Posts Tagged ‘plastic moving boxes’

How ZippGo Boxes Get Cleaned – Replenish!

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Cleaning ZippGo Box with ReplenishWhen we tell people that each ZippGo box can be reused more than 500 times, the first reaction we get after “wow, thats totally cool” is “how do you clean them?” Well, I decided it was time to write a blog post about our box cleaning methods and what we use to clean them. Two things motivated me to want to write this post. First, I think its important that people know the plastic moving boxes they receive from ZippGo are thoroughly cleaned and sanitized before they are delivered and second I am really excited about sharing the cleaning product we use to do the cleaning. Its one of the coolest and most eco-friendly product innovations I’ve seen in a long time. The idea is so simple and pure genius at the same time.   Consumer adoption of this product will significantly reduce the waste created from all those plastic cleaning bottles millions of Americans use each day.

Most cleaners are made up of 10% concentrate and 90% water so you are basically paying for lots of water each time you buy one of these cleaners. Additionally, because these bottles are full of  water, they weigh more, increasing the amount of gas used while the product is being trucked in from the factory and ultimately increasing the negative impact on the planet. To make  environmental matters worse, every time one of these cleaners in a plastic bottle runs out most people throw it away and go buy another bottle. Well, there is a solution.

Replenish solves this problem with an  innovative yet simple solution. Replenish has created a reusable cleaning bottle system. First you buy a specially designed Replenish plastic bottle and pods full of concentrated Replenish  cleaner.  You attach the Replenish pod to the bottle, add water from your tap to the bottle, flip the bottle over, squeeze the pod once until a few drops of concentrate come out, and then shake to  mix. Thats all. You now have a full bottle of Replenish cleaner that is earth friendly and yet two times as powerful as most cleaners.  When this bottle runs out, you simple add water again,  squeeze the pod, and mix. Voila! Another full bottle of cleaner. You can do this 4 times with each pod. When the pod runs out, you simply pop in another pod and you’ve got 4 more bottles of environmentally friendly cleaner. Each of the replacement pods cost about $4 so your cost per bottle is around $1.  Much cheaper than buying a new bottle each time you run out.

After we pickup the ZippGo boxes from our customers and get them back to our warehouse, we place all the dirty boxes in a special area of our warehouse to separate them from the clean ones. Most of our boxes are used by clients to pack clothes, kitchen items, and books so more often than not they are returned to us without much dirt or debris. Regardless of how they are returned to us, each ZippGo box goes through the same rigorous cleaning process to ensure every box is dirt and bacteria free before it is delivered to our next customer.

The first step in our cleaning process is to remove any small debris left in the box or any dust caught in corners using high pressure air. After the high pressure air, we do a visual inspection and remove any labels placed on the box. The last step is when we use Replenish to sanitize the box and remove any dirt or stains. We take box cleaning very seriously so our ZippGo plastic moving boxes look new each time they go out to a client.Replenish Cleaner and ZippGo Plastic Moving Boxes

If you’ve used cardboard boxes in the past to pack then you know they can hold lots of dirt, bacteria, and moisture. This is especially true if you are reusing someone else’s cardboard boxes, get them from a grocery store, or dumpster dive in the back. When you’re packing all your precious items like clothes, blankets, and kitchenware you want to make sure they go into a box which is ultra clean. Next time you move, call ZippGo and not only will your belongings stay clean, but your move will end up being faster, cheaper, and much simpler. We bring our reusable moving boxes directly to your door and pick them up after you’ve unpacked at your new place.  No more building boxes, no more tape, and no more clean up.

Top 5 Places To Live In The Bay Area

Friday, February 25th, 2011

San Francisco Bay is home to dozens of beautiful cities with incredible living potential. With cherished landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge in the North Bay area and the technological cutting edge Silicon Valley in the South Bay area, there’s no denying that this little slice of California offers a world of diversity and culture. Whether you’re a native Bay resident looking for a change of pace or an East Coast soon-to-be import, it’s worth taking a few moments to explore the Bay’s top 5 cities before you commit to your move.

