One of the best parts of doing what we do is the opportunity to meet some really neat people doing some terrific things for the world we all share. We were recently contacted by Mark Simmons, one of the co-founders of www.Useless.org a unique company selling very useful products for a very good cause. They donate 10% of their profits to fund water and sanitation projects worldwide.

Did someone say “eco-consistency”?

Regular readers know that eco-consistency is my mantra, but when I spoke to Mark that was exactly what he was trying to accomplish. He was committed to buying packaging materials that communicated and confirmed his company’s very deep and sincere values of protecting the earth and “using less”. It sounded like a perfect application for Globe Guard 100% recycled PCW content corrugated boxes and it was.

Eco friendly corrugated boxes – to print or not to print

Even though we heavily promote our stock box unprinted program, we also understand the need for customization and branding. Today, well over half of our Globe Guard box business is custom grade, custom print or custom size. Realizing the importance of branding, especially at this early stage of his company’s development, Mark decided he wanted their logo printed on the box, in white – a most unusual color for box printing. I was not sure how white ink would turn out on a brown box, but the end result is a marvelous shade of green (packaging). (more…)

It probably sounds strange coming from us because we are so outspoken critics of waste and we encourage using less whenever possible. However, the first objective of being a sustainable (green) business is to be a sustainable (viable) business. At times like this, saving money is a necessary objective for financial and even practical reasons. It does not help the green cause if a eco minded business goes broke because it failed to reduce costs whenever possible, without compromising their green values.

Last week I received a call from a company that uses four different size plastic slip sheets as inter-leavers during their manufacturing and in plant material handling. The sheets are placed between products to prevent abrasion but are removed and discarded when the product is packed into individual boxes. Their goal was to be as green as possible and ideally to reduce the cost of these, single use disposable sheets.

Application Analysis

After a review of the use, customer expectations, etc., we discovered an important piece of information. To avoid dimensions, let’s say they use a “small” sheet, a slightly larger “medium”, a substantially oversized, “large” sheet and an even a slightly larger “extra large”. Four sizes and the relatively small volume on each are almost identical. We also determined that for no good apparent reason, they were using a high quality, high clarity, food grade, low density polyethylene virgin resin formulation. (more…)

We are very pleased to announce that our trademark application for Globe Guard has finally been approved so in the future we will be able to use the ® rather than the temporary ™. This is an important development because it signifies that products carrying the Globe Guard name have been carefully selected for their sustainable packaging characteristics.

Our vision for and commitment to the Globe Guard brand (more…)

One of our favorite blogs is Sustainable Is Good because they do an exceptional job of exposing examples of over packaging. This photo ran on SISG a couple of months ago, much to the embarrassment of Amazon. Obviously someone at Amazon made a mistake and shipped out an order for ten thin books, in ten separate boxes complete with tape and void fill. That was a plain and simple error on someone’s part and I am sure “inspector #25” or “packer #17” heard about their lapse in common sense. As bad as mistakes like that can be for the companies making them, what is even worse is deliberate lapses in basic concern regarding the importance of secondary packaging, especially when it is done by companies that should know better.

I believe that now more than ever, a green company making a green product MUST be consistent throughout their entire customer serving process, including the secondary packaging they ship out. Here are some reasons why. (more…)

Somewhere along the line, corrugated (and chipboard) partitions fell out of favor as an inner packing material. A lot of it had to do with a desire to reduce corrugated usage and unit cost – both good objectives.

However, corrugated partitions can sometimes reduce overall packaging usage and unit cost, while providing a number of other important sustainable benefits. (more…)