
Christmas is a time for giving gifts right? But what do you do with all the leftover boxes, packing material and plastic wrappers once the gifts are opened? Don't throw it all away - it takes up valuable trash can space and fills up the local landfill! Recycle the "waste" for your eBay business! What may look like trash strewn around the Christmas tree can be excellent, low-cost packing material.
Every Christmas I beef up my supply of mailing boxes, packing paper and shipping material with the throwaways contained inside the gifts. With some imagination you can put a lot of this "waste" to good use in your eBay business. More then once my kids have rolled their eyes when I stopped them from trashing a gift box with a "Keep that....it's the perfect size for shipping eBay stuff !" Clear plastic wrappers used for new shirts or electronics can be re-used for packing clothing to ship. When I sell a team jersey on eBay, I slip it inside a recycled shirt wrapper then mail it. The buyer receives their jersey neatly packed in clear plastic. It makes a nice impression and a happy buyer means a higher feedback rating for you!
Styrofoam packing material such as peanuts and big foam blocks used to protect electronics are invaluable! Shipping stores like "Mailboxes Ect" sell these same packing peanuts in large leaf bags for 20 bucks! Why pay those prices when you have the same stuff right inside many of your Christmas gifts? Just salvage them from the gift boxes and store them for eBay wrapping and shipping. If the Styrofoam blocks are too big you can break them down to a manageable size. It's worth the time and effort-there is nothing more frustrating then not having enough packing material. Ever see those big air bubble wrappers you get in Amazon boxes? They also make excellent material. Another awesome "waste" product to recycle are the soft spongy wrappers used to cover things like new TV screens. We gave our daughter a plasma TV for Christmas. After she opened the box I grabbed the spongy wrapper before it ended up in the trash. It's going to have a second life protecting fragile dishware or a picture frame.
It's all good, useful stuff and you should save as much as you can. As the months pass, you'll use every bit of the recycled packing material. So by thinking "Green" you're not only helping the environment, but that's less bubble wrap and peanuts you have to buy. Green is good!
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