One day about a month ago, I was packing up a bunch of orders to ship.  I got to thinking about how much cardboard I was using to ship out each pendant.  Then I started wondering if I could find a way to ship with less waste while still getting my glass art to my customers quickly and safely.  I was already using biodegradable Bio-Bubble wrap for packing but I wasn't happy with the volume of cardboard I was using for each order.

I started doing some research and ended up spending several days investigating my options.  I finally settled on using mostly 100% post consumer recycled boxes for shipping.  There aren't many small box sizes available that are made with recycled materials so I decided to save cardboard and go with specially-sized smaller boxes for orders that don't fit well in the recycled boxes.  That took care of the packaging and I was starting to feel good about how much more earth-friendly my business was going to be.

Then I thought about the environmental cost of the actual travel involved in shipping a package.  I started looking for a way to offset the CO2 produced by shipping packages and I found a great company that provides that service.  GreenShipping.com actually uses the USPS package tracking system to calculate the CO2 emmisions produced by the travel of a package to it's destination.  Then they bill me for the carbon credits it takes to offset the produced emmissions.  The result is so-called "carbon neutral" shipping, where the impact of each package shipped is offset by investing in earth-friendly energy production.

It feels good to be able to offer my customers earth-friendly shipping to complement my nature-inspired glass art.  To learn more about my green shipping practices and watch a video about carbon neutral shipping, please visit my Green Shipping page.