San Francisco

Obviously heading the list for the area with its namesake is San Francisco city itself. With a three-sided view of the water, this peninsula city is second only to New York City in terms of population density. If it’s the fast-paced lifestyle of authentic big city living you crave, then San Francisco is the West Coast’s only destination for you. If there are two things you can count on, they are the opportunity for employment at every corner and a diversity of cuisine that staggers the imagination.

Berkeley

Nestled in the rolling hills of the East Bay area and home to the state university system’s oldest institute, The University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley offers some of the most beautiful views of the bay you’ll likely ever encounter. Although it is a densely populated city, it is a tight-knit community. If you’re looking for a place that you can speak your mind and live in peace, then Berkeley could be your perfect match.

Santa Clara

If you eat, sleep, and breathe technology, then you were born to live in Santa Clara. At the heart of the famous Silicon Valley in the South Bay area, Santa Clara proudly provides headquarters for names such as Intel, NVIDIA, and Sun Microsystems. If you are lucky enough to snag an apartment or condo in this city, you’ll never want for technological thrills again.

Albany

Love landscape views of the city but don’t want to live there? Albany could be your solution. Another city in the East Bay area, Albany offers a somewhat slower-paced approach to life. With regard to education, its school system is one of the best in the country, with a staggering 96 percent of its graduates going on to attend college. It’s a beautiful blend of city, family, and small town living.

Palo Alto

Another peninsula Bay city, Palo Alto offers a little bit of everything. With companies like Facebook and PayPal, among others, basing their headquarters here, it has the technology. With parts of Stanford University, it has the education. With original, older homes, it has the history and suburban feel. Palo Alto may just be the most well-rounded little big city in the Bay.

Are you reaching for the cardboard boxes now with one of these cities as your intended destination? Well, before you go crazy with the cardboard, think about a more convenient—and much greener way t

o move. Plastic moving boxes that are well made are reusable up to 400 time, so there’s no adding to the landfills or using up energy recycling unnecessarily. Just try to use your cardboard boxes 400 times! The best part about plastic moving boxes is that they can be delivered directly to you in most of the Bay area’s cities! So do the right thing and go green.

How Will The Family Adjust To A New Home?

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Any move, whether across town or across the country, is a big adjustment for everyone involved. As stressful as it can be for adults, children seem to experience the most difficulty adjusting to the whole idea. This is especially true for school aged children who most often feel as though they are being punished for some unknown reason by moving them away from all of their friends and everything that is familiar to them. There are some things you can do, however, to make the transition more bearable for your family and help your children to understand that this move is not a punishment of any sort, but rather a grand adventure for a new life.

Embrace the Community

No one is ever going to feel like a new house is “home” if they just move in to a building and live like hermits. Get out there and explore the town. The kids will love getting to see everything the new place has to offer, and chances are you’ll have a pretty good time too. Scope out the area for restaurants and make a point to try out several throughout the day; one for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for dinner. Hey, kids love eating out, so this could be an excellent way to loosen them up and encourage them to open their minds to everything else you’ll discover that day.

In between your ceremonious meals, explore the family activities available in the area. You might even get some good ideas from the people you’ll meet at the different restaurants. Check out the local park to see what it has to offer. Find out where the local movie theater is. You may even want to finish the day off by stopping there. Get a feel for the shopping scene. This will be particularly important if you have teenage children so that they can see that there is life here after all.

Emphasize Family Time

Exploring the community is fun and exciting for all, but nothing is more important than reinforcing the closeness of family. When you keep your family functioning as a tightly knit unit, your children will be better able to adjust to everything around them because they’ll have the security of knowing that no matter where they are, you all love each other and will always be there for each other.

In order to create this closeness, you have to go a little bit beyond just telling your kids you love them. You’ll have to show it by spending time with them. This can be really difficult to do with all the craziness of the move, but making a point to have a game night on a set day of the week and making sure to sit down together for dinner can have some really incredible benefits for your kids. Besides, you need a break too, and taking a little time just to enjoy life will help everyone feel more balanced during this transistion.

