Better Packaging for a Better World
Every day we make choices that impact our bodies and our world. The food we eat, the clothes we buy, and even the way we buy them are important. Our modern world has made it easier than ever to find something online and to have it at our doorsteps at lightning speed. While the convenience of online shopping and two-day shipping can’t be beat, we at Truth Alone Clothing ran into an issue when we began thinking through how we wanted our own shipping to work. You see, it was a problem of packaging.
All too often when we have items shipped to us, they come wrapped in plastic or bubble wrap and don’t even get us started on shipping boxes within boxes. Honestly, it seems to be getting a little excessive. We wanted to do something a bit different. We decided to rethink packaging. We knew we wanted our clothing to arrive safely at your door and that we wanted to create a great unboxing experience, but we also wanted our parcels to leave a smaller environmental footprint than some other popular retailers in this space.
For us, it all starts with the box. Our goal was to eliminate the need for any and all packing filler including bubble wrap, air pillows, and paper. We wanted our items to arrive flat, and not gathered in a wrinkly mess in the corner, so our boxes are sized to fit our garments perfectly. For the cardboard of our boxes, we only buy from suppliers who are certified by the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI). A wonderful organization whose mission is to promote sustainable forestry management, improved forestry practices, and responsible purchasing of forest products. Trees are one of our greatest natural resources, and we wanted to be sure we were using cardboard responsibly.
Inside the box, proved to be equally as challenging. Our hang tag is made from locally sourced recycled paper, and we attach it to the garment with organic cotton string and a reusable metal clip so that there are no plastic attachments. The bags we use to wrap our clothing are d2w Oxo-Biodegradable Plastic Technology, which means that they can be recycled with other oil-based plastics. What’s more, according to their website, d2w technology “...is designed to control and shorten the life of a normal plastic product...” making it that much easier to break down naturally. Additionally, we decided to source all of our garment packagings locally in Peru to keep the packing materials in the same location as where we create our garments to help reduce our carbon footprint.
It’s not a perfect system, and we’re still working to refine our shipping and packaging processes. However, we hope that even these small steps can help our company and our customers take even more steps along the path to be a force for good in this world. Thanks for joining us on this journey! Tell us about your unboxing experience on Instagram!
