God i hate when companies green wash. Anyone who thinks switching from carboard shipping to returnable shipping is “greener” doesnt know what they are talking about. They rely on people to not know any better so they can make these dumb claims. Sure end of life is lower but scope 3 emissions will be doubled overall.
You would have a much lower carbon emission if you just recycled it properly than to ship it back.
Returnable via an extra shipping?? Yeah that’s absolute greenwash, it’s a bulky rigid EMPTY plastic box to be shipped back filling up more trucks and planes
Edit: Sorry, just read that they fold down. That’s better, but I still doubt that the extra traveling it has to do is worth it compared to local recycling. I’d prefer a push toward monomaterial packaging (either all paper or all plastic, e.g. no metal clips or hard to remove plastic tape that end up in the paper recycling bins)
According to the company, the reusable boxes can be used around 30 times before ultimately being recycled.
In fact, Riese & Müller plans to use these reusable plastic boxes worldwide for both its bikes and small components.
Not sure why they consider plastic to be a good material for this, wouldn’t an impact to the exterior compromise the structural strength of the plastic? Vs a cardboard box which will just get dented or impaled at the location of the impact, still being able to retain the majority of its structural stength?
This smells like a green Maytag IMO. I see no reason why they could not accomplish the same reusable thing with cardboard
Wow. Reusable containers.
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.