recently I watched this video which spoke all about sustainable and
eco-friendly packaging now this video was amazing it completely opened my eyes
to so many different sources so I've decided to create a little UK version so
here I am for those of you that don't know I run an online store called soul
and fire on there we currently sell prints and we will soon be selling
stationery and greeting cards so we've got a lot of things going out and I
right from the beginning I wanted to make sure that my business isn't having a
negative effect on the environment so currently I use two different sizes of
packaging and I'm sure this will change in the future but now I've found eco
friendly companies to buy my packaging from I can make sure all the sizes that
I buy are sustainable and eco-friendly so the biggest packaging I use is called
the lil letterbox and I get it from lil packaging com
I love this website it actually came up on one of my Instagram adverts obviously
I've been searching for eco packaging and those algorithms they worked because
it made me click on it and I bought products from them they have a
completely transparent way of showing you how they're being eco-friendly I
really like the message they stand for and they're just very honest and open
about the work that they do so I purchased my big set of boxes from there
and I was very very happy to do so the other bit of packaging that I use is a
c4 hard backed envelope now I've had these envelopes for probably a year I
bought these in bulk and I've slowly been getting through them so I can't say
that these are 100% sustainably sourced obviously they're 100% recyclable it's
just cardboard and paper that was one of the main reasons but in reflection I
should have double-checked when I bought them where I was buying them from to
make sure the paper and the materials in it are eco-friendly so for now I am
using that big pile as you can see I've got a lot of them obviously I don't want
them to go to waste they are really good to be reused as
well because of the card on the back so in future I'm gonna buy
my envelopes also from lil packaging but for now they are 100% recyclable and
fingers crossed they didn't do too much damage to the
environment when they were being made lessons can be learned so inside the
boxes when I am packaging stationery up I like to add a little bit of tissue
paper just to make it look a little bit brighter and to kind of add an
experience to shopping with soul and fire the tissue paper I use is bright orange
and it's acid-free tissue paper I used big sheets and I chopped them down
basically so now I have I think originally I bought like five hundred
sheets because I figured if I buy more in bulk then I don't have to rebuy them
and there's not more shipping costs and fuel and all that kind of stuff and when
they arrived it turns out they were a little bit too big for my needs so I
actually ended up trimming the ends of them off and I made my own kind of like
packaging confetti filling stuffers stuff what do you call that I don't know
I did also do my research about tissue paper so it is actually biodegradable I
bought acid-free tissue paper for that reason so the inks that are making it
Orange won't affect the environment making the
tissue paper itself completely compostable and it won't harm any
compost bins it is in I'm not quite sure if I'm saying this all coherently so I
apologize if not if I'm confusing you just ask me questions in the comments
that's fine I also include an order form within my packages this is just to make
sure I am packing everything correctly hopefully in the future when I get the
hang of it a little bit more I won't need to include this but I think for
professionalism and just for ease of packing and kind of efficiency I'm
including them for now however the paper that they are printed on is 100%
recycled paper I bought it from a shop called eco Kraft and on there they have
so many different eco-friendly products for my stationery sets they are wrapped
in a kind of plastic bag thing and that is a cello bag now this is something
that I really didn't want to use but unfortunately because that product is
paper if that got wet in transit to its new destination to
new owner that would be a significant loss to me because I'd have to resend it
reprinted etc so I want to make sure they're pretty much fully waterproof as
they are getting to their new owner so I sourced the bags from Eco craft
which I just mentioned and on their website it tells you all about the bags
again they're very open and honest about what they do and what everything is made
with and where everything has come from I'm just gonna read it out a little bit
so basically the plastic bags are made in the UK from film that has been
accredited to ok bio-based which means they're fully biodegradable compostable
and when they break down they break down to co2 and h2o this will happen in
either home or commercial composting or in landfill the only difference is that
commercial composting happens faster because it's at higher temperatures so
it will biodegrade it might just take a little bit longer in a home composter
for the postcard that I include in the packages that is also printed on a 100%