How To De-clutter Before You Move – Learning to Let Go

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

In some ways it’s human nature to collect things, and maybe even to form sentimental attachments to those things. While this can be good if you’re a collector, or plan to stay in one place for the rest of eternity, this habit of acquiring objects can present quite a problem when you’re wanting to move and trying to figure out what to do with all of your, well junk.

Moving is stressful enough, don’t make it worse on yourself by lugging around unnecessary stuff for no reason. How should you decide what gets to stay, and what you have to leave behind? The answer is simple. Follow the tips below, and before you know it, you’ll be clutter free and able to start anew.

Get Your Mind Right Before Tackling The Task

No doubt, it is a huge undertaking to go through all of your worldly possessions in an attempt to flesh out only what you need to move with. This is even more the case if you have a huge house, with an attic, multiple wardrobes, or a multi-car garage.

de-clutter your life

Don't let your home get this unorganized!

So, acknowledge that it’s going to be stressful, and work through it a bit at a time. When you’re doing it, be completely focused on the task at hand, but also acknowledge that you are going to be attached to some things, and that’s OK. That said however, you really need to think about a process like this logically and not emotionally as much as possible.

Set The Rules Of The Game

Any good game has a system of simple rules, and this is no different. You’re going to end up with a “yes” pile and a “no” pile, but you need to be clear on the criteria that need to be met for an object to go into a specific place.

For example:

  • If it still has tags on it, or is unopened but covered in dust, you probably aren’t going to get around to changing that any time soon, and it’s OK to let that go.
  • If you can’t fit into it, it’s OK to not take it with you.
  • If you haven’t worn it or used it in a year (or since college) , are you really ever going to wear or use it again?
  • If it’s broken, throw it away, don’t think about the “someday” when you want to fix it
  • If you have multiples of it, get rid of at least one.
  • If it’s a big object like a car, washing machine, or TV, think about whether or not it might be cheaper to just sell what you have and get a replacement when you get to your new destination.
  • If it has sentimental value to you, keep it, but really think about the definition of sentimental value, so that you end up keeping truly meaningful things, and not just “neat junk.”

Work In A System

As mentioned above, this process can be overwhelming on many levels physically and emotionally. Start as soon as you can, and try to breakdown your house into individual areas and tackle them one at a time.

Don’t rush through this process, and try to cram the attic, basement, kids’ rooms and etc into one go-round, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Chances are, if you do this alone, and all at once It will not end well, in fact everyone will probably just end up cranky and frustrated, staring at all the stuff that’s still clogging up your lives.
Remember The Saying About One Man’s Trash…

Consider that just because you’re getting rid of things, it doesn’t mean that you can’t benefit from it. Things can be sold, sometimes for quite a tidy sum on sites like http://craigslist.org or http://ebay.com or you can have an old fashioned garage sale.

Getting a monetary reward from selling the valuables you don’t need to haul along with you may provide just enough motivation to tear through your place in a way you wouldn’t usually. Also consider making a charitable donation. No matter your situation, many families are less fortunate, and things like toys, games, clothing, shoes and furniture can make a huge difference in someone’s life. Such donations are also often tax deductible.

No matter how you approach your need to deeply de-clutter your surroundings in preparation for a move, just think about the opportunity as an open door for a new start. Don’t be afraid to let go of unnecessary “stuff.”

If you’re especially environmentally conscious and worry about the impact of the usual cardboard boxes used for the moving process, know that we can help you out with a green storage alternative. Our plastic moving boxes are zero waste and our unique service is incredibly easy and convenient to use. Give us a call! You’ll be glad you did.

Top 5 Reasons People Move

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

We all dream of moving into a home and being able to stay in the same place for years, if not all of our adult lives. Visions of raising our children at the same address, planting a garden, doing home projects, decorating for the holidays, and watching our families grow up are at the base of our culture and part of the American dream.

