Packing and moving your home requires a lot of supplies. The most important and heavily used supply is the humble cardboard box. While cardboard is a relatively inexpensive and widely available material, there are benefits to keeping your boxes when you’re finished. Choosing to reuse boxes either from a prior move or from somebody else can benefit you as well.
Here are the key reasons to reuse your cardboard moving boxes:
You can buy brand-new moving boxes from a variety of retailers ranging from home improvement stores to post office branches. They come in plenty of sizes and shapes to fit your needs and belongings. While each box is inexpensive—sometimes less than a dollar each—you need a lot of them. Even a studio apartment of less than 1000 square feet could require 20 to 30 boxes. This adds up quickly when buying boxes. Multi-bedroom homes can easily spend over $100 on boxes alone.
While there are definite advantages to buying boxes (clean, no damage, etc) you might save your moving budget by reusing old boxes.
A standard cardboard box will last a long time if stored properly. By breaking down boxes and stacking them flat in a clean, dry space, you can expect to reuse the same boxes for two or three moves before they show signs of damage. That alone is a good reason to keep them rather than throw them away, but keeping your old boxes will also help keep all that cardboard out of landfills. Even with careful recycling, a vast amount of cardboard boxes end up in the trash.
Reusing your own boxes or using free boxes is an eco-friendly choice. Not only can you make your next move more convenient, you can do your part to reduce consumption and waste.
If you know you won’t need your boxes again or otherwise don’t want to keep them, donate or recycle responsibly. People are always moving and looking for free boxes, so by passing yours on to the next person you’re helping everybody be more cost-efficient and eco-friendly.
Susan Shuxian Hu has been a dedicated realtor serving in Silicon Valley since 2010. With great passion, outstanding negotiation skills and due diligence, she has helped many buyers and sellers in their real estate needs. Living in West San Jose for more than 14 years, she has broad knowledge in Cupertino, West San Jose, Los Altos and Saratoga. She has enormous patience working with buyers and never tired of showing all possible properties that may fit client’s needs. Clients appreciate her best service to their satisfaction. She specialized in luxurious real estate purchase in Los Altos, Cupertino, Saratoga and Palo Alto. She also helped friend and past client’s referral working in San Francisco, Foster City and far reached Bay Area.
Susan Shuxian Hu was graduated in East China Normal University in Shanghai with bachelor and master degrees in Bio science. She came to US in 1989 and earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics in Texas A&M University in 1996. After one year of postdoc in Southern Florida University in Tampa, she moved back to Orlando with her family and started working in Lucent Technologies. In 2002, Susan moved to California, Silicon Valley joined a start-up company. Since then she worked in high tech Corporation till 2009. Driven by her dream job pursuing, she found her passion working in sales by helping people in real estate after one year of education in De Anza business and real estate law study. Since then, she has been serving many people in Bay Area for their real estate needs.
With bilingual advantage, she has been actively working with Chinese immigrants as well as local engineers and residents. With rich high tech background and connection with Chinese community, Susan has served in luxurious real estate in last a couple of years.