Our Sustainable Packaging

At Avorium, we are committed to running our business sustainably. This is reflected in our actions such as carbon offsetting our product manufacturing and shipping and our choice of materials. Something we are proud of is our packaging – this is an area of business that is often overlooked as not part of the end product. We believe it is just as important to use sustainable packaging as it is to produce eco-friendly products; perhaps even more so! Here are a few things we have done to ensure our packaging is not adding to the growing global climate crisis:

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The majority of our business is online, meaning each order comes packed in a cardboard box. When doing our market research, we noticed that many luxury brands send out online orders in a fancy presentation box which is itself packed in a postage box. This is too much cardboard! Of course, brands want to present their products in the most aesthetically pleasing way possible, but we think our e-commerce boxes have the best of both worlds. They are beautifully designed in our own gorgeous blue Clarity colour and act as both the postage box and the presentation box! No more double boxing! They are also fully recyclable and, even better, are durable enough to be reused again and again! We are really proud of this solution and hope other small businesses can take note and reduce the amount of cardboard they use for online orders. In addition, all cardboard we use to produce our postage boxes is FSC approved. This means that the raw material used to make the boxes is sourced exclusively via sustainable methods. E-commerce does not have to contribute to deforestation and by making sure you source sustainably, you are actually able to contribute towards fixing the problem.

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Often, when we go shopping, we don’t think twice about receiving a paper bag with our purchase; at least it’s not plastic, right? Unfortunately, it is not always as simple as that. Many of the paper bags used by big brands are not actually recyclable. This is because of the finish applied to the bag – matt lamination, gloss etc. We at Avorium made the decision not to finish our bags with anything that would mean they could not be recycled. We think it’s a small price to pay! Our shopping bags are fully recyclable (even the cotton handle!) and look just as fabulous! We’ve even made sure that they are durable enough to be used again and again.

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If you have received an order from us, you will have noticed that the product comes wrapped in tissue paper. This is, firstly, to make the unboxing experience more exciting but also to keep your item protected on its journey to you. Again, we have noticed many companies use bubble wrap to fulfil this purpose. Whilst bubble wrap is great for protecting your goods in transit, it is often made of plastic and is non-recyclable meaning most of it will end up in landfill. On the other hand, our tissue paper is not only both compostable and recyclable, it is also made from recycled materials. Like our postage boxes, our tissue paper is FSC approved. It is also acid free meaning there are fewer chemical agents involved in the manufacturing process. The ink used to print our logo is soy based rather than the traditional alternative of petroleum based; soy based inks degrade up to four times faster! If a product needs further protection (mainly our plant pots!), we use packaging peanuts. These aren't just any packaging peanuts though; they are made completely from starch meaning they are biodegradable and entirely home compostable!

 

Whilst we are proud of the steps we have taken to make our packaging as sustainable as possible, we are always hoping to improve. If you have any comments or feedback, please do get in touch or indeed if you can see a way for us to become even more sustainable! We only have one planet and we all have a responsibility to look after it. If you like our packaging, or have found an ingenious way to resuse it, tag us! @avorium_london