recycled card I ordered that from eco Kraft as well I also need to look into
getting some eco-friendly inks for my printer in my office I print out the
order forms on here and at the minute I'm printing out the postcards on there
but I would like to look into some more kind of like water-based inks to include
in that printer I mean it's a really old canon printer so I'm not sure if that's
even a thing anymore I'd love to hear your opinions and more information if
there are any kind of like home tech brands that have provided eco ink I mean
we can dream can't we like I hope that becomes a thing if it isn't already so I
also use tape to fasten my boxes but annoyingly those envelopes that I bought
the c4 hardback ones have a little strip that you peel off and it's self
seals itself annoyingly the little bit of plastic that comes off of that like
paper whatever it is I can't recycle that so again another reason for me to
look into something else as opposed to those hardback cards but the boxes that
I bought from little packaging they don't have any self-adhesive parts on
them when you build them there is very little bits of card that comes off it
which I can just chuck into my recycling so I don't produce any waste when I am
building and making and packaging them packaging them posting them however they
do need sealing up obviously because they don't have the self seal strip so
for that I sourced some paper-based tape I think it's called craft tape again
it's from eco craft they have it in three different sizes I got it in the
middle one I think it's like 25 millimeters or something and on their
website again super honest and informative about what's in there
basically when you unwrap my parcel you don't have to take the tape off you can
just cut it and then send the box to your recycle place and it will all get
recycled together no problem all and I actually didn't realize that a lot of
paper-based tapes aren't recyclable because of the adhesive on the back so
that's why I bought this one now for a little bit of finesse on my boxes I
wanted to include some branding of some sort I don't have the budgets to get
branded boxes per se but I wanted to include something that when it arrived
you know it's from me so what I have done I have ordered some stamps I
ordered them both from Etsy and they were like under 20 pounds each which was
quite a big investment to begin with but now I'm just gonna be able to use them
forever so I just stamp on the top of my boxes a little stamp that says a 100%
recyclable I want to make sure that my customers are prompted to recycle it I
want just that little bit of a reminder to say look you can put this in your
recycle bin please do and also on the lid of the boxes I have stamped a little
Soul & Fire logo along with the website just in case anyone takes photos and
shares them on social media I have my branding on there for another little bit
of branding I also have soul and fire stickers so I actually bought a roll of
a thousand from the brother website so I use a label printer called the brother
ql 700 and it prints stickers without ink so that was another thing i didn't
need to buy and another thing i didn't need to waste so on the roll there's
just a thousand little stickers annoyingly the backing paper on that
roll isn't recyclalbe I'm pretty sure the sticker itself is as long as
still stuck to a package but don't hold me to that because I feel like
different counties do it differently but I was very happy to be purchasing a
thousand at a time because every time I looked to get branded stickers made
commercially I couldn't find a price that was good I couldn't find anything
recyclable and I would have had to repurchase them a lot so I figured
getting one roll of a thousand then I was set for a long old while and
hopefully it will reduce the waste because annoyingly the roll comes on a
little like plastic holder which slots into the printer
super helpful at the time but when that roll has emptied I'm not sure I'm able
to recycle that so I will figure that one out when I get to it but fingers
crossed its recyclable or I can reuse it somehow and finally I also use a sticker
on the front of the package for the address again it's a brother label
sticker the backing paper isn't recyclable drives me mad so overall the
only elements of my packaging and postage that I send that isn't
recyclable at the moment is the stickers I'd say that's about 98% of my packaging
is recycle I'm very happy about that I'm really really happy with the companies
that I found hopefully in the future I can find some more if anyone watching
has any recommendations please let me know I'm really happy to support like
uk-based eco friendly brands even if it means I have to spend a little bit more
I really hope this video made sense hopefully it helped you out if you do
sell things of your own online hopefully you can implement some of the things I
have please let me know if there's any alternatives for my stickers something
that is still efficient but is more eco friendly and recyclable you know so yeah
hope that video was helpful let me know if you have any questions thanks for
watching and I'll see you soon another one