Green your Moving Checklist: Choose RecoPacks

Written by Tara Benwell
Published on September 6th, 2008

It always makes me laugh when moving companies try to sell their own boxes. Who would pay for a box with so much cardboard already going into the landfills? In the last month or so my husband has been picking boxes up all over the city. He goes to liquor stores, bars, grocery stores, and restaurants.  MORE BOXES is on the top of the moving checklist every week. Gulp. I suddenly get how this is not the most eco-friendly option. Every time hubby goes on a box run, we’re using that darned car. Need I mention the amount of tape required to make sure the toy hippos don’t fall out?

If we lived in California, we would most definitely use RecoPacks from rentagreenbox.com, a company that takes zero-impact very seriously. Not only do they scour the landfills for trash that is difficult to recycle, such as old car seats and bottles that once held bleach or laundry detergent, they also deliver the containers (when you rent them for a buck a week) in a truck that runs on veggie oil and bio fuel. When you’re done you simply place the RecoPacks on a “poopy pallet” (made partially from the shells of old diapers) outside your new home and the veggie truck picks them up. No secret dumping of boxes in the cover of darkness necessary.

On their colourful and extremely informative website, rentagreenbox.com claims they can cut your moving and packing costs by 50%. I was initially concerned by the fact that the containers are fashioned from things that once held toxic chemicals. However, founder Spencer Brown assured me that his earth friendly moving products are as green as they get:

We have to clean the plastic in a closed looped system to remove all of the chemical residues and contaminants, then we apply the NANO technology to the plastic and when we heat it up to make the green little nurdles, the heat exchange eliminates any toxins, poisons, leaching, the list goes on and on…The plastic is so safe, that the Department of Conservation has asked us to make the same box for agricultural applications for loading and transporting fresh veggies from farm to market instead of using a waxed based cardboard box.

The company has also been approved by the FDA for hospital moves, and offers a hypo-allergenic deep cleaning (at a charge) for families who have special medical needs. These eco-friendly packing boxes can be reused more than 500 times.

The Canadian company, FROGBOX offers a similar service in Vancouver, BC. Their water resistant stackable boxes are offered in convenient bundles (1-2 bedrooms or more) at a much cheaper price than buying cardboard from DIY moving companies. If you have moved your family in a Vancouver rainstorm, you’ll agree that soggy boxes do not add up to moving day fun. Every time you make a purchase from FROGBOX, the company donates 1% to an environmental cause.

With the average American family moving every five years (this seems like common knowledge though I can’t find a good source for how often Canadian families move) I can’t even imagine how much of an impact companies like these will have on the environment in the years to come. Rentagreenbox.com plans on opening its service to all of America within the next 36 months. Let’s hope the expansion catches on north of the border as well.