Promotional products are the great, if done right. Cheap low quality giveaway items can sometimes end up in the bin instead of going home with your potential customers.
It’s tough for businesses wanting to make an impact with promotional products and for us providing you with them as we don’t want anything to end up in landfill.
So how do promotional products impact on the environment and can promotional products actually be Eco Friendly?
The good news is that promotional products can potentially help reduce environmental waste. The promotional products most often promoted as being eco-friendly are tote bags and water bottles. Re-usable shopping bags and water bottles are designed specifically to be reused, which means they can help prevent the use of plastic bags and disposable water bottles.
Each year, people throw away about 100 plastic water bottles each and 300 plastic bags. Disposable coffee cups from cafes are even worse!
With reusable bags and water bottles, companies are showing a greater awareness of the damage caused by excess waste. Research has suggested that once a nonwoven polypropylene bag is used 11 times, it makes up for the negative effects of a plastic bag being produced, used, and thrown away.
In addition to being thrown away, there’s another way that promotional products can affect the natural environment, and that has to do with the materials that the products are made of. Mainly plastic. Batteries are also bad for the environment so it’s best to get promotional items with rechargeable batteries. More and more products now use USB chargeable batteries.
You can also be conscious of which materials you choose for your promotional products:
Cotton is an alternative to the nonwoven polypropylene used in many printed bags. There’s some debate over whether or not cotton is environmentally friendly, mostly because it’s a crop that requires a lot of water to grow and is often subjected to heavy pesticide use. However, organic cotton is grown without the use of toxic synthetic pesticides. Plus, if cotton does end up being thrown away it takes only a few months to biodegrade.
Bamboo is something of a wonder material. It can be used in all sorts of items, from t-shirts to flooring, and of course promotional products. Bamboo trees grow and regrow very quickly and needs very little water. Bamboo can also decompose in as few as one to three years.
Glass doesn’t exactly win in the biodegradability category. It takes glass about one million years to break down. What makes it an environmentally friendly choice is that it’s easy to recycle. Unlike paper and fabric that get a little weaker each time they’re recycled, glass retains its quality over time. Recycling glass also has been shown to reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide production. Glass promotional products and Glass Awards look very professional too.
If you want sustainable and eco friendly promotional goods then make sure to choose the products wisely in terms of their materials and usability. If people want to keep and use them they won’t throw them away. Some of our products are labelled Eco-Friendly and these are products that are produced with materials that our suppliers can verify are better for the environment, whether they’re sustainable materials or recycled.
Feel free to call our expert advisers for help and suggestions.
