Eco Shark's Packaging

Eco Shark's commitment to sustainability goes beyond the products that we sell. We endeavour to reduce and reuse in all aspects of our business, which is why we're so passionate about reusing shipping materials whenever possible.

We were thrilled to learn from our market research that the overwhelming majority of our customers want to see reused and recycled packaging. You are our people! We dutifully collect gently used boxes, padded envelopes, and shipping paper from our local community and find the best shipping materials possible for each order that we receive. We also use recyclable paper tape and hemp fibre shipping labels.

Being a small business we have the ability to ensure our products are efficiently packed to avoid the type of shameful over packaging that is pretty much the norm for major online retailers - like when you order a book and it comes in a box better suited for a microwave, with all the empty space jammed full of plastic air bags. 

Online shopping has always created an abundance of waste, but this was exasperated in 2021 during the pandemic when online shopping overtook in-person shopping. Large companies have a lot more logistics to deal with compared to small businesses and unfortunately those logistics never seem to include environmental impact. Similarly sized boxes fit neatly into their delivery cargo vans and help ensure each individual box fits snuggly for a next-day delivery turnaround, but the number of bagged air, crumpled paper, and oversized boxes is coming at a huge cost to the environment.

This Vox article does a good job of summing it up: "While paper packaging isn’t entirely benign — some 3 billion trees are pulped every year to produce 241 million tons of shipping cartons, cardboard mailers, void-fill wrappers, and other paper-based packaging, according to forest conservation group Canopy — single-use plastics present the bigger concern for environmentalists because they can persist in the environment, sometimes for hundreds of years. And their recyclability is often oversold. Currently, less than 14 percent of the nearly 86 million tons of plastic packaging produced globally each year is recycled. The vast majority is landfilled, incinerated, or left to pollute waterways and poison wildlife."

All this is why we take our packaging and shipping policies seriously, and are so thankful that our customers agree with us!  It hasn't happened yet, but in anticipation of a day where we do not have the perfect reused box or envelope for your order, we are armed and ready with other environmentally responsible packaging.

Because we believe in transparency, here are the materials we have and why we have them:

🌱  100% recycled kraft paper boxes, fully curb side recyclable 

🌱  100% biodegradable bubble mailers, home compostable, made from corn and plant starch-based materials to fully decompose in 180 days, leaving only water, humus, and C02

🌱  Padded Kraft envelopes with 100% recycled paper padding. Fully curb side recyclable

🌱  100% compostable and biodegradable mailer bags, made from PLA and PBAT. Compostable in commercial facilities in 90 days, or home composters in 180 days

🌱  For our free local pick up orders, we use kraft paper bags with twisted paper handles that are made from 100% recycled paper and are fully curb side recyclable

🌱 Our green tissue paper is green in colour and green in content! It's made from 100% post-industrial, recycled raw materials and dyed with water based ink

We'd love to hear any feedback you have about our packaging and shipping practices!  Please comment below or reach out to info@ecoshark.net.