Our current boxes are 100% recyclable, but we want to go one step further to reduce our environmental impact, so we’re expanding our reusable box trial.
We’ve tested reusable boxes for some customers, and the trial taught us a lot. We want to make them work for everyone, but there’s still loads more to learn first – and we need your help!
Before we can roll them out to everyone, we need as many different boxes back as possible. This will help us see what changes we need to make for reusable boxes to work. If we can reuse all of our boxes three times, it could reduce the amount of new boxes we use by 1,400,000 per year!
The boxes are the same ones that you’re used to getting, but there are a couple of things you’ll need to do differently when you send them back to us:
- Carefully open the top of your box by cutting the tape down the middle. Tip: Try not to pull it off or rip it (we’d recommend using scissors).
- Unbox your fruit and veg as usual, then cut the tape on the bottom of the box like you did the top.
- Carefully flatten the box but don’t bend it – it needs to be flat for our drivers to collect it.
- Leave the flattened box in a safe, dry spot on your delivery night – make sure our drivers can see it.
- Your delivery driver will pick it up and return it to us. We’ll check it over, clean it up and reuse it.
There are a few things we can’t accept back:
- Wet boxes: As we pick up when we deliver, wet boxes could damage fruit and veg in other boxes on board.
- Boxes that haven’t been carefully flattened: Our vans are packed with as many boxes as possible to make deliveries efficient, so drivers don't have lots of spare space.
- More than three boxes returned at once: To help make sure your driver can fit your returned boxes in the van, please try to give them back straight away, rather than saving up a collection.
If, for whatever reason we aren’t able to reuse a box ourselves, we’ve partnered with Reuseabox. They take almost anything that we can’t use and provide it a second life on their marketplace giving other businesses the chance to reduce their own impact. Better yet, they use a portion of their profits to fund environmental initiatives!
Got a question on what reusable boxes means for allergens? Please visit this FAQ page: I have allergies / dietary restrictions, is Oddbox suitable for me?
If you’ve got any other questions on the trial, please get in touch with our Customer Happiness Team.