Our Green Shipping Practices

Dear Daedra: What shipping materials do you use? I’d hate to get my reusable glass straw wrapped in plastic!

If you are one of our customers that has left some version of this note in your order comments, we appreciate your stand that companies go green!

When we first started selling glass straws in late 2008, green shipping options were not readily available. So over the years we had to experiment and discover the best way to both protect our product while going green. It took several iterations of research and trial-and-error, but eventually we found what we were looking for.

In the early days, we would go to local businesses after they unboxed their products and intercept the remaining packing materials headed to the trash. This worked well because we were preventing (or at least prolonging) those materials from being thrown away when they were still useful. Even though we didn’t like using plastic peanuts and bubble wrap, it was tolerable because we weren’t buying all new packing materials. After a few years, we were able to phase this practice out because paper-based replacements for bubble wrap and packing peanuts became available, were cost-effective, and worked better. This was a game changer for us.

Since the end of 2013, we have fulfilled 99% of our orders with 99% plastic-free materials that were either recyclable or made with recycled materials. We continue this practice today.

This is what makes up your shipment:

1. Your paper packing slip
2. A Strawesome business card size flyer
3. Your glass straws and accessories wrapped in Geami (see photo below)
4. All the above put inside a corrugated cardboard shipping box (see photo below)
5. A “fragile” sticker and postage label (both made with paper and gum adhesive)
6. Packing tape (Currently we use 3M packing tape and it doesn’t appear to be the recycled flavor. This item is what we just realized is left to upgrade.  A worthy 2018 project!)

Update: As of March 2018, we are now using 100% plastic-free materials as we upgraded our packing tape!

100% of the “waste” from the above is all paper-based and recycled, including the cardboard tape roll.

The other 1% of our orders, the ones that are not 99% plastic-free, we will use plastic bubble wrap or other shipping materials that we’ve collected from items we have ordered from other companies. Instead of throwing these plastics away or immediately recycling them, we found it best to reuse them in our larger orders. So if you do get some plastic packing materials in your order, know that they are reused, rather than a thoughtless and incongruent practice.