The Importance of Sustainable Crate Building

Almost every service and product-oriented business in the world uses packaging materials at some point in its operations. If your own business does, it's one of the many thousands, possibly millions, of others that do the same. What's easy to forget every time you assemble a box or pallet for shipping, or use pallets as part of your project work, is the possible environmental impact of all the materials being used.

 This is where wooden crates and pallets become useful. They're an ideal sustainable packaging solution that can be used multiple times over—if handled carefully—and you can even sturdily finish their assembly yourself with a minimal need for tools.

 Essentially, with little more than a reliable staple gun and a handy supply of Crating SCRAIL® fasteners, you can handle your own wooden packaging materials like a pro. Here are a few reasons why you should consider this practice.

Easy Repair, Reassembly and Reusability

Despite their relative lightness, wooden crates and pallets are durable, simple structures that offer a solid packaging solution for just about any construction job, product delivery or shipping and storage need. They can be rapidly assembled, easily repaired, profitably recycled and with moderate treatment, they're resistant to decay despite heavy use.

This of course means that they can be re-used repeatedly, without having to spend more than minimal time or money on the process.

 Minimal Manufacturing Impact

Crates and pallets are ideal for low-resource manufacturing that's free of heavy tool use or major chemical inputs, due to their extreme simplicity and the softness of the wood (usually pine) used for both. By contrast, plastic crates of any kind require an enormous outlay of resources, petrochemicals and other procedures before they reach your business. The same goes for metal packaging of almost any kind. By using wood crates and pallets, you're directly and immediately reducing this source of unnecessary energy and resource use.

 Easy Recycling

Once a wood crate or pallet has finally reached the end of its useful life, it can be completely recycled more easily than just about any other packaging material. You can usually even resell old crates or pallets for furniture, landscaping projects, composting or firewood. They can also often be recycled into animal bedding or sawdust for fireplace briquettes. Plastic and metal simply can't match this degree of easy recycling.

 Extremely affordable all around

If you turn your shipping and receiving operations over to wooden crates, you can count on consistent cost savings in many ways. On the one hand, they're simply cheap to buy used or new. Furthermore, you can repair most cracked wooden packaging materials yourself quickly, easily and with minimal need for tools. Finally, as already mentioned above, most of these materials can be resold for a partial offset of the cost of originally buying them. Both plastic and metal packaging materials usually don't share any of these benefits, and they tend to cost more right from the start.

 Build, Recycle and Reuse Wooden Crates and Pallets with Minimal Effort or Tools

If you've decided to switch over to wooden pallets or crates for your business and contracting needs, then you've made an excellent cash-saving choice. However, if you want to make the job of packaging, repair and reuse even easier, having the right tools on hand will really smooth things out. BECK's Crating SCRAIL® fasteners are an ideal choice for the job. They can be rapidly added to wood while offering enormous holding power and durable resistance to mold or moisture. Take a look at our Crating SCRAIL® brochure below to learn more!