By their calculations, Simpak will prevent 1.1 million cubic feet of trash from entering the landfills for the year 2012.

Simpak is the manufacturer of the Simpad, a flexible packaging material that’s available in different sizes and configurations, including a pre-lined box. A Simpad can be formed to fit any packaging situation, which changes the way companies ship products out to their customers.

Based on their figures, sales of their products, and their customers’ use of the Simpad, Simpak projects that they will keep as much anywhere from 50 – 200 million pounds of garbage (that’s anywhere from 25,000 – 100,000 tons) out of the landfill.

Here’s how they figured it all up:

Simpak uses 100% recycled material in their Simpads. The flexible material inside a Simpad is made of recycled polystyrene foam. Each 53 foot semi trailer filled with foam they use for the Simpak pads is approximately 1,226 cubic feet in size. Based on their sales projectsions, they will use 914 trucks of raw materials, which works out to 1,120,564 cubic feet.

But it doesn’t stop there.
Customers use Simpads instead of regular packaging materials. They don’t need to purchase as much, if any, additional packing material, including bubble wrap, kraft paper, corrugated cardboard wrap, and air pillows.

Customers will also often reuse their Simpads, which not only saves them money on purchasing new Simpads, but also has the added effect of reducing the need for additional packing materials. In essence, if a company uses a Simpad only once more, by doubling its use, they have cut their packaging costs (and waste disposal) in half.

Simpak is dedicated to not only helping their customers find ways to save money on their shipping and packaging costs, but to helping the environment as well. By finding a way to reuse foam that was destined for the landfill, they can keep it out of the waste stream. And by helping customers find a way to reduce their own packaging needs, they can add to that total.