Being Greener - Our Commitment

I've always been very environmentally conscious. Example: while growing up in Hong Kong, I refused to use the air conditioner in the summer. It's 90 degrees with 100% humidity. Needless to say, it's hot. Now that I'm older, I am still passionate about the environment.

Recently I saw Roz Savage's, "Why I'm Rowing Across the Pacific" via ted.com. This is an amazing talk about one woman's (yes, I said woman) journey across the Pacific. She now campaigns for environmental sustainability and against plastic pollution. I realized that I can (and will) do more.

One of the major things that we struggle with at 9tailors is plastic waste. Each shirt arrives in its individually packaged plastic sleeve. While it keeps all the shirts nicely organized and protects against dirt and damage, we use anywhere up to 50 plastic sleeves a week. That means about 200 sleeves a month. Or, even scarier, 2,400 sleeves a year. That's a whole lot of plastic. See below.

Just a very small portion of what throw away each week.

While we do recycle the plastic and try to re-use it as much as possible. It's a little disturbing that we produce this much waste.

So, in an effort to lessen our own plastic waste and other disposable packaging, we agree to do the following:

1. In our bulk shipments, we will stop individually packaging shirts in plastic. Instead we will place all shirts in one larger reusable bag.
2. In our client shipments, we will no longer send paper receipts. We will e-mail each receipt to each client. It is up to each client to print (or not print) the receipt.
3. For client pick-ups, we will no longer wrap our products in tissue paper and will transition away from paper bags and move towards reusable bags.

It's a small yet, meaningful step for us in the right direction.

Do you have other ideas to help us be more environmentally friendly? Leave a comment.