In the minute it'll take you to read through this post more than half million parcels will be readied for shipment worldwide.
This year alone, more than 100 billion boxes will be shipped, and most will contain void fill protection made of single-use plastics.
Online shopping has only accelerated this trend. Think about it: products that used to be packaged just for store shelves are now being plucked from warehouse shelves and repackaged for front door delivery.
This trend is the reason why one third of municipal solid waste today comes from packaging materials. Landfills are overflowing at an unprecedented pace due to unrecyclable plastic.
Awareness of this crisis spiked during the global pandemic, as the average consumer's home was swamped by a tidal wave of plastic packaging.
Consumers and eco-conscious brands and have been searching for a solution.
Fortunately, for the savvy, there's a turnkey solution catching on that's helping businesses save money while saving the earth from more needless plastic waste. The EverTec Padded Mailer by Pregis is the real deal, and here's why...
From a pure cost standpoint, it beats the box by reducing two major inputs: the time it takes to load products and the added cost of shipping them. Sealing product in a protected padded mailer takes one fourth the time of manually putting it in a box, so eliminating that step saves money on materials and labor.
In addition, sending padded envelopes through USPS, UPS, FedEx and Amazon is cheaper than sending clunky boxes filled with extra plastic waste.
But the big win is this: the EverTec Padded Mailer is 100% curbside recyclable, allowing consumers to easily put the entire mailer made of fiber-based material back into the recycling stream by dropping it right into their home bin.
"Until they came along, all the other padded mailers out there were bubble mailers or multi-material mailers that aren't recyclable, so they inevitably end up in landfills," says Wes Carter, President of Atlantic Packaging, the largest privately-held industrial packaging supplier in North America. "EverTec was the first-to-market 100% curbside recyclable mailer. It's the game changer."
Mio Minic can attest to that. He's an Account Manager for Pregis, one of many packaging suppliers Atlantic sells and distributes. Pregis invested heavily in EverTec as part of their growing sustainable portfolio. Like Carter, Minic loves busting myths about sustainable packaging, especially the one that has people believing it's more expensive.
A year ago, for example, a customer approached him in the hopes of finding a way to save 10% annually on shipping costs. Given their size, 10% would equal about $300,000.
When it was all said and done, the company's separate packing stations started using the EverTec Padded Mailer. Over the next year, the combined savings on freight and materials netted out to a staggering $4.5 million.
Of course, the other big winner here was Mother Earth. By switching to padded mailers thousands and thousands of pounds of plastic were removed from the system, staying out of landfills, waste streams, and nature.
Today, the Evertec Padded Mailer is one of the flagship products available in Carter's New Earth Approved catalogue at Atlantic Packaging, a catalogue geared for small and medium sized businesses looking for sustainable packaging solutions.
"It's a very simple sustainable solution that's turnkey for most direct to consumer businesses," says Carter. "And we're really proud to offer it, because it's a huge weapon in the fight against plastic pollution. Who would have thought a padded mailer could have such a huge impact?"
