My Ecologically Correct Move
- Posted by: Xeni Jardin
- on January 22, 2009 at 9:10 am
Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin tries out a new kind of moving service
Moving sucks. It sucks, it sucks, it sucks, and there’s no getting around the fact that it sucks. Nobody enjoys upending their life, tossing their belongings in boxes and shuffling off to an unfamiliar, new place that is not yet home. But when I relocated a few months ago, I learned that moving sucks a lot less when you skip the cardboard boxes you have to either buy new or beg used—and instead, rent 100% recycled, post-consumer plastic boxes from a company called RentAGreenBox.com.
Disclosure: I met the company’s founder, Spencer Brown at the studio where we produce Boing Boing’s daily video program last year. He’s a fan of Boing Boing. We talked about his business, and he offered to comp the service so I could review. So, I did receive some personal benefit from the experiment.
Here’s how the service works: They send a truck to your home with whatever number of boxes you need (they’ll help you estimate). The boxes are made from recycled plastic containers, and come in various sizes—smaller ones for heavy objects like books, larger ones for more lightweight things like clothes or bedding. The service comes with recycled packing materials, too, so you don’t have to use über-wasteful, petroleum-based stuff like bubble wrap or Styrofoam packing peanuts.
Spencer drove the (100% veggie biodiesel) truck to my home himself, and showed me around the truck and demonstrated the process in person. My dog liked him, and she liked rolling around in the “expandos” and “recocubes.”
Apart from being (surprise!) made from recycled materials, these packing materials also look attractive. The expandos are cute papercraft-oid thingies (like something Buckminster Fuller might fiddle with while bored at his desk), and we found the recocubes serve a second, sinister purpose: they’re great for tossing at whoever’s helping you move, when you’re all sore and tired and frustrated and want to blow off steam. Even the dolly they delivered was recycled—made from aluminum beverage cans, so it was lighter than the steel one I owned. I also loved the “geami” packing paper—that’s their recycled alternative to bubble wrap. Again, visually pleasing, and non-evil.
Spencer is a recycling evangelist, and the passion he has for his work is readily apparent. He likes to talk about keeping every detail of his business “ecologically correct,” even down to 100% recycled packing ties. “I want to convert trash into an untapped resource,” he explained. “Recycling waste in this manner can help detoxify our landfills, preserve natural resources, and provide people with a truly environmentally-friendly way to pack and move their property.”
The OCD/ADD part of my psyche loved the fact that these boxes stacked perfectly. They’re neat and uniformly sized, unlike the hodgepodge of apple/peach/whatever boxes I would have bummed off my grocer. Because of this, even the amount of space in the truck I rented was minimized—yet again contributing to a resource-conservative move.
The one downside to using Spencer’s big green boxes was that they’re heavier than cardboard. But I felt good about not generating new waste in the move by using his service, and I really appreciated not having to figure out what to do with a large quantity of cardboard boxes once we were done—recycling that much cardboard is a hassle, and throwing them in a large dumpster bin seems like both a hassle and a sin.
Rates are pretty straightforward, and when I priced out my own move, the cost would be much less expensive than with cardboard boxes. The company’s “recopacks” are available in three basic levels, for small, medium, and large moves, and the smallest of these costs $169 a week. Additional time and additional boxes are available, and the cost includes delivery, and retreival of the boxes when you’re done. I’d definitely use them for a personal or business move again.
PHOTOS:
Xeni Jardin is a Boing Boing tv host and executive producer, and Boing Boing blog co-editor living in Los Angeles, CA.
Photos by Xeni Jardin
DISCUSSION: 14 Comments
the “geami” packing paper is actually the brand. they are based in nc and a really interesting company. http://www.geami.com/ .
