In October 2018 we posted about our goals of reducing the amount of single use plastic packaging in our shipments. Since then we've made some great progress, although of course there's still plenty ahead of us on the roadmap to being the most eco friendly business in the industry.

Where did the "reduce single use plastic" option go on checkout!?

Those of you who shop with us regularly may have noticed this option is no longer available at checkout. For some time now we've been making efforts across all shipments we send out to reduce the amount of single use plastic, and in fact we haven't bought any single use plastic packaging since 2016 - so please rest assured that the option has disappeared not because it is no longer available, but simply that it's applied to every single order we send out.

Does this mean that there won't be any plastic in my order?

Unfortunately not just yet. Whilst we predominantly use recycled and recyclable materials, you may still see some plastic. This is typically for one of two reasons:

1. We still have remaining stock of this packaging from before 2016 (for example our gloves are often still sent in grey mailer bags).
2. We are re-using packaging from deliveries we have received. Although we'd rather not have received the plastic in the first place, it's more environmentally friendly to re-use this than it is to throw it away simply for the sake of not sending any plastic out.

What comes next?

We are now starting to talk to each of our suppliers about minimising the plastic used in their product packaging. Many manufacturers have already done this, including L&B and Alti-2 who now package their altimeters in boxes rather than plastic, however there are still a number of products which have plastic packaging.

In 2019 we carbon offset all of our business activities excluding jumping (i.e. coaching and AFF). We are in the process of calculating the carbon footprint of a skydive so that we can also offset this area to become fully carbon neutral.