Now that Your Company Doesn’t Need Packing Peanuts, what Do You Do with the Leftovers?

Obviously, if your company has decided to invest in packaging solutions from Packsize, you’re looking to optimize your shipping. You may also be trying to reduce your carbon footprint by using less extra cardboard and eliminating the need for wasteful packing peanuts. However, you’ll keep the regular supplies coming until the new ones get there so that everything you ship is secure. This can lead to some overlap in supplies, and if you happen to have a bunch of packing peanuts lying around with nothing to use them for, don’t worry! We have some ideas for things to do with these superfluous packing materials so that they don’t go to waste.

Donate Your Packing Peanuts to a School

Many schools already use packing peanuts and similar supplies for elementary art classes. Look online: there are sites all over the Internet and hundreds of Pinterest boards where teachers post craft ideas involving peanuts, from glued igloos and sheep with sticks for legs to snow swags and wreaths. Not only will you be getting rid of the extra supplies, but you’ll be donating to a good cause, helping out teachers by giving them one less thing to buy for the classroom, and ensuring that the peanuts will be reused.

Find a Recycling Center

If your company is really looking to become environmentally conscious, recycling peanuts will be an obvious choice. These centers will find the best, most effective way to reuse the materials and you won’t have to worry about the warehouse space they are taking up anymore. One easy way to locate a recycling center is to use Earth911’s search tool. You can use a materials menu to get listings or punch your zip code or town and the specific thing you want to recycle into the search engine. Then, all you have to do is gather your packing peanuts and drop them off!

Offer them to a Local Moving Company

Moving companies are in the unique position of having to transport a lot of objects, but often never having a clear idea ahead of time what those objects will be. In essence, every job is custom: each family’s or individual’s furniture will be unique, their clothes will take up different amounts of space, their sports equipment will come in odd shapes, they’ll have different china sets with values ranging from non-existent to priceless, etc. Also, there will only be one of many items. With such variation, local moving companies will probably be only too happy to accept free packing materials.

Put them Up for Sale on eBay or Craigslist

Can’t find a place to donate? Or perhaps you would like to try and recoup some of the costs of buying the packing peanuts in the first place. In either case, advertising online is a great way to get rid of anything that you don’t want to keep. After all, there’s bound to be someone out there who could use these materials, and you’ll find them more easily over the Internet. Craigslist and eBay are some of the quickest options for selling things online, and you can charge as much or as little as you think is appropriate for the amount of materials you are trying to get rid of. If you are looking to get rid of the peanuts as quickly as possible, a lower price will probably do the trick, and if you are selling on eBay you can always set a time limit.

When you invest in Packsize, your processes will waste fewer materials and cost your company less money. These tips will help you to stop wasting materials from the moment that you get our customized solutions. If you haven’t done so yet, contact us today to find out more about our innovative products!