Embracing My Inner Geek

I'll be the first to admit that my passion for all things green borders on the realm of geekyness. I realized this when we got a shipment from the U.S. in; some fragile items that had to be packed with some protective material to avoid damage.
Opening the package I went all oo and ah the moment I saw what was used for protective material. Instead of the common foam chips there were these folded paper triangles. Not made of (toxic) plastic foam or bubble wrap, not made of (extremely inefficient high-embodied-energy) corn starch - no: just plain and simple paper.

A bunch of environmentally-friendly Expandos

It's called Expandos and hails from Denver, CO. I never thought I'd be reading the entire website of a packaging materials manufacturer, but I did. I was looking for a catch (there always is one, right?), but no: it's made out of recycled paper using Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) practices. It's bio-degradable and fully recyclable. It uses low-energy manufacturing methods and produces no toxic by-products or waste. Oh, and did I mention it works as good as if not better than conventional packaging materials?

Up close and personal - hi there, handsome...

Okay, call me an eco geek, but it's little things like these that make me happy. It almost makes me me wish we had lots of fragile stuff to ship out. They even offer this option to have your name printed on each individual triangle. Hmm, I can just see our logo there right now...