Which packaging can I reuse or recycle?
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As part of our commitment to reduce waste throughout our value chain, we explain how you can safely and sustainably dispose of our packaging.
At a glance
| Item | How to dispose of |
| Boxes | Recycle or reuse |
| Ice packs | Reuse, recycle the shell, or return to us |
| Expanded polystyrene | Dispose of according to local guidelines |
| Vial boxes | Recycle |
By packaging item
Boxes
Our boxes are made of cardboard, almost always recyclable through your local authorities' recycling program. They can also be kept and reused for storage.
Ice packs
Our ice packs are made of recyclable high-density polyethylene (HDPE), which contains either a water or gel-based coolant. It’s worth checking your local guidelines, but these can often be recycled once the HDPE shell after draining the coolant.
Ice packs can also be reused many times over, so long as they’ve not come into contact with toxic materials.
Large quantities of ice packs you've accumulated over time can be returned to us as we’re happy to arrange collection of any pallets of ice packs, which we will then dispose of ourselves. Please contact us using the orders address for your region to arrange collection.
Expanded polystyrene
Our products are shipped in expanded polystyrene (EPS) boxes to keep them cool.
It's worth checking your local guidelines, but EPS is not commonly recycled; it should usually be disposed of in domestic waste. At this time, we're unable to accept returns of unwanted EPS packaging.
We're looking into various solutions to replace EPS and plan to trial new shipping materials for certain box sizes this year.
Vial boxes
Our customers have had a lot of fun building with our old 'brick' style acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) vial holders, but this material is rarely recyclable.
We are excited to move to our new paperboard vial boxes, which will eliminate over eight tonnes of plastic annually. We've worked hard to ensure our new vial boxes allow us to ship different sizes just as safely as ABS while being fully recyclable. Paperboard is accepted by most local authorities' recycling schemes.
We hope you like our new boxes as much as we do, and we'd love to hear any feedback you have on them.
