There’s no question that e-commerce can be incredibly convenient.
In a few clicks or taps, an item is ordered and dispatched in hours, often arriving in a matter of days. Smaller goods, of course, tend to get shipped in pouch-like mailers, which are almost always plastic and cannot get recycled curbside. While that piles on a little more guilt to impulse buying, lucky for us, there’s now a company looking to make e-commerce more sustainable by reusing those pesky mailers.
Finland’s RePack makes waterproof mailers designed for clothing out of recycled polypropylene, and the firm estimates that the mailers are good for about 40 trips. Partner retailers—over 125 to date—offer their customers the option to receive their orders in RePack mailers, which comes with a prepaid shipping label. Customers return the mailers at their convenience from anywhere in the world, and they get incentivized to not keep them through a Rewards program. Sustainability-minded consumers will also be motivated to return the RePack mailer because, you know, if everyone keeps them, it sort of defeats the purpose of reusable packaging.
The company has worked with European retailers such as H&M and began operations in the US earlier this year. So far, two American retailers have adopted RePack—éliou and RE/DONE.
