Thanks to SmartPaks users we were able to keep 37,380,317 water bottles out of the environment in the past year! SmartPak is committed to protecting the environment and providing sustainable options for horse owners. This starts right in the barn with the SmartPak supplement feeding system that’s designed to help reduce, reuse, and recycle.
“We are committed to reducing our impact on the environment, starting with what goes into our packaging materials for our core products, all the way through the shipping process to get the items to your door and beyond.”
– Carma Caughlan, vice president of consumer marketing at SmartPak
Reduce
When it comes to supporting your horse with supplements, SmartPaks are a greener choice. With packaging made from #1 RPET plastic, consisting of recycled plastics, they use less virgin plastic than buckets. By choosing SmartPaks, you’re helping to keep over 680,000 pounds of plastic out of the environment each year.
Using SmartPaks has also kept 8 million buckets and 3.2 million pounds of new plastic out of production! This equates to over 37 million water bottles worth of plastic kept out of the environment.
Reuse
SmartPaks have been reused in many clever ways over the years. From seedling starters to elementary school paint cups, the reusable plastic of the SmartPak wells can be rinsed out after feeding, left to dry, and then repurposed in any clever way a rider can think of!
For more ideas on how to reuse SmartPaks, check out our recent blog Green Ways to Reuse Your SmartPaks from SmartPak Fan Kelly.
Recycle
The recyclability of SmartPaks has always been one of Team SmartPak Rider Shannon Dueck’s favorite things about the autoship system! The convenient wells are designed to stack so they save space in your recycling bin. Plus, they’re already made from 80% recycled materials, so by the time your SmartPaks see pick-up day at your barn, they’re on their way to their third life.
“I’ve lived at locations that didn’t have curbside pickup [for recycling]. We would have to bring our trash to the transfer station once a week, and there was a recycling area there for us to sort it. Being a horse person I love wildlife and I treasure our local ecosystems, so knowing that I can put out more recyclable material than trash it feels like positive reinforcement. Plus, being able to stack the SmartPaks makes it so easy to recycle them and they don’t take up too much space in my feed room.”
-Team SmartPak Rider Shannon Dueck
SmartPakers Making a Difference
Here at SmartPak, it’s not just our awesome autoship SmartPaks that are helping make the world a greener place– SmartPakers themselves get out to help make our local environments cleaner, too!
From picking up trash on local hiking trails to organizing beach cleanups, our teams are dedicated to treading lightly on the earth, both on the job and in their daily lives.
SmartPaker Meredith (Creative)
I became a Wild Keeper Ambassador in October 2020. Since then I’ve picked up about 150 pounds of trash from places all around my community. Places like where I walk my dogs, local parks/trails & even just the main road I live on! One of my favorite mottos of encouragement is “always leave it better”. I’ve learned that even getting out for just 10-15 minutes can make a huge difference .
The Wild Keeper community is a group of doers who love nature and just want to keep it clean. Each Impact Day (once a month!) we all record how much trash we’ve collected leading up to the day and use our social media platforms to post and to raise awareness. Last Impact Day (March 2021) the entire Wild Keeper community picked up over 17,225 POUNDS OF TRASH! It feels great to see the difference that all Wild Keepers are making across the country.
SmartPaker Dina (UX Research)
Ever since we met last September and began enjoying walks together on Cape Cod’s beautiful beaches and neighborhoods, my partner Jeff and I have collecting trash as often as we can – usually several times a month.
At first, we’d bring along a trash bag or two, but sometimes we’d find ‘extra’ collection tools (in the form of mesh shellfish bags, a pillow case washed up on the beach, and a discarded bucket). We’ve since ordered 4-Ocean bags and gloves which makes cleanup much easier while supporting a worthy cause.
The most common trash we’ve found is, deflated helium balloons, plastic and glass “nips”, beer cans, and bottles. The balloons can be devastating to sea life, especially sea turtles because they mistake them for jellyfish, try to eat them, and then die.
