by Nina Heady, eFulfillment Service Receiving Supervisor

There are folks who think outside the box, and there are those that want to crush and bundle the box, turning it into a revenue source …

As you might imagine, eFulfillment Service has cardboard waste from incoming shipments. For years, the company would stack the empty, unusable cartons in pallet-sized bins, called gaylords, inside the warehouse. When there were enough gaylords to fill a trailer, the company would schedule a truck to pick it up and haul it away, two to four times a week.

The process was riddled with problems. Oftentimes eFulfillment Service had to wait on the hauler’s schedule, which meant days of finding ways around the gaylords of cardboard. The value of that lost square footage was highest during the holidays, when warehouse space is at a premium, and cardboard coming in was peaking. And of course, the company was having to pay to have the cardboard hauled away.

During a tour of the warehouse, the owner of a neighboring company to EFS commented on the discarded cardboard. It was a case of one company’s trash is another company’s treasure. The EFS team worked with the partner to obtain a cardboard baler, compressing 7 gaylords into one bale. These bales can be loaded onto junk pallets, reusing (and removing) more waste.

Moving forward, EFS will fill a trailer provided by our partner. When it’s full, he’ll pay eFulfillment Service for the raw materials he uses in his business.

Another example of how eFulfillment Service continually looks for ways to reduce costs and waste.

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