The trees are getting their leaves, flowers are in bloom, and pollen is in the air. It’s spring, time to get outside and play some baseball. I can see why we celebrate Earth Day this month, as the cherry blossoms & dogwoods make April one of the prettiest months of the year…at least here in North Carolina. To continue our month long celebration of Earth Day & all things green, this week we’re highlighting one of our favorite green products: the packing peanut.
Traditional packing peanuts are made from polystyrene and therefore take 400 years to decompose in our landfills. 400 years! While starch based packing peanuts have been available since the early 90’s, the early versions were not always the best solution to replacing the more common polystyrene peanuts.
Guess what. Times have changed.
We now carry 100% biodegradable non-petro-chemical protein based packing peanuts. The ISO defines 100% biodegradable as a “product that is capable of being consumed by bacteria 100% to the point of no toxic residue.” Our peanuts don’t take 400 years to decompose, that’s for sure.
Not only do we offer them as one of the options of peanuts, we offer them as THE option for packing peanuts. That’s right. We have replaced our inventory of polystyrene packing peanuts with the 100% biodegradable packing peanuts in order to do our part in helping reduce the carbon imprint we and our customers leave on the environment.
Besides being 100% biodegradable, these packing peanuts are:
- Strong
- Anti-Static
- Totally Renewable
- Completely Compostable
- Hydrophobic
- Resistant to heat and cold
- Virtually dust free
- Cost-effective
Plus, they won’t shrink in high humidity, which is a major plus here in the humid climate of North Carolina.
Our peanuts consistently outperform EPS, starch, paper and pillow products in settling and protection, too. Drop tests indicated consistently higher shock resistance as compared to starch, sorn and EPS products. Tests also showed significantly less compression, providing a higher natural resilience that protects products from harmful migration during shipping.
The bottom line: our peanuts are better for the environment, naturally.
Tarheel Paper Company: We have what you need to get the job done.