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You can ship the boxes, gel packs, and foil bag back to them for recycling. They give you a free shipping label. https://support.blueapron.com/hc/en-us/article

You can ship the boxes, gel packs, and foil bag back to them for recycling. They give you a free shipping label. https://support.blueapron.com/hc/en-us/articles/202510818-How-do-I-recycle-my-Blue-Apron-packaging- https://support.blueapron.com/hc/en-us/articles/202510818-Ho...

dominotw 9y ago
doesn't the carbon footprint of shipping it back offset the recycling?
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  That's a perfectly valid point, above, which definitely should not have been downvoted. This business about "just ship it back to us and we'll recycle it" is obviously suspect. If anything it sounds like a scheme they came up with so they could check some box in some policy subscription about "offering recycling opportunities at all stages in the supply chain", or something similar. Even though when you think about, it's obviously how wasteful that "recycling" route is. A loophole, in other words.
  - dominotw 9y ago
    they are obviously counting on the fact that their customers are 1. lazy/busy 2. don't care that much about recycling.
  - bkanber 9y ago
    It's not that obvious and not so much a loophole. Shipping is more efficient than you give credit for (eg shipping recyclables from UK to China is still net-beneficial as opposed to landfilling [0]), and most likely recycling back to them is advantageous. The gel packs are reusable, you ship them 10 at a time, and "Reuse" is better than "Recycle" in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recycling.waste https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recyclin...
    - kafkaesq 9y ago
      shipping recyclables from UK to China is still net-beneficial as opposed to landfilling That's shipping it from the local recycling plant, ton for ton. But the "net benefit" of shipping millions of box of crumbled aluminum and plastic wrappers back to Blue Apron (then unpacking and sorting them)? As if anyone has time for that, anyway (when most of us have time to do the dishes and put out the trash)? That's where things start to look suspect. The gel packs are reusable, Yeah, like all those soaps and mini-shampoo bottles we steal from hotels and intend to "use" someday, too. But hey, it sure sounds nice enough as a little green checkbox on some "sustainability architect"'s slide presentation somewhere, I'm sure.
      - bkanber 9y ago
        > Yeah, like all those soaps and mini-shampoo bottles we steal from hotels and intend to "use" someday, too. No -- you ship the gel packs back to Blue Apron and they reuse them. Reuse >> recycling, BTW. I just did a back of the envelope calc for the carbon footprint of shipping your gel packs back to them (assuming shipping by truck 2,000km). It's about 300 grams of CO2. A gallon of gasoline puts about 10kg of CO2 in the air. If you were to drive to the supermarket a mile away, just your trip in the car puts 800g of CO2 in the air (assuming 25 mpg).
        kafkaesq 9y ago
        Something tells me a proper analysis of the net impact of their propose recycling scheme would be a bit more involved than the two numbers you came up with (and leaving aside such questions of how many customers will actually participate; and the fact that having all those gel packs that have been handled by N customers in the past be send in with my food shipments sounds, well, kind of gross). That is, at the end of the day, it still sounds -- suspect.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- bkanber 9y ago
  No. It is still better to recycle. While there is an obvious carbon footprint when shipping, don't forget that your box is on a truck with many other boxes. Inside your single returned box are 8-10 completely reusable gel packs from the last 4-5 weeks of meals. Ship back once a month. Also keep in mind that many supermarket items travel farther than Blue Apron boxes, so if you're concerned about shipping emissions, you have to compare Blue Apron against that un-recycleable Purdue chicken package that probably traveled 3x as far. The UK did a study about shipping recyclables to China for processing, and even that 10,000 mile journey for recycling had a better carbon footprint than landfilling and remanufacturing. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recycling.waste https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recyclin...

dominotw 9y ago

doesn't the carbon footprint of shipping it back offset the recycling?

kafkaesq 9y ago
That's a perfectly valid point, above, which definitely should not have been downvoted. This business about "just ship it back to us and we'll recycle it" is obviously suspect. If anything it sounds like a scheme they came up with so they could check some box in some policy subscription about "offering recycling opportunities at all stages in the supply chain", or something similar. Even though when you think about, it's obviously how wasteful that "recycling" route is. A loophole, in other words.
- dominotw 9y ago
  they are obviously counting on the fact that their customers are 1. lazy/busy 2. don't care that much about recycling.
- bkanber 9y ago
  It's not that obvious and not so much a loophole. Shipping is more efficient than you give credit for (eg shipping recyclables from UK to China is still net-beneficial as opposed to landfilling [0]), and most likely recycling back to them is advantageous. The gel packs are reusable, you ship them 10 at a time, and "Reuse" is better than "Recycle" in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recycling.waste https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recyclin...
  - kafkaesq 9y ago
    shipping recyclables from UK to China is still net-beneficial as opposed to landfilling That's shipping it from the local recycling plant, ton for ton. But the "net benefit" of shipping millions of box of crumbled aluminum and plastic wrappers back to Blue Apron (then unpacking and sorting them)? As if anyone has time for that, anyway (when most of us have time to do the dishes and put out the trash)? That's where things start to look suspect. The gel packs are reusable, Yeah, like all those soaps and mini-shampoo bottles we steal from hotels and intend to "use" someday, too. But hey, it sure sounds nice enough as a little green checkbox on some "sustainability architect"'s slide presentation somewhere, I'm sure.
    - bkanber 9y ago
      > Yeah, like all those soaps and mini-shampoo bottles we steal from hotels and intend to "use" someday, too. No -- you ship the gel packs back to Blue Apron and they reuse them. Reuse >> recycling, BTW. I just did a back of the envelope calc for the carbon footprint of shipping your gel packs back to them (assuming shipping by truck 2,000km). It's about 300 grams of CO2. A gallon of gasoline puts about 10kg of CO2 in the air. If you were to drive to the supermarket a mile away, just your trip in the car puts 800g of CO2 in the air (assuming 25 mpg).
      - kafkaesq 9y ago
        Something tells me a proper analysis of the net impact of their propose recycling scheme would be a bit more involved than the two numbers you came up with (and leaving aside such questions of how many customers will actually participate; and the fact that having all those gel packs that have been handled by N customers in the past be send in with my food shipments sounds, well, kind of gross). That is, at the end of the day, it still sounds -- suspect.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
bkanber 9y ago
No. It is still better to recycle. While there is an obvious carbon footprint when shipping, don't forget that your box is on a truck with many other boxes. Inside your single returned box are 8-10 completely reusable gel packs from the last 4-5 weeks of meals. Ship back once a month. Also keep in mind that many supermarket items travel farther than Blue Apron boxes, so if you're concerned about shipping emissions, you have to compare Blue Apron against that un-recycleable Purdue chicken package that probably traveled 3x as far. The UK did a study about shipping recyclables to China for processing, and even that 10,000 mile journey for recycling had a better carbon footprint than landfilling and remanufacturing. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recycling.waste https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recyclin...