The image shown above in our petition, from @xo_xorachel on Instagram, demonstrates the difference in space utilized by 22 Priority Mail boxes vs 22 Poly Mailers. 
 
The purpose of this petition is to request the United States Postal Service to provide Plastics recycling bins at all it’s USPS locations.
 
As we continue to make strides in responsibly protecting our environment, it is imperative we repurpose, reuse, and recycle whenever possible.  We are more thoughtfully minimizing waste wherever we can. However, some segments of our economy, including the logistics industry, cannot today eliminate waste so we must focus on sustainability. 
 
The current shipping/packaging options available today are:
 
Boxes– A paper product that is fully degradable and 100% recyclable, some of which are made from recycled material though most are made from new material.  They are heavy and strong, but bulky. These are the only reliably safe way to ship fragile items. 
Boxes appear to be the most ideal until you really focus on the details.  Most e-commerce shippers use only a few sizes, creating what adds up to a disproportionate amount of un-used space within the box, especially when the product enclosed is not entirely uniform and measured to fit precisely.  Due to their bulkiness, boxes should only be utilized when suitable, more minimalistic packaging is not a reasonable alternative.     
 
TYVEK Mailers- TYVEK looks somewhat like paper and it is strong, light weight, and water resistant. However, TYVEK contains a mix of components includingplastic. Therefore, when it comes to recycling -- it is neither pure enough plastic nor pure enough paper which makes it non-recyclable and must be returned directly to DuPont to be recycled by DuPont. 
 
Compostable Poly Mailers- Like TYVEK, compostable mailers are strong, light weight, and water resistant but are non-recyclable because they contain a variety of components that do not breakdown. 
Some contain ingredients such as: corn starch, corn, sugar cane, hemp, but all still contain plastic, which will break down in compost with the proper soil, heat, and oxygen within the earth, but are not any more biodegradable in a landfill than their regular plastic counterparts.
In reality, they produce more methane gas than traditional plastic in landfills. In the right hands of those who properly compost, this is highly sustainable, but for everyone else, please read this article that best details our hesitation to jump into this “green” option until a better solution is scientifically made available:  https://phys.org/news/2017-12-truth-bioplastics.html
  
100% recyclable plastic poly mailers & poly bubble mailers – Some are made from all new material, others contain post-consumer plastic, yet all are strong, lightweight, water resistant, and minimalistic.  Products fit perfectly within the mailer itself because the mailer compresses against the contents creating no wasted space.  These are the ideal option for clothing and soft goods shipping through the USPS and here is why: 
 
On Instagram, we enjoy seeing the towers of USPS boxes awaiting the shipment of so many accomplished online platform clothing and soft good sellers.  These enormous stacks create the appearance of a truly successful sales day but realistically clothing doesn’t require the amount of space these boxes take up, leaving much of the box empty, or filled with fluff/filler materials.

Did you know that the recent USPS rate increases were related to dimensions of packages, rather than weight?  This past June, USPS decided to enact universal dimensional rate shipping.  The larger the package, the more space it takes, which demands more trucks on the road and planes in the air.  These costs that cannot be absorbed by USPS and ecologically should not be absorbed by our environment are a direct result of items shipped in oversized packaging.  This also threatens continued increases to shipping costs which could destroy the agreements some e-commerce platforms have with USPS, which directly affects small business owners who rely on these stable shipping costs.
 
From a fiscal perspective, prior to the 2019 rate increases, it cost $6.70 to ship a 2 pound 14x14x14” box that is entirely full from South Carolina to Atlanta (a mere 2 hour drive). Today, this same package is billed by dimension and is now $13.88. This unsurmountable increase has lead to USPS encountering a decrease of 47 million parcels in Q3 2019 as compared to Q3 2018. This is a serious threat to the organization which lost $2.3 Billion in Q3 2019 alone. 
https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2019/0809-usps-reports-third-quarter-fiscal-2019-results.htm
 
This petition is simple: We request the USPS help us recycle efficiently while conveying the necessity in our packaging choices to think minimalistic by not wasting any space in one’s shipment.
 
As we test alternate packaging such as our 100% recycled paperboard mailer, it remains undeniable that poly mailers are the most cost effective, light-weight, space saving, secure way to ship clothing and non-fragile items.  

In this circular economy we see the proposed USPS collection boxes as a real resource for companies such as Rothy’s​,Trex Deck (each Trex Deck contains 140,000 recycled plastic bags!), Method​, Green Toys,​ Hamilton Perkins Collection​, Pilot​, Blue Planet Eyewear​, Alladin​, Purakai​, Mother Erth​, Recover Brands and Nike. We ask that the United States Postal Service help facilitate the repurposing of this ever-growing clean source of recycled plastic as we all work together to make products and businesses more sustainable for a better tomorrow. #NoPlasticWaste

 
Thank you for adding your signature to our petition!