Submitted by Christys on Sun, 06/08/2008 – 13:28.

Did you know that cardboard boxes make up 18-26% of landfill material? According to the city of Vancouver’s Facts and Figures, 475,000 tonnes of solid waste is deposited into the municipality’s landfill annually. So even on the lowest end of the spectrum, that’s 85,500 tonnes of cardboard we are dumping into the earth each year. And that’s just one city. Yikes!

Frogbox owners, Doug Burgoyne and Trevor McCaw thought it was about time to do something to change this. The two green-preneurs put their heads together to come up with an innovative solution to one of the biggest cardboard-consuming activities: Moving Day. Frogbox offers an easy, affordable and best of all environmentally-friendly alternative to those easily water-damaged, puncture-prone, landfill-bound cardboard moving boxes. Their answer: reusable plastic boxes delivered to your door when you need them and picked up from your new door when you’re done. And get this – it’s cheaper than buying cardboard boxes.

Now, I’m not one to accept something on blind faith, so I looked up how much it costs to buy cardboard boxes from Uhaul and a “1-2 Bedroom Kit” will set you back $189.99. Frogbox offers a 1 Bedroom Bundle for just $75 and a 2 Bedroom Bundle for $100 (and that includes a dolly too!). So what’s the catch? Co-owner Doug Burgoyne grins when I ask him. (It must be my raised eyebrow and skeptical gaze.) No catch, he says. We just wanted to provide a great service to people and at the same time help them make changes in the way they think as consumers. Burgoyne admits that while using plastic boxes does come with its own environmental price tag, he explains that until commercial bio-degradable materials are made strong enough to match the durability and lifetime of Frogbox’s industrial grade plastic boxes, it will always be more environmentally efficient to reuse their plastic boxes than to produce new biodegradable boxes more frequently. One single Frogbox can be reused over 500 times without compromising its durability!

The Frogbox boys have done everything they can to make sure that their operation runs as sustainably as possible. They have chosen fuel-efficient delivery vans, solar energy web hosting, recycled paper and biodegradable “peanuts” for packing and their General Manager, Phil Harbut, is a passionate urban geographist and champion of the environment. The most recent challenge: finding a supplier of eco-friendly bubble wrap. Burgoyne confesses that he struggles with the ongoing debate of using sustainable materials vs. finding a sustainable supply chain. With the increasing costs of fossil fuel (both financial and environmental) this is a choice that isn’t getting any easier.