Trying to be a more Eco-Friendly Business and new eco-products

Trying to be a more Eco-Friendly Business and new eco-products Trying to be more sustainable is something I work on with both of my businesses. Having studied design at university, from a young age I realised it can be our responsibility to make changes. If we have an idea, we can make a difference. Asking suppliers for change and giving feedback is the quickest way for people to take responsibility. Having worked in the print industry for 7 years, I noticed how much waste was being produced by promotion print companies. My other company is the first company in the world to produce a recyclable windsurfing sticker. This took me almost 2 years to achieve and required investment into R&D for a custom-made vinyl to be produced. www.southeastsignage.com - Recycling this specific waste costs us a lot more money than landfill. From speaking to these specialist recycling plants very few companies are paying for this service. Scary as we are so small compared to the huge print companies! Since taken on the shop, I have been shocked by how some of the brands are still not making much of an effort with packaging. Every time I meet a sales rep, I ask what they are doing to decrease plastic and whether they can remove wasteful parts like ugly hangers. The best response I usually get is 'If you don't need them, plastic hangers can be recycled' We are mainly a Duotone/Fanatic/ION store not only because they produce high-quality products. But we are finding that they are one of the only brands that are reducing their waste plastic. On a lot of their products, they have not just reduced but removed all excess plastic from packaging. Most of ION rashvests and board bags are already made from 100% recycled plastic. With our online order, we either re-use packaging from orders that come in or buy recyclable packaging. This always costs 10-20% more than plastic equivalents, but I just don't care. We have tested out a few paper tapes, which we found do not perform well (especially important when sending out high-value goods). We now used water-based glue packaging tape, which looks like normal plastic tape, but is a lot let toxic than conventional cheaper tapes. We have also been carbon offsetting with Ecologi for 36 months now. We have contributed toward the planting of 6,400 trees so far. We have also now signed up to get out suppliers vetted and checked to see how we and our suppliers, can reduce our overall carbon footprint. Our Forrest can be seen here: https://ecologi.com/southeastsignage Every time you place an order online, we also pay for an additional tree to be planted! We are constantly looking for new more eco-friendly products to add to our range. We have created a new category on our site for our more green products: https://worthingwatersports.com/.../eco-friendly-surf-and... A new addition is Waterhaul sunglasses. These are more expensive than the existing glasses that were in our store but they are of much higher quality. Made from the waste collected from across the coastline of Cornwall. They are also developing schemes to assist in preventing gear loss at the source, alongside a port-based pilot scheme in Pembrokeshire. more info: https://worthingwatersports.com/coll.../waterhaul-sunglasses We are planning to do a beach clean soon! The recent southerly storms have washed a great deal of plastic up onto the beach. It is a perfect time to go and have a stroll and see what you can collect! Just hoping someone will invest in an eco iSUP now! Peace out peeps! Sam