Reduce, reuse and recycle our packaging

Feb 27, 2020 | Reading time: 4 minutes

We all love a spot of online shopping, it’s easy, convenient and most importantly, we can do it from our sofa in our pj’s - what more could anyone want?

However online shopping can have environmental costs when it comes to the type of packaging used and how this simply gets discarded to landfill as soon as your items arrive. Here at Natural Baby Shower, it’s not just eco and sustainable products that we focus on, we also make sure that we operate as eco as possible to help the planet as best we can. From reducing the use of paper with innovative technology developments in store, online and in our head office, we also avoid using single use plastics and we implement energy saving and waste reducing practices in our warehouse. But we don’t just stop there, Natural Baby Shower make it a huge priority to make sure our packaging is sustainable and take big steps in ensuring it is recyclable where possible.

From the very beginning, our founder, Vics knew that it was just as important to make sure we use green packaging as it was to offer planet friendly products. This way Natural Baby Shower was bringing our customers the ultimate planet friendly service.

Below are just some of the steps and measures we take to ensure we are making this planet that little bit greener with out packaging;

We ensure that only the essential packaging is used. Here at Natural Baby Shower we offer a wide variety of different size family items from large car seats to little bibs and muslins, so it was important that we also use a variety of different packaging options to ensure we do not create more waste than the product we are shipping needs.
We use recyclable packaging where possible. Our larger items are shipped in fully recyclable cardboard boxes that can be re-used or recycled.
Instead of the common plastic sealed bags you find from other retailers we use recycled potatoe sacks for the small to medium items. These have been created from old potatoes sacks and can also be recycled by our customers.
In our Surrey store we use only paper bags for purchases and we email our customers their receipts to save on paper.
Instead of air bags for padding inside boxes we use paper stuffing. There are some cases however where those extra delicate items will need a little extra packaging for protection to ensure your goods arrive safely and in a good condition.
We ship our bigger items like pushchairs in their original packaging instead of doubling up packaging and putting boxes inside boxes.
For those extra special deliveries where our customer request a gift wrap, we add the extra special personal touch with our recyclable brown craft paper gift wrap and finished with a twine bow.
Natural Baby Shower even think of the smaller details such as cellotape. On all of our parcels we seal them with 100% recyclable brown kraft tape.
We also encourage the brands we stock and suppliers we promote to use eco-friendly packaging too so we are all working together to help reduce waste. In fact, we often wouldn’t stock a brand that uses unsustainable materials and packaging in their shipments. We want every part of our business to be sustainable and eco friendly everywhere it possibly can be.

Reduce, reuse and recycle our packaging

Think outside the box

We are taking these extra steps to make sure we offer our customers and the planet the most sustainable method of online delivery and in store purchases. It is also important to finish the cycle, so we encourage our customers to also make the effort to recycle our packaging. You can put them on the compost pile, reuse them for storage or re-gifting, or pop them into recycle bins. When recycled, cardboard can be used for so many different things from chipboard to writing paper. But we think why not have a little fun with it first and give it a second or third purpose before it is recycled.

Every parent has been there, when you buy your little one the gorgeous new toy you saw online and when it arrives they are more interested in the cardboard box it came in than their new wooden train set. This got us thinking, what more fun can families have with our cardboard boxes before they get recycled.

Below are just some of the ideas the Natural Baby Shower team came up with. Who ever said we weren't creative!?