If you are considering a move, you’re not alone. Nearly 15% of the US population moves every year.  Here are the top 5 reasons that might mean it’s time to make a call to your local real estate agent:

Needing More Space zippgo moving boxes

Let’s face it. We get new things all the time. As family needs grow and change, we may need more space than our current home can provide. Many homes are designed with a lot of wasted space, so moving to a newer, more efficient home will help you make the most of what you’ve got, and may even leave room for the changes you may face over the next few years.

Getting Married

If you’re planning on getting married, one or both of you will need to change your address. Although moves are known to be stressful, relocating because of such a happy occasion usually raises adrenalin levels, excitement, and feelings of contentedness. Moving because of marriage should be a relatively low stress occasion.

A New Baby

If you’re expanding your family, sometimes there’s not enough room to live comfortably when the bundle of joy arrives. Moving into a new home with more space will help accommodate your new family member and will keep your family busy until the big day. When you move to a new place, you can look forward to decorating the baby’s nursery, and as the child grows, the nursery can grow and adapt into a bedroom or playroom.

A New Career

If you’ve recently landed a new job, especially if you’ve transferred to another city or state, you’re obviously going to have to move. Being closer to work will save you money over the long run in terms of fuel, wear and tear on your vehicle, or other transportation costs so you can make the most of your new salary.

Retirement

As you enter your golden years, there are numerous things to take into consideration. You may not need the space for your children, as you once did. If you’ve tucked away a nice nest egg, your golden years are often a time of reward and leisure. A smaller space, somewhere warm and tropical, may be just the ticket. Many retirement communities or condo associations have all expenses included rental agreements, and even provide help for those with limited mobility.

Are you moving for any of these reasons? Moving the traditional way puts an unbelievable amount of trash and other waste into our landfills which are harmful to the planet. Why waste time and money on cardboard boxes and tape that you’re just going throw away when you move into your new place? Instead, consider getting green plastic moving boxes from us at ZippGo. We’ll deliver them to you and pick them up from your new address so you don’t have to worry about it. With ZippGo, moving can be a streamlined, pleasant experience all the way around!

At ZippGo, we believe in win/win situations! Call us before your big move, and let us guide you in the right direction!

Stress Free Moving – Here’s How

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

If you have never faced the major task of moving from one home to another, you are likely to be in for a rude awakening. I’ve moved several times in my life, each time with more collected stuff than the last, and I’ve gotta tell you if I never have to do it again it will be too soon. Did you know that moving is one of the top 10 major stressors people have to contend with? Yeah, it’s right up there with marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, and a major shift in careers. So how do you stay sane during this transition?

First, I can tell you what not to do. Don’t be so naïve to think that everything will just fall together all on its own the day the moving trucks arrive. Those trinkets are not going to neatly wrap themselves and jump in your moving boxes all on their own. Neither will anything else in your home, except perhaps your dog which will be the one thing that doesn’t need to go in a box. You must organize this shindig if you want to come out on top.

moving stress

Don't move like this!

Moving the Right Way…Without Stress

  • Start by making a list by rooms. Decide which rooms of your new home will house specific items from your old one. Are you splitting a shared bedroom or combining two into one? Are there items you need to get rid of? Put it all on paper and make a plan.
  • Start packing now. You do not need your summer wardrobe hanging in your closet in the dead of winter, so go ahead and get it in your moving containers. Any non-essentials like books, DVDs, knick-knacks, and framed pictures can be packed and ready to go days, or even a couple of weeks before the move.
  • Label your moving boxes by the room their contents are destined for first, and then with a brief description of what each box contains. This way you’ll know exactly which room to take the box to when you arrive and you won’t have to unpack 10 different boxes to find your silverware (Tip: ZippGo provides box labels made from 100% post consumer recycled paper free with every order).
  • Pace yourself and take breaks. If you start early and make steady progress then you will get everything done in time. Don’t try to reduce the entire contents of your home into 50 neat moving containers in one single day. Set a goal for each day leading up to the move and stop when you’ve met it.

