It might appear a trivial matter but how your refurbished device is packaged has an impact on the environment.
Let’s set the scene. After a while comparing products and prices, you’ve decided on your dream refurbished device and you buy it. You get an email with the tracking number of your product. And over the next couple of days, you follow your package on its journey until it arrives at your door. When it does, you rip open the packaging, shove it in the green bin, and start enjoying your device.
Sound familiar?
However, let’s go back a step. Do you ever wonder about the packaging that your product came in?
Thinking outside the box
There are many aspects to refurbished products that differentiate them from the brand-new market – price, commitment to the circular economy, environmental awareness, among others – but one which is less known is packaging.
When you buy a new tech product, a lot of thought goes into the packaging. In many ways, the box becomes a part of the design, despite it ending up in the bin within hours. All the big brands have developed the fine art of creating luxurious packaging designed as much for ‘unboxing’ videos on YouTube as for their customers. By buying refurbished, you are further helping the environment by avoiding all that packaging.
Yet when it comes to refurbished devices, what type of packaging should you expect?
Should we attempt to mimic the original manufacturer’s packaging? Or use white cardboard? Or brown?
Firstly, refurbished goods do not come in their original packaging. So with that option out, there’s a binary choice between white or brown.
For us, it’s a simple choice - brown.
Brown – better for the environment
For a start, it’s cheaper than white packaging which means that no extra cost is being passed on to the customer, especially for something that is soon to end up in your bin.
But more importantly, it’s better for the environment. White packaging contains chemicals such as bleach which is bad for the environment. Furthermore, it may not come from renewable sources and therefore has not been recycled.
The natural look
Ultimately, there’s a reason why brown is associated with a greener, more natural way of life. Paper is naturally brown and any variation on the colour is, in effect, unnatural. When it comes to packaging, brown is the original green.
As part of our commitment to the environment we - unlike other refurbished device companies - use brown packaging. For what’s the point in trying to help the environment by recycling devices when the very packaging that it comes in does the opposite.
So when you order from us, you’ll do so knowing that even the packaging that your device comes in helps the environment.