It takes at least two months for a cardboard box to decompose in a landfill. During the months of August and September the number of cardboard boxes in landfills will increase exponentially with the number of students moving into college housing for the upcoming school year. Rollins College student Kristin Urban won't be part of that number when she moves on campus into the eco-friendly Mowbray House this fall.
The Mowbray House is a fully sustainable living lab on the campus of Rollins College where students incorporate green living strategy into their daily lives. Rather than packing up numerous cardboard containers to move her belongings from home to college, Urban is using reusable plastic moving bins from an Orlando-based company, BungoBox.
BungoBox provides sturdy plastic moving bins to customers for a weekly rental fee. The bins are delivered by the company to the place customers are moving from and picked up after customers are moved into their new location. There is zero waste because the boxes are reused and not discarded like cardboard boxes would be after a move. BungoBox waived Urban's weekly rental fee when they learned about Eco-Rollins and the efforts of Mowbray House where she will be serving as House Manager.
Even though cardboard is a material that can be composted and recycled, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that only about half of the cardboard Americans use gets recycled. It's estimated that during its lifetime one BungoBox will replace at least 250 cardboard boxes, potentially saving 1,575 gallons of water, four large trees, 923 KW hours of energy and 40 gallons of gasoline.
Kristin Urban will introduce fellow Rollins College students to alternatives to the cardboard box when she unpacks BungoBoxes at the Mowbray House this fall. To learn more about the Mowbray House visit the Rollins College website. More information about the company and photographs of the boxes can be found on the BungoBox website.
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