The year of the pandemic has changed the way people use e-commerce – online shopping figures have scaled down new highs, meaning an abundance of packaging waste ends up in landfills. Cardboard has its own merits as packaging material, but the amount of waste it generates is inseparable. Fortunately, there is a Berlin brand LivingPackets, which has devised an ingenious solution to minimize waste associated with shipping.
The company has designed an alternative to cardboard boxes and is simply called ‘The Box’. Four years in development, it was unveiled again at CES 2021 with some improvements. The Box is a sustainable option for the e-commerce industry and can reportedly be used up to 1000 times. In contrast, carton boxes have a single lifespan from packing point to delivery point. If the municipality recycles at the place of delivery, the cardboard gets new life; otherwise it will spill and injure the environment. In addition to the sustainability aspect, the neatly designed ‘Box’ is equivalent to about two shoeboxes and can be used to ship a large number of products. Interestingly, the Box can even fold flat to send important documents or a laptop. Traditionally, sending an important paper by post / courier is not safe at all; you can not be sure how it is handled on the go – and you simply have to rely on the logistics mechanism of the logistics company to know where your package has reached.
The Box will make a revolution of this when it is in mass production by May this year. The inventive box is embedded with GPS to enable the sender / receiver to track the packet from point A to B and anywhere in between in real time using a dedicated app on a smart device. Simply place the item in the box, close it, enter the destination, and the built-in e-ink screen will also serve as a traditional print label to update the travel status.
LivingPackets’ Box is currently in beta testing with partner companies, which include e-commerce stores, logistics and even insurance companies. To ensure that the goods in the package are safe – not only because they are detectable – also safe on the go, the Box contains temperature and shock sensors. There is also provision to include a camera in the future, which will enable people to keep the product they sent inside the packaging.
Since this packaging solution seems too good to be true, most of us will immediately calculate it as expensive and only for the elite. However, the eco-friendly and innovative Box is quite affordable, but the company wants to keep the cost as low as the traditional cardboard packaging. At the end of the life cycle, the Box will be repaired and refurbished to make an additional ‘1000 times’ use of LivingPackets. The Box proposes to eliminate up to 90 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, and has a holding mechanism inside, which means that not only the cardboard is replaced, the air-filled bubbling plastic, Styrofoam, etc. Used to secure products in the packaging. also eliminated. Now that’s fantastic – I can not wait to see this new package land in front of my door one fine morning!
Designer: LivingPackets
