Snack Bags

Alright, so today I want to tell you all about the frustration that comes in the form of packaging the Snack Bag brigade up for TerraCycle, so that you can all avoid the horror and instead focus your energy on being as sustainable as possible!

Okay, so I have mentioned before that many brigades have weight limits for the shipment you send in, and we found out the hard way that if your shipments do not meet this designated weight requirement, you do not get points for your order. For most of the brigades, this is a manageable weight limit. For example, 10 pounds of personal care products or 35 pounds of shoes are not that difficult to package. Snack bags, however, need to weigh 14 pounds in order for you to get points for that shipment. Let me tell you approximately how many snack bags that is. Wait for it. It's like 2500 snack bags. I'm not even kidding you. Imagine 2500 bags of chips. That's intense.

Moving right along, there are two reasons why this is a difficult brigade to package. For one, I have yet to find a box that comfortably fits 14 pounds of snack bags. You will need huge boxes for this. I'm not talking copier paper box size, or even a box that you could fit your whole body in. I'm talking, you could take your best friend into this box for a picnic-size. Like a refrigerator box. If you find some of these boxes, hold onto them, and don't package any brigades into them except snack bags. I have literally had to tape a box shut and un-tape it for just a minute while I stand in it to smush the snack bags down and shove a few more in. This is absurd. I will try to take a picture of it for you.

The other reason this is tricky is because if you can't find a gigantic box to shove thousands of snack bags into, you must take all of the snack bags that are donated to your site, find something heavy enough to press them with, and several hours when they are flat enough, tuck them neatly into a box. This is time-consuming and tedious. My predecessor in this project chose this route, and I would often visit her in the Garden House and find her throwing snack bags in the air yelling "This is what my life is right now!!" It's just not a pleasant experience, and I want you all to be saved from this hair-pulling experience. I love TerraCycle, and I want this process to be smooth for all of us, which means sharing these gritty experiences with you all.

Check back soon for my next trashy post!