Save Some Green By Going Green

From my earliest days as a mover I thought about all the tape and boxes and paper and bubble wrap we used on the job – and how much of that ended up filling the dumpster out back. There have to be ways to reduce all that waste, I often told myself.

Apparently I was not the only person who thought so.

As with the business world in general, there are green-hued rumblings in the storage and moving industry. Our moving brethren are recycling furniture and electronics, heating their facilities with used engine oil, driving hybrid trucks that run almost totally on battery power below 30 miles per hour and donating trees to the Brazilian rainforest each year.

Lofty pursuits, to be sure. But what can some of our littler brethren do? Most obviously: use recycled boxes whenever possible. Offer them to your customers, to save them money. Offer to take them away after they move into their new place – that customer will be up to their hips in boxes, they’ll love you for helping them clear some of them out and you can turn around and use them on another move.

For your local moves, is it necessary to use all that tape for those boxes of shoes and towels? One strip across the top should be enough. And in good weather there seems little need to tape over every seam on every edge of every carton. Being judicious with tape saves time and money – for us as well as for our customers.

Going further, following the example of New York’s Movers, Not Shakers! – on local moves you might be able to suggest reusable or rentable plastic bins from companies like:

• PiggyBoxes – Serving the Orange County, CA market.
• ElfBoxes – Serving the Washington DC area as well as parts of Florida.
• Redi-Box – Serving the Illinois and Indiana market.
• BOXAROO– Serving the Reading Pennsylvania market.
• Denvers Moving Boxes– Serving the greater Denver market.
• ZippGo– Serving the greater San Francisco market.
• Better Than Boxes– Serving Atlanta and the Dallas/Ft. Worth market.
• Lend-A-Box– Serving Northern Virginia and Washington DC

This may require an investment on your part, but look what SustainableBusinessForum and AllBusiness say about the benefits of going green. Long term, this investment might be a real smart move.

You may not be in a position to convert your fleet to biodiesel, or make the switch to wind power for your office space. But there are ways to turn your business a shade greener – which benefits everyone.

What ideas do you have for increasing your green factor? We’d all love to hear from you!