Reuse Sustainable Packing & Shipping

Commitment

We are committed to approaching zero waste with consciousness and care. We are constantly learning new information and also opening our eyes to our own behaviors and unconscious habits.

Nearly all supplies we use to pack & ship your order are reused and upcycled from what we receive at our store. We do our best to REUSE everything we receive. It is our belief that reusing material is the first, and best, sustainable choice before choosing to compost and recycle. With the launching of our online store, we have found a perfect reuse for materials we receive. It is our hope you will be able to find a use, or recipient, for the packing materials you receive from us prior to recycling and/or composting. Keep the reuse cycle going.

Reuse materials we use for shipping:

boxes with printing or branding
biodegradable corn starch packing peanuts
expandos eco packing pyramids
brown recycled padding paper
cellulose (wood pulp padding)

Growth

When we opened our first brick and mortar store in 2020, we soon realized some choices we made were not the most eco-minded. In our excitement and passion, some details were overlooked. As we learn and grow, we continue to commit to being more mindful and integrous as we make decisions, not only about our office and store supplies, but also our vendor relations. We discuss each decision at length and with so much care; we work on striking a balance between many factors. We value transparency and authenticity in our relationships and will share with you information when asked.

Conflict

When we first considered opening the Living Pantry online store, we were conflicted. We wanted to reach beyond our local community to provide more people with awareness & choice in how their purchasing affects their world, yet shipping eco-friendly products did not seem to fit our vision to reduce waste and impact on our planet. Then we started to receive product for our store shelves.

Solutions

We did not anticipate the amount of packing material we would receive on a regular basis. Most of our shipments are received from eco-conscious companies who have worked with us to create closed-loop systems or are utilizing recycled, upcycled, and biodegradable packing materials. We reuse and gift what we can and offer donation to local shipping companies. We have been able to reuse and repurpose materials in the following ways:

TLDR - The short version: Packing supplies not donated, gifted, or readily reused are being stored & used to package our shipment to you.

We work with our vendors to create a closed-loop (where the containers we receive are returned to the vendor to sanitize and reuse) for many products we offer
Much of our food product comes in large paper sacks and bags, which are reused in a variety of ways including for storage and as trash bags
Liquids generally come in large plastic or metal buckets - for those not part of a closed-loop practice, nearly all are donated to local farmers, businesses, and community members for reuse
Some of our body care products come in large plastic jugs - we reuse these for inter-strore transfers and donate them to a local environmental farmer for reuse
Some of our bulk products come without any packaging except for a cardboard box, which is reused until recycled or composted - including donation to local farms, and to a local real estate moving company
We reuse all packing paper and supplies for shipping
We donate, reuse, and compost packing peanuts and spacers we receive
Items we can't reuse or donate, like plastic film, go to Ridwell for reuse/recycling