity Is All Relative
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What does one have to do the others, you might ask when a blog post title more resembles that of a yet another Harry Potter movie. The items are a small sampling of products that will fit into our new extra long stock shipping boxes. We have just added a 4” X 4” X 36” and a 4” X 4” X 48″ to our assortment, allowing us to provide a sustainable packaging option to customers selling and shipping long, thin items.

Now Offering Extra Long and Extra Tall Corrugated Shipping Boxes

Unusually long products deserve unusually long green shipping boxes

These are not your average 30 to 40% recycled content boxes – these are our standard (for us) 100% PCW boxes. Globe Guard boxes remain one the greenest boxes available and ideal for so many applications ranging from golf putters to curtain rods. Often times, these extra long products are particularly challenging because not everyone stocks these sizes and lengths so we are very glad to be able to now carry them for you.

Our Stock Box List Is Growing Green
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From a sustainable packaging standpoint, securing boxes to a pallet for shipment is a choice of lesser evils. Among the leading options – steel strapping, polyester strapping, polypropylene strapping, and stretch wrap – stretch wrap is probably best, since it normally requires the least amount of mass per application.

How to Make Stretch Wrap Film Work with Heavy Palletized Loads

When corrugated boxes are heavy and/or dense – for instance, when shipping nuts and bolts – stretch wrap does not exert enough holding force on the palletized load to keep the load securely in place. For these applications, shippers will either replace stretch film with strapping, or use stretch wrap in conjunction with strapping. (more…)

Since starting our blog we’ve had a chance to talk to some of the best and brightest in the sustainability movement. These business owners, entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters, and diplomats are changing the way people here in the U.S. and around the globe view environmental issues as they apply to packaging and much more. Here is a summary of our interview blog posts – learn and enjoy.

Rider Thompson, creator of the Sustainable is Good blog

Carol Mosely Braun, former United States Senator, current founder and CEO of Ambassador Organics

Rich Cohen, president of Distant Village Packaging

Ken Rayment, creator of Better Process Podcast News

John Barry, general manager of General Converting, Inc.

JoAnn Hines, The Packaging Diva, blogger and social media packaging advocate

Robby Meadows, founder and marketing director of Nashville Wraps

Rick Smith, owner of Green Field Paper Company

Lynn Blevins, owner of Compostable Goods

Dave Arthur, educator and operator of the Green Business Owner website

Chris Roberts, co-founder of Barkwheats Dog Biscuits

Alison Larkin, owner of Green Kits

Thank you all for sharing your time and your insight!
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Visit the Globe Guard Green Packaging Store for -

Eco Friendly Shipping Boxes
Green Packaging Materials
Special Deals on Green Shipping Supplies

If you are a regular reader you know we enjoy talking about the importance of being “eco obvious” and packaging papers enjoy one of the highest “eco obvious” ratings, probably only second to molded pulp packaging products.

For a product to be eco obvious, it should be easily recognizable by consumers as being eco friendly. For more info on eco obvious, please read this recent blog post I wrote for Packaging Digest. For the rest of you, possibly just interested in buying good packaging papers, please continue reading below.

The Globe Guard Packing Paper Line Up

Our industry-first Globe Guard Green Packaging Store opened with four basic types of paper for interleaving, wrapping, cushioning and void fill applications:

• 24” 40# recycled Kraft rolls
• 24” 50# recycled grey bogus rolls
• 24” 60# recycled indented Kraft rolls
• 20” X 30” recycled industrial tissue sheets

Then much like our initial stock box sizes which quickly grew from a dozen sizes to over thirty because customers told us what they needed, our papers have also expanded due to customer input and guidance.

One New Paper Type and Two New Packing Paper Put Ups

Here are a few new packing paper products we have added to our store:

• 24” 30# newsprint rolls
• 36” 40# recycled Kraft rolls
• 36” 60# recycled indented Kraft rolls

Packing Paper Dispensers

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We are pleased to be able to FINALLY add a biodegradable bubble packaging product to our already extensive line up of eco friendly protective packaging and void fill solutions.

Bubble Packaging with No Apologies

Over the last two years we have received numerous emails and phone calls asking for eco friendly protective packaging bubble sheets or rolls. We’ve always had the same response; “We’re sorry but to date we have not seen a bubble product that we consider green and eco friendly. If we identify one that meets your requirements and our standards, we will eagerly add it to our Globe Guard Products green packaging web store.”

