As a growing company that counts fulfillment as a core competency, Bold Xchange has a responsibility to be proactive about our impact on the environment. As we have seen with behemoth e-commerce retailers, this industry creates an unbelievable amount of waste and we must work hard to minimize our part in that.

Although we cannot control what you, our customers, do with the packing materials after they arrive in your home, we can give you some suggestions. Here are our suggestions for how to reuse and recycle what we send you.

• Corrugated boxes: Break them down for curbside recycling or use them like you would a shoebox, for extra storage or trinkets or other items in your home. Or, turn the box into a DIY garden.
• Packing paper: As long as there's no moisture or stains on it, our packing paper can be recycled curbside. You can also reuse it to protect items during your next move or to store valuables. 
• Biodegradable packing peanuts: These are the simplest to discard. Add them to your compost pile or fill a sink with warm water and pour in the peanuts to dissolve.
• Bubble wrap & polymailers: These do not go in your blue curbside recycling bin. Instead, head to a local grocery store that has a drop-off bin to discard bubble wrap, mailers, and plastic bags.
• Crinkle paper: This is also great for composting. You can also drop it off at most shredding events. Some curbside recycling programs take crinkle paper, but check your local program to confirm.
• GreenWrap: This is a naturally biodegradable, compostable, and recyclable alternative to bubblewrap and other protective materials.  

In addition to encouraging our customers to reuse and recycle, we've committed to a few practices that decrease the environmental impact of our business.

The first is shifting to use only recyclable and biodegradable packaging: corrugated boxes, packing paper (made of recycled and recyclable materials) in our standard boxes. For fragile items, we use biodegradable packing peanuts, GreenWrap, and crinkle paper, which are all recyclable as well.

Any bubble wrap we currently use to protect fragile items is being reused from inbound shipments. Whenever possible, we reuse the materials our brand partners used to ship their products to Bold Xchange.

We have also moved into a facility where we can control our own waste disposal, which gives us a guarantee that recyclable items end up where they should be.

Have other ideas on how we can be more thoughtful about our impact on the environment? Email us at hello@boldxchange.com