These can’t be more ecologically friendly than using cardboard boxes… Plastic is petroleum-base; the extraction, processing, and transport, of the initial material uses vast amounts of petroleum, the re-rendering of the old plastic into new is filthy, the shipping of the recycled boxes around produces more CO2 than the cardboard would, and then there’s the toxic nature of the boxes (recycled or not…) Plastic is evil – any way you cut it.Check out this short CBC Documentary: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=GjYn-HwDQns
I can’t say I’m against this idea per se, but isn’t bumming cardboard boxes off people who have used them and are going to trash/recycle them anyway a form of reuse? I suppose it depends on where you live, but it’s easy to recycle cardboard in Toronto. The only annoying part is breaking the boxes down, but it took me maybe twenty or fifteen minutes to break down every single box I brought with me when I moved last month. Then all I have to do is put them out on the curb on recycling day. I don’t have to buy a thing (I get boxes from grocery stores and a local used bookstore, which provided especially strong ones) or trash anything. Heck, I’ve reused the boxes for storage or cut them up to use the cardboard for various projects.Packing material? Old newspapers or clothes (especially stuff I plan to give to charity or use as rags anyway).That said, I like the idea of boxes that can be almost infinitely reused (and are stackable and waterproof as well as stronger than cardboard). But I can’t see myself spending the money.
@Anonymous 3:05pm:Y’know, I am not quite sure the term ‘evil’ applies to recycled plastic moving boxes. We should probably preserve that term to apply to things with, say, motivations and intent.On an unrelated note: DOGGIE!-Random_Tangent
In New York most people would be very wary of reusing carboard boxes. the bed bugs! the roaches! And it is a pain to round up enough boxes which is why most people end up buying new boxes without any recycled content at all. If the tubs are recycled plastic and are goign to be in service for 5 years, this is def better than cardboard.
I am pretty sure that these are the leftove boxes from Webvan…
$169? Are you serious? There are cardboard boxes everywhere that are already being thrown away. If you grab some out of the dumpster & use them, you have recycled. I guess this is for lazy yuppies who were gonna buy new boxes, so this is better. Why does being green have to be expensive? Moving costs a lot as it is.
Hello- this is Spencer the guy who invented the Rentagreenbox.com product called the Recopack. It’s made from 100% recycled plastic waste- not new plastic and my Product rents for over 400 uses before we grind it up to make another Recopack- so it’s a zero waste, cradle to cradle, alternative to using a cardboard box that will end up in a landfill. Please feel free to comment and I will repost my repsonces next week! Thanks again! Spence
I have to agree with the “why not reuse cardboard boxes” folks. Maybe this is better for moving whole houses, but when it comes to small apartments, getting enough boxes is as simple as stopping by the local bookstore or supermarket and asking – there’s no spending hundreds on boxes – and when my brother and I were in college we used the same boxes year after year, or bought plastic boxes which we stored things in as well. For that matter, I bet a lot of us have suitcases we can use to move clothes and bedding, and lots of those have wheels to boot. Plus, the last thing I want is heavier boxes.
This would never work for us. They’d want ‘em back. Heck, we still have stuff in (cardboard) boxes from the last time we moved, almost 12 years ago.
Great feedback! Totally appreciate it… we’re over 54,000 deliveries and my system works for super busy people who want to save time and money and when your paying a moving company between 70 and 100 bucks an hour- if you can cut three hours from the move by my system and not waste your time dumpster diving or taping boxes- you’re actually ahead! Also, I designed the Recopacks to last for at least 400 round trip uses… and you can pack more into my Recopacks than new or used cardboard boxes and it’s crush proof. It’s only a few pounds heavier- and it’s crush proof!! Stacks up to 8 high- so you save on labor and truck costs and its so much faster! Check out our yelp reviews here:http://www.yelp.com/biz/db0TU4y9DQE8DkHwHCMLuQ
“The OCD/ADD part of my psyche loved the fact that these boxes stacked perfectly.” I can definitely relate. More importantly, recycled packaging has to be the way to go. How many times can these boxes be used and used again? Loads of times. I take the above point about plastic being evil whichever way you cut it, but you can’t use cardboard boxes without using (evil) bubble wrap, Styrofoam, sticky tape, etc. Good for you. Love reading stuff like this. Hats off to Spencer.
Just an FYI for all of you. If you are looking for something in between new boxes and dumpster diving there is a website called http://www.usedcardboardboxes.com. They will ship you everything you need including packing material, box cutters and marking pens for a reasonable price. They purchase cardboard boxes in bulk form various industries, both new and used just for this purpose. Not quite as eco friendly but better than buying brand.
seems to me a lot of people are missing the notion that you an use the plastic boxes like 400 times. that’s a LOT more than the cardboard moving boxes provided (at a similar cost) by moving companies or truck-rental places. Also, using these kind of prevents you from never fully unpacking.