Green mailing supplies

I’m starting to get more into the Etsy scene, and have sold a couple items from my shop so far. I keep underestimating how much it will cost to package and ship my items, though, so that ends up eating away more of my profits than I’d planned.

I’ve also always been bothered by the amount of waste involved in most packages I receive. My family is accustomed to me wrapping gifts in newspaper pages by now, but I admit I panicked a bit when my 4 year old opened a birthday gift in front of her friends that I’d placed in one of her younger sister’s empty diaper boxes. The kids all laughed at the brief thought that my big girl had received diapers for her birthday, but she did, too, so I don’t think she’s scarred for life.

So I’ve been brainstorming for the last couple of days about ways I can save money and waste when I mail stuff.

A couple of ideas come to mind quickly:

-Tear out pages of old magazines and scrunch them up in place of styrofoam packaging peanuts and other packaging supplies meant to cushion.

-Turn an empty cereal box inside out and re-tape it to make a new box that doesn’t even need to be wrapped in brown paper.

-Save boxes, mailing envelopes and shipping materials sent to you and use them again. Sure, my husband grumbles every time he accidentally dumps over the big box of styrofoam peanuts, but those babies have had several lives already.

Now take a look at what other people are doing:

- Sew the pages of magazines together to create a shipping envelope. Brilliant!

- Shred the junk mail you receive and use it in place of styrofoam peanuts. This might work with newspapers, too, depending on whether you’re worried about getting black ink on what you’re sending.

-Make envelopes out of old maps and scratch paper following the directions here or here .

-Turn brown paper grocery sacks into large mailing envelopes.

-Follow these directions to fuse plastic grocery sacks together and then use the durable material you’ve created to make envelopes or mailing pockets either by sewing or using strong tape.

What are your tips for greener, cheaper shipping?