Scan Magazine | Special Theme | Made in Finland
Unwrapping waste The cost of sourcing, storing and sending cardboard boxes and plastic bags can be a real headache for e-commerce companies – only for consumers to throw the packaging away once their goods have been delivered, adding to the growing amount of waste we generate. Finnish start-up RePack is on a quest to make us all think outside the box.
The feedback from businesses as well as consumers has been overwhelmingly positive. We’re trying to change people’s attitudes when it comes to consumerism, recycling and waste.”
By Ndéla Faye | Photos: RePack
RePack has a great deal of potential for furniture, electronics and food companies. “We believe that RePack can also be used for conducting delivery chain analysis for electronics and logistics companies, for example,” Hellgren says. The product is already being used by 20 different companies – predominately clothing stores in Finland and the Netherlands – but the company is also launching in Belgium, Germany and Sweden after the summer. RePack is fully flexible and the packaging can be customised to suit each company’s needs. And with an increasing amount of e-commerce companies choosing RePack packaging, the possibilities for the future are endless.
With a worldwide boom in online sales, the amount of packaging and wrapping consumers throw away has also increased. Inspired by bottle recycling systems that use cash deposits as an incentive, RePack wanted to apply the same concept to packaging. “Finland has a 98 per cent return rate on bottles and cans, so we wanted to apply this to enable online retailers and customers to return and reuse delivery packaging,” explains Jonne Hellgren, CEO at RePack. The concept is simple: at selected online stores, customers can choose to have their order sent in RePack packaging for a small deposit fee. They will then receive their order in returnable and reusable RePack packaging, which can 64 | Issue 90 | July 2016
be returned – with no postage fee or stamp required – by simply dropping it into a local letterbox. Once the RePack has been registered as returned, the user will receive a digital voucher, which can be used towards future purchases from RePack-supporting online stores. A single RePack can be reused around 20 times, and they are made from recycled and upcycled materials that are 100 per cent recyclable. “The big draw for companies is that RePack encourages repeat customers, and the benefit for consumers is that they get something back for choosing an environmentally friendly packaging solution,” says Hellgren. “We offer a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable solution for companies.
For more information, please visit: www.originalrepack.com
