We’ve already implemented Repack packaging throughout our customer purchases, so when we launched our rental service, we thought, “Of course, we need to use Repack!”.
When you rent an outfit for your ski or surf holiday, you will receive, and hopefully return, it in a Repack. We are happy to be providing you with your rental in a Repack, instead of a cardboard box. This is because Repack reduces negative environmental impacts and promotes circular principles.
Repack is a reusable packaging service. It’s a robust, tough-as-nails bag that protects the products. Cardboard may protect the product but first, it’s not tough-as-nails (think about cardboard in the rain, it’s quite sad). Second, its ability to be used over & over again is limited. Our creativity only allows us to build used cardboard into a castle for our cat, use it to regift something, and or recycle it, which may not be not as efficient as we all think.
If we were to use cardboard for rental, it would be like this :
We get 200 orders for February holidays; we send out 200 cardboard boxes. Giving the benefit of the doubt, half of the people keep their original cardboard boxes and send their rental back to Picture in them. The other half goes and buys a new cardboard box. Now we have used up to 300 boxes. Out of those 200 boxes Picture receives back, only half are in good enough shape to be used for the next round of rental. In this system, there is a lot of opportunities for waste.
With Repack, the situation is like this:
We get 200 orders for February holidays; we send out 200 Repacks. People ski, snowboard, snowshoe, enjoy the mountains while their Repack is waiting to get used again. Then, Picture receives the 200 orders back in 198 Repacks because 2 people decided that they liked Repack so much, they kept it. Now, we have 198 Repacks for the next round.
Repack keeps things circular, but does that automatically mean a reduction in carbon emissions?
Although Repack takes a higher CO2 impact to manufacture, it does lower carbon over its lifetime. A medium-sized Repack is found to reduce CO2 by 80% over 20 cycles.
Source: Repack.
I know Repack is a cool, collector’s item; however, it works best if you keep the package during your rental period and use it to return your rental at the end. Then, we can use the same Repack parcel for the next person, and the next person. Nothing is falling out of the loop, following a circular model.
Some Repacks have been reused at least 50 times, let’s see if we can do even more!
By the way, what's best ? Renting or buying ?