That time has finally arrived and we are very happy to have secured a product that features all of the properties we need and do so at a competitive price compared to so called, “standard” bubble products. There are situations and applications ideally suited for a bubble sheet such as small or delicate fragile products that you simply don’t feel comfortable packing in loose fill or other packing options. Now you have a green way of satisfying those difficult applications.

Recyclable, Reusable, Biodegradable Bubble Packaging, and ON SALE!

This bubble is tinted green to let people know it is uniquely sustainable and we are pleased to feature it on our store through the end of November at a new product introductory sale price of 10% off of the standard post sale list price. Please use promo code GRNBBL at check out to receive your 10% discount.

Initial Stock Put Up

Even though we chose 3/16” bubble, 12” wide and 250 feet long rolls (packed one roll per case) as our initial “stock” item, we anticipate adding additional sizes soon. So, if you have a different bubble size, roll width, or put up you need, please let us know. We will be glad to provide you with pricing so you can see how well it compares to products that don’t provide the green benefits this bubble does.

Please let us know if you have any questions or would like to place a trial or test order.
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Visit the Globe Guard Green Packaging Store for -

Eco Friendly Shipping Boxes
Green Packaging Materials
Special Deals on Green Shipping Supplies

We are very fortunate to work with a number of companies offering a wide variety of green products ranging from toys to organic food products. Every once in a while a company catches our attention because of their unique approach to an increasingly crowded segment of the market. One of those companies is Eco Logics, otherwise known as Green Kits. We recently interviewed Alison Larkin, president of Eco Logics, and are pleased to share her comments with our readers.

DS: Alison, please help us to understand the relationship between Eco Logics and Green Kits, including a brief history of your company.

AL: My husband and I came up with the idea of green kits before we ever thought about incorporating a business. Once we decided to run with Green-kits “The Product”, I hastily named the venture Eco-Logics while en route to the lawyer’s office. The idea was that if the product failed, the company could go in another direction.

DS: Where did the concept of kitting your products into consumer friendly prepackaged kits come from?

AL: It was a dual aha moment. We had been using environmentally friendly products for some time and our friends would ask what the best eco-cleaner was, or what the best recycled paper towel was. This was in the back of my head as I one day perused the craft store to buy some painting supplies. I had been an artist in college and wanted to get back into oil painting. I had my arms full of the different things I needed to get started – linseed oil, palette knife, canvas. I wished they had some sort of “Get Started Oil Painting” kit for the novice. The idea for Green-kits was conceived in that very aisle.

DS: Let’s focus on your kits in the cleaning area which is currently getting a lot of attention. With so many choices out there, from small manufacturers to now huge ones, how did you decide which product lines you felt comfortable selling?

AL: At first I sold what I knew, which was a limited range of products. As Green-kits became more mainstream, I found that manufacturers were more than willing to send samples of their products for inclusion in our line. We actually test the products for several weeks and report back to the maker with what we think – good or bad.

DS: One of the things I noticed is your decision to sell only 100% cotton reusable shopping bags when so many others offer imported non-woven polypropylene bags. I give you a lot of credit for this because this could not have been an easy decision to make from a cost competitive perspective?
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For a long time we’ve tried to keep the bundle sizes on our Globe Guard stock shipping boxes at a consistent 25 boxes per bundle. However, due to numerous customer requests, we are reducing our box count on larger boxes. Why are we implementing this change? Namely, two reasons: Bundle weight and purchase quantity.

Bundle Weight

A 25 count bundle of our GG-27, 5” cube boxes only weighs all of 5 pounds. That is obviously a very light weight, convenient bundle for shipping and handling. However, a bundle of our new GG-31 box which is 22” X 22” X 12” in size, happens to weigh almost 67 pounds when bundled in 25’s. Technically that large bundle can still ship via UPS or FedEx but becomes much more difficult to handle in our facility or yours.

Purchase Quantity

Sometimes you need a large box for a particular need but you may not need twenty five of them. Large boxes get expensive due to size so it doesn’t seem fair to force a customer to buy more than they really need or want, in order to use our eco friendly 100% PCW Globe Guard boxes. Our goal from the beginning was to make green shipping boxes available and affordable to everyone and that includes small volume, over size box customers.

Customer convenience combined with customer safety is our greatest concern so this change made sense from both perspectives.

How Will the Bundle Counts Change?
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