As society’s awareness of our individual environmental footprint increases, the importance of sustainable moving practices grows. After all, the average person will move five to 11 times in their lifetime. Moving doesn’t have to harm the planet either.
This Moving Help® guide will offer six practical tips to make your move a more eco-friendly moving experience. These insights will help you before your move, during your move, and after your move, and benefit you and your moving process and the environment too.
Tip 1: Recognize the Importance of Sustainable Moving
It’s significant to recognize how much sustainable moving can help or hurt our environment. It involves the potential of many packing materials, high-fuel consumption, and the disposal of unwanted items. When you don’t dispose of items that you no longer want properly, it can unnecessarily end up in our landfills.
This contributes to landfill waste and carbon emissions.
Sustainable moving habits offer numerous benefits. For example, you can choose to use eco-friendly packing materials, recycled boxes, and energy-efficient vehicles to help protect the environment and lead to cost savings, especially for those on a budget.
Eco-friendly moving doesn’t need to be difficult, and by choosing to do so, you can reduce your carbon footprint and preserve natural resources.
Tip 2: Opt for Environmentally Friendly Supplies
Selecting the right packing materials is crucial for a sustainable move. You may be surprised by how many packing supplies aren’t eco-friendly when you’re choosing your options. For example, most people use bubble wrap for their items, but the typical bubble wrap must be carefully disposed of to be recycled.
Now let’s talk about some items from U-Haul that are great for packing but also are environmentally friendly supplies.
Packing Peanuts
U-Haul has packing peanuts that can be used for moving and shipping. The best part is its 100 percent biodegradable and anti-static. Unlike Styrofoam peanuts, these packing peanuts are eco-friendly, non-toxic, and 100 percent compostable.
Fun Fact: U-Haul packing peanuts are made from potato starch and corn starch, so they’re edible — and safe for people and pets too. How cool of a snack is that!
Packing Paper
U-Haul offers packing paper, which is acid-free, ink-free newsprint packing paper. Unlike traditional newsprint where there is ink on the pages, these papers are ink-free, so you don’t have to worry about paper staining your dishes, cups, and other items.
You also can repurpose them as pet cage liner for birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, and other small pets after your move. And of course, they’re 100 percent recyclable packing paper.
Furniture Pads
Furniture pads are an excellent way to protect furniture and appliances. They protect your furniture, appliances, and your home from scratches, dents, and scruff marks. U-Haul furniture pads are made from recycled material, so you can give yourself a pat on the back knowing you’re helping the environment while reusing them over and over again.
Enviro-Bubble
Remember earlier about our conversation about bubble wrap? Well, U-Haul has a product called Enviro-Bubble®. It’s a protective bubble packaging material designed for moving, shipping, and storage. It protects items from scratches and abrasions.
The best part? The U-Haul Enviro-Bubble is made from recycled polyethylene, and its 100 percent recyclable and reusable.
Tip 3: Choose Sustainable Moving Boxes
Did you know that not all moving boxes are equal? Some boxes are made specifically for moving while others aren’t made for moving. Some moving boxes are made with sustainability kept in mind.
This is where U-Haul comes into play.
U-Haul has moving boxes that are 100 percent recyclable and reusable for an eco-friendly move. They also have built-in, perforated handles that make lifting and carrying easier for you. Now, that’s what we call sustainable.
Need something that’s more sturdy? Then try out the U-Haul Ready-To-Go Box®, which is eco-friendly and affordable. You can pick up and return these convenient plastic boxes from the same U-Haul location. No assembly is needed, they’re affordable, eco-friendly, and old boxes are recycled.
With so many choices for boxes, you’ll be able to choose sustainable moving boxes that are right for your move. Check out this Moving Help article on how many boxes you might need for your move.
Tip 4: Smart Decluttering Before Your Move
Moving is the perfect opportunity to reassess your belongings and engage in smart decluttering. This is because with moving, you don’t have any choice but to go through all your things.
When it comes to decluttering, you should put things into three categories:
- Keep
- Donate
- Throw away
With your donate pile, consider local charities and thrift stores, such as The Salvation Army, Goodwill, or Habitat for Humanity. You’ll want to make sure you follow their guidelines on what they accept. Additionally, some places offer pick-up services, which makes it easier for you to part with your items while also ensuring they benefit others within the community.
Even with items you’re considering throwing away, make sure first that you can’t at least recycle them before throwing them away. This will help limit the amount of waste ending up at our landfills.
Tip 5: Choose Sustainable Transportation Options
You may not realize it, but the choice of transportation plays a crucial role in reducing your carbon footprint. While you may want to load everything into your car, making multiple trips isn’t efficient and it increases the amount of carbon emissions on our environment.
To help you move your items, U-Haul offers truck rentals or U-Box® storage containers. These two options can help you move efficiently across the block, across town, to a new city, across the United States, or even internationally like Canada.
Now, will a U-Haul truck rental or a U-Box container be more environmentally friendly? The answer is: It depends.
Every move is different. Therefore, every answer will be different. For you, it might be more environmentally friendly to choose U-Box storage containers. For someone else, it’ll make more sense to use a U-Haul truck rental even when factoring gas prices.
Either option, however, will fulfill your goal of sustainable moving.
Tip 6: Maintain Sustainable Practices Post-Move
While we’ve talked about best practices for a sustainable move before and during a move, we haven’t talked about best practices post-move. Let’s get started.
Rather than just throwing away packing supplies, consider trying to find ways you can repurpose them. For moving boxes, you can use them for storage or donate them to someone.
In fact, U-Haul created a Take A Box, Leave A Box program for customers. If you have moving boxes you no longer need, you can drop them off at a U-Haul center. This allows customers who need moving boxes for their move to pick up no-longer needed used boxes. This saves boxes from going to a landfill, and it can help other customers with their moving budget.
These are a few ways to help create a sustainable environment in your new home.
Sustainable Moving Is Possible
Embracing sustainable moving practices isn’t just good for you, but it’s also helpful in protecting and preserving our environment. Plus, if you choose a more eco-friendly move, you might save some money.
From packing supplies to moving boxes to choosing your transportation method, you can reduce waste, carbon emissions, and landfill waste.
If you’re looking to make your move even faster and easier, consider hiring professional labor from Moving Help to streamline your moving process. You can focus on sustainable moving while your moving labor professionals focus on loading and unloading, packing and unpacking, cleaning, and more moving labor services.
Are you looking to enter the real estate market this spring? Give us a call today! One of the experienced agents at Zoocasa will be more than happy to help you through the exciting home-buying process!
