Cardboard & Packaging Products

Cardboard

The only time Hopewell purchases NEW cardboard boxes is when it is directly requested by the customer. At present time we only have one. When we purchase said boxes, recycled and only recycled material is purchased. Our main supplier is Northern Safety Products. Hopewell receives an average of 10-20 packages per day. All of our incoming boxes are reused for re-shipping of our product. They are also used for parts holders through out the shop.

Hopewell also receives a fair number of single board sheets, average size 48” x 96”. These sheets are used as dividers between the Aluminum Material Sheets we buy. These large pieces of cardboard are re-used by us in a process we call “Roll wrapping”. Used on smaller parts.

When all cardboard reaches what we call “un usable” we break down all material into the flat and remove all shipping staples. The shipping staples are placed in our Steel Recycle Bin and the flat cardboard is placed in a dumpster that is used for cardboard only. The dumpster is provided to us from our refuse hauler. Royal Carting. They remove all material weekly.  

Plastic & Foam

Many of our inbound shipping packages have product in them such as Foam Peanuts, Crumpled Newspaper and Plastic Air Pouches. All said materials are separated and re-used in the shipping of our outbound freight. We have large bins that hold each said product. To date, we have used all said material with a Zero throw away rate. At present time we have no Customers that require special plastic or foam packaging requirements. Even the people we buy our re-cycled Kraft paper from use press board roll inserts instead of the old plastic inserts. These wood inserts are used by employees, believe it or not, as Fire starters in their fire places. The Kraft paper that is purchased is used for the wrapping of small parts and finished panels.

Wood

Hopewell ships a fair amount of freight to the West Coast. This process requires the use of a standard shipping pallet 48”x 48” All of our pallets are purchased through the local Agway Store which sells only used pallets. We do not purchase any new pallets.

Hopewell receives a lot of wood pallets that are 48” x 120”. These pallets hold the flat sheet stock we purchase. Sometimes we will re-use the large pallets for the shipping of large products. The balance we do not use is stacked and picked up weekly by our material suppliers. We noticed that even our material suppliers have begun to re-think their packaging ideas and are getting away from wood skids. We do have some skids that are to broken down. In these cases we cut up, re-move all nails and dispose of thru our Refuse Hauler.

Broken down skids that do not have chemicals as part of their make up are used as firewood by some employees as well as a number of local residents who stop by very frequently for just that purpose.