July 2008
Paper products are the largest component of community waste, with 85 million tons generated in 2006 according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Learning that this totals 40% of all municipal waste generated, Essential examined their own cardboard consumption behaviors.
They became aware of the quantity of packaging materials they should recycle, appalled at the amount of material they couldn't, and frustrated by an inability to reuse most of it. As a solution, the team devised the Treepac.
Treepac is a reusable shipping container intended to replace cardboard boxes for most business to business, business to customer and person to person shipping. The pack is meant to be used like a cardboard box but is designed to enable and encourage people and companies to improve their personal environmental footprint.
The more times each pack is used, the greater the positive effect on the environment. Its benefit over cardboard increases even more when used in short-distance shipments, which also encourages local commerce.
Designed from a systems perspective, Treepac addresses the specific needs of packers, shippers, and recipients; it mirrors the good features of cardboard boxes, adds new features, and enables new service concepts; and in use it yields a significantly lower overall environmental impact than recycled single-use cardboard boxes.
The structure is made entirely from cellulose acetate. This environmentally friendly polymer is made from wood pulp and is available in biodegradable and non-biodegradable formulations.
The main structural panels are injection molded cellulose acetate and the hinges are woven from exactly the same material. The outer label protectors are made from transparent calendared sheets of acetate and the box is assembled using ultrasonic welding techniques so no adhesives and no VOC's are involved in any process.
Ultimately, they challenged themselves to design a better solution that fulfilled two key goals: create a viable (no green-washing) concept that could have a significant environmental benefit and build awareness and sensitivity to the problem so everyone exposed to their pack would be inspired to "convert." This, they hoped, would result in a lower net impact to the environment per shipment.
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