SmartPaker Volunteer Day
SmartPakers Viviane and Dan (Marketing) organized a beach clean up day for coworkers to participate in. They went to Duxbury Beach Reservation in Duxbury, Massachusetts on March 20th. A group of ten SmartPakers across different departments from Marketing to Engineering (along with their families) gathered to fill trash bags with plastic water bottles, abandoned shopping bags and more.
To learn more about SmartPak’s efforts to sustaining the environment, visit SmartPak.com/OurPathForward. For a complete look at the collection of sustainable products, visit www.SmartPak.com.
Our state does not take smartpaks for recycling:-( Do you have a program where smartpaks can be returned to you for recycling or reuse?
Yes I would like to know that too as our county stopped recycling at the beginning of Covid last year.
Can we send them back to smartpak? Are they able to reuse them in second life cycle?
I’d like to echo these previous comments. There is no where close to my area that accepts odd-shaped plastics like smartpaks. I have literally sent huge stacks of them home with family members visiting from out of state to get them recycled!
I would pay to ship them back to you, Smartpak, if I knew they could be re-used or recycled reliably. I believe businesses that make plastics should take more responsibility for recovering them. Smartpak is a leader in so many other awesome innovations, how about starting a used smartpak recovery program???
I agree with all the above, as our state (Oregon) surprisingly doesn’t recycle plastic!
Hi Joy
Oregon does recycle plastic — we’ve been recycling for years. Even out here on the Central Oregon we have a large recycling bin. Don’t have to separate accepted recycliable plastics from paper & cardboard & cans. Only glass can’t be recycled in the same bin. Here is link to the state website. https://www.oregon.gov/deq/recycling/Pages/Oregon%27s-Recycling-Laws.aspx
I don’t use these individual containers, I buy their products in the large plastic containers which I can reuse up to a point. I think they should provide bags instead of large plastic containers if they are truly trying to make a difference in our consumption of plastic.
That plastic used in the Smartpaks have a low recycling ability. And with there being little to no value on plastic, many communities have stopped recycling plastic altogether. Smartpak should considet greener alternatives or accept them back to for repackaging. I avoid buying anything in plastic when I can for just this reason.
My California Recycler just stop taking the smart pal plastic. It was a fund raiser for an old horse that the owners have left at the ranch where I board. He is 35+ years old so to defray his cost to the ranch we were recycling the many smart pacs from everyone in the barn. The reason they stop taking them was they done have a CRV (cash recycle Value).
So yes still collecting them till I find someone who will recycle them……
I think recycled cardboard would make for better SmartPak containers. Have the Paks be made with material similar to milk cartons. It would keep oils and liquids seals if it’s lined with wax.
SmartPak should set up with terracycle or other company until they can change to a plastic free version- which they should be actively working on. These are not recyclable and to advertise as such is green washing.
Agreed! My vote would be for compostable containers
Wow, a lot of great comments and information. I’ve always looked for ways to reuse and recycle them but not always. Seems like somewhere, someone could obtain these containers to be used in making…something!
Colic care program requires use of the smart pak system instead of buying the bulk and as a single horse owner I find it frustrating. They are hard to open for my carpal tunnel damaged hands and so wasteful. I agree option for one time bucket then a bag after would use less plastic and what about all the foil tops.
Recycled plastic eventually ends up in a landfill. Replace plastic with something else that will actually biodegrade.
I also am so disappointed and frustrated with the false advertising that smartpaks are ‘green’. I agree, using recycled plastic is a great thing, but the smartpak containers are clearly not recyclable – not in my state and not in many others as evidenced by all the comments above.
I moved to another product when Smartpak refused to allow me to continue the Colic care unless I continued to use their un-recyclable single use plastic. So disappointing.
There are some good ideas suggested above they could be pursuing — 1) can they accept them back for re-use? 2) if their state allows recycling of these things, then they could allow customers to send them back to them to recycle; 3) can they set up an account or program with Terracycle to take these? or 4) trust your customers to feed their horses the supplements they have purchased as directed and provide colic care for bulk purchases! I moved to Platinum Performance because they do trust us to feed per direction and provide colic coverage with bulk purchases. And finally, 5) find an alternative packaging to plastic for single use as well as bulk supplements, such as paper-based bags, that are recyclable and lower impact.