Why doesn't EcoEnclose sell white recycled packaging?Updated a year ago

We sometimes get requests for white boxes, mailers, or paper. Our goal is to provide the most eco-friendly options on the market, which often translates into plain brown kraft.

Here are three common reasons you don't see a lot of white 100% recycled products on the market:

1. Eco-Footprint: Creating white paper requires an extra bleaching process, which puts chemicals into the wastewater supply and possibly into the environment. 
2. Cost: The bleaching process raises the costs of production on these items.
3. Demand: Many FDA-approved grades of material are constructed with white kraft sheets. Still, FDA regulations require the producers to use virgin material (it is very difficult to clean recycled products to a point where you can guarantee no contaminants are in the sheet). This leads to a market where most of the production volume used for these white grades is for a virgin product, so getting a virgin white sheet is relatively easy, but finding a recycled white sheet is difficult because no one has the incentive to run it.

We understand aesthetics and the desire to use white paper, but brown kraft offers the most sustainable option. Brown kraft packaging also helps us remember where that material comes from - our trees! - and re-enforces the necessity to preserve them and reuse what we can. Thank you for saving our trees and supporting EcoEnclose.