Give Back Box® provides vendor services to retailers and charities, giving each and every cardboard box a second life to help people in need. So it is also a ‘green’ solution!
Give Back Box® was founded in 2012 by Monika Wiela, who at the time was running an online shoe store. The idea was inspired by a homeless man she encountered in Chicago, who was holding up a sign saying he needed a pair of shoes. Wiela returned later that day with shoes for him, but he was gone. She spent that night thinking about what she could do with all the empty boxes in her warehouse and also help people like that man, and a new social enterprise was born.
As Wiela researched further, she learned that, an estimated 11 million tons of clothing, footwear, towels, bedding, drapery, and other textiles end up in U.S. landfills every year. In addition, online shopping is now the preferred method for much of the buying public. Corrugated boxes are the dominant packaging method for e-commerce. With this knowledge, Wiela’s mission crystalized. If online retailers would use Give Back Box, shipping boxes and other items could be used a second time prior to being recycled. The impact would be remarkable.
Wiela’s first step to bring her dream to reality was to find a nonprofit with a national footprint that could accept donations on a grand scale. The organization would have to be able to not only accept used clothing but other items that people wanted to donate. The nonprofit enterprise also needed to have a program to recycle the boxes that it would receive, further limiting landfill waste.
Reuse your online shipping boxes in which you received your purchases, or any other cardboard box you may have, to donate your unwanted household items: such as gently used clothing, shoes etc., to make a major difference in the life of another person. You can select your charity of choice here.
In 2021 and 2022 they diverted 5 million pounds of clothes from landfills! They even recycle all the boxes after they are unpacked.