How to Find Free Shipping Materials

I've typed that as the last line of so many auction listings that it's become one of my trademarks.

I can get away with no materials/handling charges because I use all recycled shipping materials. My customers don't mind, as long as their purchases arrive undamaged.

Using recycled material means you have to take what you find and save it until it's needed. That requires storage space; in a spare room, shed, or corner of the garage. All you want of almost everything is out there, free, if you know where to look.

CARDBOARD BOXES

A cardboard box is a good and wonderful thing. A sold item ready to ship in exactly the right size box to hold it and the needed packing material is a work of art. Something Andy Warhol would no doubt appreciate.

Cardboard boxes can also be folded flat and stored, cut into sheets to be used as filler, or turned into improvised mailers. I sell mostly records and have found that sealing a 12 inch album or 7 inch 45, wrapped in newspaper, between two sheets of cardboard with tape covering every seam, works fine.

The cardboard box exists in abundance. It's hard to believe that retail stores sell them. It's even harder to believe that people buy them.

Every trip to the grocery store becomes a search for boxes. If those I find aren't the right size for my immediate needs, I can always cut them into sheets.

The last hunt yielded two superb large boxes with no printing on either side -- better-looking the improvised mailer without it -- with tissue paper still inside. Left in two shopping carts in the parking lot cart corral. A find!

BROWN PAPER BAGS

Second on the list of good and wonderful things. Anyone who would throw a re-usable brown paper bag away would cheat at Old Maid.

Michigan has a ten cent deposit on beverage containers. All large grocery stores have a room with container-crushing machines and wheeled trash bins that always have a selection of discarded paper bags. I fold them up and take them.

Regulation-sized brown paper grocery bags can always be cut into sheets that become outer wrapping paper, or folded and saved for use as paper bags. Any discarded brown paper bag is worth saving for this purpose if it isn't wet or torn.

BUBBLE WRAP

I was fortunate to have neighbors who saved bubble wrap for me. And I hung onto every scrap. Smaller pieces can be taped together and are still as good as one larger piece.

People throw used padded mailing envelopes away all the time. with the address labels still on them. I take them.

Lighter used padded envelopes with plastic lining can be cut up and used as bubble wrap. Heavier ones use a powdery, papery-like substance as padding and can't be cut. They can still be used whole.

A good bubble wrap substitute is the thin foamy stuff that's made in sheets and used to wrap VCRs and other consumer electronics items. My neighbors also saved that for me, and I was grateful to get it.

Tom's First Conjecture Of Life reads: if someone gives you something gratis, thank them and take it. If you don't, it may not be offered again.

STYROFOAM

It can't be burned. Recycling services won't take it. Among the rules posted at my local drop-off recycler is NO STYROFOAM.

Slabs of Styrofoam made to fit one specific large item can still be broken into smaller pieces and saved in plastic bags until they're needed.

The best substitute I've found is a kind of insulation that's blown into the space between walls with compressed air. It resembles angel food cake and is in fact easier to break into smaller pieces than Styrofoam.

TRASH PICKING

Tom's Second Conjecture Of Life reads: if you need it, it will come to you by the side of the road. If it doesn't, you didn't need it anyway.

That's me, out after dark on Sunday night, inspecting what folks have put out for the trash collectors. Cardboard boxes, tissue paper, Styrofoam, assorted filler material, and brown paper bags, have all come to me per the Second Conjecture. I've also found things to sell.

TAPE

Carton sealing tape is the only thing I need that can't be re-used. But dollar stores sell 500 inch rolls for much less than even the biggest discount department store.

I've sold over 400 items in eight years and, except for tape, have never paid for shipping materials.

The stuff that goes in the packages is also used. Second Hand Rose and I have this in common: we (almost) never get anything that's new. At least the content of this article hasn't been recycled.