Recycling is planet friendly and cost effective. This guide will hopefully give you some new ideas on finding free packaging materials.

When posting items sold on ebay it is in the seller's interest to package it safely. You want the item to arrive in one piece, you want the customer to be happy and you don't want the expense and hassle of refunding money and claiming through the post office for damage. However, packaging materials are expensive.

Some items you have to buy new - sticking tape or parcel tape is the obvious one.

You can recycle padded envelopes, but even these I prefer to buy new.

So what about these FREE items - well here are my top tips for getting free packaging materials:

1. For small strong boxes to send jewellery, glass beads, ornaments etc look no further than your local Opticians. Every pair of glasses they receive comes in a box, and they have to throw them out sometime. The boxes can be just bigger than a pair of glasses,  big enough for the case as well or big enough for a couple of pairs.
2. For larger items try your local shoe shop. Children love to wear their new shoes home and often don't take the boxes.
3. Wine boxes are a good size and very sturdy but light weight. And you have to drink the wine first to get the empty box!
4. For bubble wrap, tissue paper and those little polystyrene chips etc. try local schools. They usually receive their supplies from July to September. Boxes and boxes of stationary etc. all filled with tissue paper and bubble wrap. Primary schools keep this for making stuff but Secondary schools usually just bin it, unless you get there first. Our school once had 2 new photocopiers delivered, each the size of a small car (well almost), wrapped completely in bubble wrap!

I hope you found these ideas useful. Happy posting...Louise

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RUNNING WILD JEWELLERY

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