Whatever you call it: eco-friendly, green, carbon neutral, environmentally conscious, zero-waster ...
It's easy in the supermarket where you can choose to buy your fruit & veg with no packaging. Or perhaps you go to the Deli Counter with your reusable Tupperware containers? Or you have a super-uber-groovy system at home for sorting your rubbish ...
If you're moving house (and chances are, if you've found www.boxdepot.ie you probably are!) this is going to be one of the most stressful events you go through in your lifetime (sorry!) In between the chaos, stress & panic of moving house, your intentions of staying true to the Eco-Friendly person you are might possibly go out the window!
Don't panic!
As you will discover when you read this, Box Depot has your best interests at heart. Our newly introduced and easily-identifiable Eco-Friendly products will keep you true to your intentions!
And if you would "like" to be more environmentally aware; but you're not sure where to start, please read on for an explanation of the terms and the logos that we use on the product listing at www.boxdepot.ie
Once-Used / Recycled Boxes
This is where it all started for Box Depot and why we set up www.boxdepot.ie!
We know a good bit about moving house. Not because we working in the house-moving industry, but because we've Moved House. Quite. A. Lot!
It was infuriating (and embarrassing at times!) to pop to our local supermarket and beg for empty boxes that (in our opinion) were too small to be of any real use.
At the same time, we were working in industries who would get deliveries of products in shiny-brand-new boxes that would be shoved into rubbish bins to be put into landfill or recycled/remade into shiny-new-boxes again!
If you take one tonne of "used" cardboard boxes and send it to be recycled, do you know how much energy/resources that would take?
- Energy required: 4,100 KiloWatts of Electricity
- Water required: 31,780 litres
To put that into perspective, the average 3-bedroom house in Ireland uses approximately 4,100 KiloWatts of Electricity in 6 months!
Oh, and if you want to make brand new boxes, to replace approximately one tonne of used cardboard boxes you would need to chop down approximately 17 full-grown trees!
The cardboard boxes sold on www.boxdepot.ie have been used by businesses for dry-goods (for example: bottle-tops or jam jars). It made no sense to us whatsoever why these boxes were being "dumped" for all intents and purposes! So this is how Box Depot was born!
As with all cardboard boxes, these boxes can be recycled, put in your Green Bin, or even composted!
Recycled
The product itself might be shiny-brand-new, but the raw materials used by the manufacturer are recycled. This is especially predominant in plastic products.
In the past, Ireland has sent their used plastic to China for processing. Ireland is now the top producer of household plastic waste in the European Union; and China, since 2018, has refused to take any more plastic from Ireland. This means that Ireland has had to develop ways of recycling plastic. Whatever products have been developed so far using recycled plastic, it can only get better as technology advances!
Recyclable
This symbol means the product is capable of being recycled. However it does not mean that all Recycling Facilities will accept the product for recycling, so it is always prudent to check first before putting it in your Recycling Bin or driving all the way to your local Recycling Facility!
Compostable
The definition of a compostable says that a product is "capable of undergoing biological decomposition in a compost site as part of an available programme. After decomposition, the product should not be visually distinguishable from the surrounding compost. The product should be capable of breaking down into carbon dioxide, water, inorganic compounds and biomass, at a rate similar to cellulose (paper). In addition, during decomposition, it must not produce any toxic materials, so that the resulting compost is capable of supporting plant life".
Biodegradable
For a product to be classified as Biodegradable, it must be capable of being degraded by nature - weather, soil bacteria, plants or animals. It should be noted that currently there are no requirements for leaving toxic residue; or for the time that it take to biodegrade.
We hope that this explanation of the Eco-Friendly Terms and Logos that we use on Box Depot will assist you with your eco-friendly purchase choices!