Paper Padded Mailer

I took a basically new box of paper padded mailers over to Austin Creative Reuse (ACR) from my church. They were super excited to receive them as ACR does a lot of work with teachers and has a very high (97-98%) diversion rate.

Our church admin confirmed that we would never use these and never had used any of them. She’s the one who asked me to sell or donate them.

I posted the box on Facebook Marketplace for two months and no one inquired. The box retails for $50 for this quantity so I was surprised no one wanted them online

They’re great in theory since the padding is recycled shredded paper so the whole thing can be recycled and not trashed once used like most padded mailers that are a mix of paper and plastic.

In addition to sharing about how you can take mailing and office supplies to ACR in addition to school, hobby and craft supplies, I wanted to share about what I am learning as I organize our property at church.

There are people out there who think a church can use anything. Not true. Don’t get me started on the number of punch bowl sets we have…(it was five at last count).

Churches may think it might be could to save things “just in case.” I have not really seen this to work out in real life and as these items are not usually stored properly or with context, they may and have ended up getting landfilled since they’ve broken down or were destroyed in improper storage.

Without item history/notes and regular viewing and maintenance, things keep get shuffled around, playing musical closets and cabinets, or pushed to the back of closets taking up valuable needed space and possibly causing issues like pest attractants. Silverfish like paper and rodents like bedding material.

I encourage you to find a local group that specifically uses or needs the item you have to re-home instead of a broader location. Austin has a great resource for this, the Austin Reuse Directory, that allows you to put in an item and find a place that may be interested and able to take it. I’ll be sharing more examples of this scenario over the next few weeks.

Have a super new year and enjoy your clearing out, organizing, helping others and re-homing things.

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