We’ve got most of our moves down to a zero-waste with NO PLASTIC consumed. It can’t be overstated that not generating waste is number one. We generate so little we don’t even have a dumpster.
Reduce
First we start by using less. That means using rubber bands and cotton straps to hold movers’ pads onto furniture. It also means special re-usable padded covers for sofas, mattresses and chairs. We couldn’t find covers domestically that allowed us to go to a zero plastic move so we had to source them from England and have them shipped over. Not only do they reduce waste, but they actually protect your goods better. If we’re going to reduce our consumption and stop climate change, we might as well make things better, safer and easier while we’re at it right?
Re-use
Used Materials
We also try and re-use any boxes that we can (assuming they’re clean and in decent condition). These are the boxes we use but don’t charge you for. We use them for boxing lampshades during transit, cutting boxes up to protect small pieces of glass or mirror. We also cut them up and tape the cardboard to the face of glass fronted cabinets after we’ve blanket & stretch-wrapped them. This provides an additional level of puncture protection. And since we get them for free, we don’t charge our customers. It’s good for the environment, good for your belongings, and good for your wallet.
Door Wedges
We even take our wood waste that we end up with and turn it into our awesome branded door wedges.
Shredded Cardboard
We have a cardboard shredder. This allows us to cut our consumption of packing paper in half, all the while increasing our utilization of used cardboard.
The cardboard shredder perforates used cardboard boxes creating a flexible cardboard packing materials that’s great for cushioning the bottoms of boxes. It allows a 2nd, 3rd or 4th use for the used cardboard we already have on hand. Even when we’re done using it for this, it can still be recycled.
We purchased it from Machine Solution. We’ll be posting videos of how it works, and how to use shredded cardboard for packing on our blog soon.
Recycle
Intelligent Labor and Moving recycles as much of our waste as is possible. All of our cardboard, packing paper, and stretch-wrap are recycled. This accounts for the vast majority of our waste. Beyond that we also provide our workers with “IL&M” re-usable waterbottles which has brought the number of bottles the guys buy and then throw away down drastically. Any bottles & cans that do get used during the course of the day are also collected and recycled in our recycling bins at our warehouse. We’ve found the key to getting these materials sorted is education so we train our movers and have easy to understand info-graphics we’ve made posted around our shop.
The City of Arlington’s recycling program takes the bottles and cans. The cardboard, mattress bags, paper, and stretch wrap we take in bulk twice a year to Conigliaro Industries. As can be seen in the photos, we compact the stretch-wrap and cardboard and palletize it, which allows us to condense it into 2 truck loads (a spring run and a fall run). We recycle approximately 7-10 tons of this material each year which is the total of our consumption.
Companies we’re partnered with
We work with a number of recycling firms to help us dispose of everything in a responsible way, here’s a list of each and a synopsis of what they do.
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Advocacy
Intelligent Labor and Moving also supports other local organizations and do our best to work for positive change in our world, starting with our local community. We’re members of a wonderful organization called CABA (Climate Action Business Association). Recently our owner, Ezekiel, did an interview with them, check it out here.