The Business of Boxes

That all sounds well and good, but where are you going to find 50 moving boxes just like that? Well, ZippGo can not only bring plastic moving boxes to your door, but they also keep you feeling good because your move doesn’t sap the environment of its precious resources. Every ZippGo moving crate is made from recycled plastic and we are in the “reuse” business. Our clean, sanitary, environmentally friendly plastic moving boxes are used and reused more than 500 times. You pack and move, then ZippGo will come and get the containers when you are finished. Talk about stress free! Call us today for more details on a stress free move. You’ll be glad you did.

Top 10 Ways To Move Green

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

More people these days have decided that they want to minimize their impact on the environment. This choice to be green will mean making a few sacrifices and living in a more thoughtful way.  This decision to no longer be part of the problem is a noble one and one you can start implementing in your life immediately.

Moving homes is something that almost everyone does at least once in their life. You may not realize it but this move can also be made in a way that won’t cause damage to the environment; or at least in a way that limits your environmental impact. What you need to keep in mind are the 3 R’s of sustainability; reduce, reuse, and recycle.  Here are the top ten ways to move green.

  1. The first thing that moving green requires is choices in regards to what you are going to take with you and what to leave behind. You want to reduce the amount of items that you will need to transport while not getting rid of things you will be using after the move; remember it is far better to reuse than buy new. This might take a bit of time but work through belongings to see what goes and what stays
  2. Move to an area where green issues are taken seriously. This might be impractical but moving to a town or city that is green can be a great way to do your bit to save the environment.
  3. If some of your furniture looks a bit old and worn you may be tempted to replace it in order to match the look of your new home. Before doing that why not consider fixing your current furniture to look like new. A little bit of upholstery can make a huge difference and this will save you money and help save the planet.
  4. You will need to decide what to do with those things that you are not going to take with you. You should be able to find homes for some of these items with friends or family. You can recycle anything that you can’t give away. Don’t dump items if you can possibly avoid this. You want to reduce your moving storage requirements, but be thoughtful about this and you can be greener in the process.green mover
  5. The conventional method of packing using cardboard boxes is bad for the environment and also makes moving more stressful.  ZippGo rents and delivers plastic green moving boxes made from 100% recycled plastic that are kinder to the environment than cardboard moving boxes. ZippGo reusable moving boxes can be reused 500 times during their lifetime; this compares very favorably with the cardboard box that is typically used just once and and dumped in the garbage and ultimately ends up in a landfill. Just one ZippGo reusable moving container can save as many as four trees over its life.   As an added benefit these reusable boxes are far sturdier than cardboard boxes so you don’t have to worry about items getting crushed, wet, or damaged. You can order green moving boxes online from the ZippGo website.
  6. If you need to make purchases for your new home you should do this at your destination rather than adding them to the move. Consider buying these items in second-hand shops to continue your efforts to reuse as much as possible.
  7. You will want to protect your belongings during the move. Bubble wrap is great for this purpose but most of the commercially available wrap isn’t recycled. There is an environmentally friendly type of packing paper wrap provided by ZippGo; this is made from recycled paper rather than plastic. Reusable packaging and packaging made from recycled content should be used whenever possible during your move.
  8. You will likely be doing a lot of cleaning over the coming days as you remove evidence of your previous habitation from your old home and make your new house ready. Use green cleaning products for this.
  9. When moving home it is important that you choose green transport if you are serious about protecting the environment. Use a local moving company and choose a moving truck that is powered by biodiesel. It will save on fuel and money if you use one big truck rather than two smaller ones; speak to your moving service about the most eco-friendly options.
  10. Before you leave your old home make sure that you have safely removed any chemicals that might have been left around. Such things as cleaning fluids can be highly toxic and need to be disposed of in the proper way.

Above are just ten ways that you can make your move to a new home a green experience. Do what you can to protect our planet, and good luck in your new home.