The MyDressbox team here – Demi, Tahlia, James and Jasmin – have had a few discussions recently about sustainability. Well, not sustainability specifically - which can be a bit of a broad label bandied about by corporate and government types to communicate one environmental initiative or perspective, or another.
Rather, we’ve been talking about things like waste, single use plastics, chemicals, the impact of shipping stuff around whether by courier, like us, or by customers who drive their car to a dry cleaner to get their wedding dresses cleaned.
Some of these conversations have been prompted by questions from customers, others during brainstorming sessions where we discuss ways to improve and differentiate the MyDressbox wedding dress cleaning service. Others still have started at the dinner table (Jasmin and James are married with three boys) to do with their ability to minimise waste and use of plastic within their home.
Our conclusion so far is that, while we can’t singlehandedly save the planet, there are things that we can do with MyDressbox (and at home!) which will have an impact.
Here’s a list of initiatives that we’ve come up with that we will be putting some thought into in the coming weeks, in no particular order…
1. Developing a new Collection Box that arrives flat and can be easily assembled by a customer
Customers love that they can just put their wedding dress in a box, but it means shipping air around the country, which a) means we’re forcing couriers to use fuel to move air around and b) it increases the cost of our service
2. Eliminate single use plastic from our service
We currently use plastic to protect our brides wedding dresses in the collection box, as well as protect our wedding dress boxes during shipping.
Plastic is a great product, but the way we use it in its many applications has become a real problem. Unfortunately for us, plastic is the best waterproof solution we have for protecting dresses – but we’re looking at ways reduce, re-use and make recyclable the plastics we use
3. Reduce our own carbon footprint
We currently source our wedding dress boxes and other components from overseas because its been more cost effective, but also – surprisingly – easier than finding them locally. This required yet more fuel spend by ships and aeroplanes to get this product to us, creating yet more pollution.
We’ve been searching for locally made products for over a year now, but we’re going to redouble our efforts – surely it can’t be that hard!
So, while we make no promises – watch this space; hopefully we’ll be able to announce some improvements in the coming weeks and months. Hit us up on Facebook for progress - keep us honest!
The MyDressbox Team