In addition to its goal of achieving carbon neutrality for its offices by the end of 2009, Container Exchange offers its clients returnable packaging broker services, resell folding bulk containers, metal storage bins, plastic industrial totes, plastic pallets and used Gaylord boxes throughout the U.S. market. “Our clients, both buyers and sellers, use our services to reduce their own carbon footprints while simultaneously improving profitability,” says David Madden, president of the company.
Returnable packaging reduces landfill waste and energy consumption when compared to expendable packaging. However, over time, as a company’s product mix changes or a manufacturing contract expires, it may no longer have a use for the packaging associated with particular parts. In most cases, the packaging is still perfectly useable, but because they no longer have a use for the containers, the companies would have typically sold the containers to a scrap company, which would reprocess the materials, creating pollution, waste and additional energy use.
Container Exchange acts as a matchmaker between companies looking to dispose of returnable packaging and those looking to acquire the packaging. It is true that transportation of the packaging between buyer and seller through less-than-truckload and truckload-size shipments consumes energy, primarily in the form of fossil fuels. But Madden believes that as his company’s network increases in size and adds buyers and sellers, the chances of locating a matching set of returnable packaging close to a buyer increases, and that close proximity creates a financial and environmental impact through reduced freight costs and fuel use. Container Exchange currently is running at a rate of 400,000 lbs. of repurposed material per month.
Original Article can be found here.