Tell us what you do to help make your business more environmentally friendly

[community_team]

In celebration of Earth Day, tell us what you do to help make your business more environmentally friendly.

[sugarnspice777]

By telling people the TRUTH about how it is NOT America but CHINA destroying our planet and giving Americans cancer with there tainted unregulated products.  By telling them the water they buy is filled with toxins from heated plastic, that way they stop buying them and littering our oceans with them.  How buying old non toxic products on ebay will keep them much safer.  Also how regulated America is, and how unregulated china is.  I also encourage all to buy used vintage clothing on ebay and to make sure it is American made, that china uses formaldehyde in there clothing, very toxic to humans.  That any plastic bought there has the second most toxic chemical known to man in it. 

[katzrul15]

We order our business cards, promo cards, etc from a local printer who only uses recycled materials to print on.  They are a little more expensive and the texture is slightly different.  However, they are 100% recycled materials and we get to support a local family small business in the process.  

Small baby step for eco-green.

[gwzcomps]

I feel eBay is doing their part to hurt the environment.  I wonder how much fossil fuels are burned to handle the blatantly false SNADs sellers have to deal with?  Maybe if they changed that sellers could be more environmentally friendly.

Honestly though eBay's return practices in general are environmentally unsound.  I had less returns and unhappy customers when buyers had to communicate and try to work things out. 9 times out of 10 I was able to solve the problem.  Globally across the site I am guessing these return processes are eating a lot of fuel.

[toysaver]

I drive around my neighborhood early on garbage day looking for boxes and packing materials.  Big TV boxes are easy to spot and can mean enough foam packing material for a week. 

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@sugarnspice777. Sugar you make a lot of sense here. China is the LARGEST polluter in the world and they don't care. I tried to avoid buying stuff from there but I cannot avoid it all unfortunately. I repurpose, recycle and reuse wherever I can.

    Old towels that come into my thrift I take home and wash and cut them into rags so that we can sell them. The white old towels I will wash and drop them off to a new groomer in town.

    I really try not to waste a lot or throw things into the landfill, if it can be repaired, painted it will be sold in my store or donated at my Thrift.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Like many small ebay sellers we re-use packing materials (although we also do use some new). Most of what we sell is basically getting a new lease on life through a new buyer...so, also like many ebayers, we've been doing recommerce before there was a recommerce. From a business perspective those are the two main things.

[fashunu4eeuh]

Like other posters have shared, I also reuse packing materials as much as possible, while still maintaining a standard in presentation. I save all my husband's scrap paper from his office, and make "note pads" out of them for use in running my eBay business. 

[magicjohnsonsvariety]

Allowing sellers to use their own boxes is one of the biggest things ebay does to help the environment.

Using used boxes is so much more environmentally friendly than always using new boxes...and we know what site always uses new boxes, even though they claim to be so environmentally responsible.

Reuse over recycle is always better.

[jayjaspersgarage]

I have always recycled since the first Earth Day in 1970 when as a ten year old I volunteered to crush the glass being dropped off at the High School recycling center.  On subsequent weekends they let me sort the glass by color into the various bins.

For my ebay store I have used only recycled foam protector sheets acquired at a former job repurposed into all kinds of box stuffing and for wrapping small breakables.  I have always combined my trips to the post office on the way to work at 4a.m. so that dropping off super early didn't use more fuel.  I installed LED lights in my ebay office and power down my computer every time I leave the house.  I bought an HP laser printer that powers down into standby mode after a short amount of inactivity.

I also do some creative acquisition of used padded envelope and abandoned flat rate boxes on the counters at the post offices I frequent.  Hundreds of damaged flat rate boxes have been cut up to create my patent pending triangular protector sleeves.  I once returned 500 flat rate boxes to the post office for a realtor who was helping an old couple with early Alzheimer's reduce their "ebay hoard" they had to sell off at an estate style sale.  That was a sad afternoon to see what can happen to seniors who lose sight of reality when they try to sell on-line but almost 400 of the boxes were still in new enough shape to be usable while rest had to be recycled due to water damage.

Almost every item I sell is older than 25 years.  I strive to not create demand for new products as a consumer and build small planter boxes made from recycled redwood fence materials sourced through demolition.  

[jewelbiz]

I’m an antique dealer thus I only mostly buy & sell items that are old & have been around a very long time!

[hebertsusedautoparts]

"My post and comments are my own and not those of my employer"

Our whole business is all about recycling

We recycle cars and trucks in New Hampshire.  The industry is at about an 80% recycle rate and working to exceed that every day.

We are also a "NH Green Yard" which means we exceed standards set forth by the EPA and other local environmental organizations and work hand in hand with them along with our auto and truck recycling associations. 

All of our warehouses and work areas have been converted to LED lighting (looking to go solar in the future) and are heated using waste oil furnaces.

We re-use boxes and packing materials for shipping.

We are in an industry where movies and the days of old have given people a perception of a "Junk yard" and nothing makes us smile more than when a new customer walks in and mentions to us how amazed they are with how clean and organized we are and how well maintained the grounds are.

[krazzykats]

I cut up used boxes into packing sheets to use in my new boxes.

Trees are renewable resources, please use paper instead of plastic.

[stuff4divas]

I re-use boxes, padded envelopes, etc I receive from my purchases, altho not as much since I feel obligated to use the ebay shipping boxes, envelopes, etc from my quarterly promo code.

I go to the furniture store dumpster to collect packing materials.

I cut up old boxes to use the flat cardboard pieces as shipping material.

I re-cycle into our re-cycling bin we pay for.

I have a compost pile in my yard.

[101dolphns]

Household plastic and scrap flashing and parts from our molding process is cut up and ground down to pellets and dust and reused in the parts we make and sell here on Ebay. I do not like throwing out any plastic. I'd rather it became inventory.  🙂