At this writing, human job creation is a monumental issue and if using wood crates creates jobs, then it behooves intelligent people to give it a second look.
Smash a plastic crate into pieces and you get trash. Separate a wood crate into pieces and you get material to build other things of value - shelves, tables, small chairs, bird houses, smaller containers, and with the parts of the wooden crate you smash up - fuel and compost. Wood is yet more flexible than plastic.
So why did plastic crates eliminate wooden crates/baskets? Economics of course. Oil companies had a waste stream that needed to be sold and shipping companies needed cheaper packaging which created a market for plastic crates. For the food industry, plastic is easier to wash than wood and for shippers - plastic containers have a water proof advantage over wood containers. Vacuum injection mold machines could make plastic crates with little to no human labor involved.
More importantly, when plastic crates hit the marketplace few if any considered the cost of their ultimate disposal - especially in landfills or the cost of melting them down to make new products. It is always easier to show a profit if one can ignore any or all of the costs of producing a product.
When jobs are the priority, wood packing containers built by humans first have a rather long useful life cycle and then are simply easier to reconfigure into other reusable purposes than plastic crates and finally, they have the added benefit of organically decomposing rather quickly when placed in a landfill.
Every night a large majority of the population lays down for a good nights sleep resting comfortably on a mattress supported by a set of box springs which most likely have a wooden frame. Part of mattress recycling deals with the reuse/recycling of the box springs wood frame. When the mattress recycler separates the steel springs in a box springs from its wood frame, if done somewhat carefully, dimensional lumber from the wood frame becomes available as a product for sale.
For the purpose of this article and in reality, this dimensional lumber is suitable for humans to make into wood shipping crates. This is the supply side of job creation.
When supply side is matched by an equal or higher demand side, a market is created and the new jobs can be realized.
Earlier, oil based plastic crates essentially took away the market for wood crates. If you have recently tried to buy an antique wood crate - these are pricy to say the least. So, to create new jobs with new affordable wood crates some good ole' American ingenuity needs to take place.
In America's Walmart world, the rule is that no empty truck goes anywhere. To put this current transportation tenant into practice with new wooden man-made crates, consider a couple of possibilities - California produce shippers packing their product in wooden crates going to New York and New York shipping a finished product back to California in the same crates. How about Idaho shipping potatoes to Florida and Florida shipping oranges to Idaho in the same crates? How about USPS, UPS, Fed Ex, etc. all using a standard size(s) reusable wood crate with a small return deposit fee - to help America create human jobs? And, as the greatest challenge of all - how about shipping American made products in wood crates? What is your idea for using wood crates? Tell somebody what your personal idea is - America needs new jobs.
Cecil Taylor is the Inventor of the Spring Compactor Invention. For further information on Mattress Recycling and the Spring Compactor Invention, please visit www.MattressRecycling.biz .
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Welcome to Searchwarp. Your ideas are great and will be very instrumental in providing and creating jobs. I hope the business community gets the message.
Thanks for the "welcome." I am liking the sharing of comments as normally you write something and receive no feedback. I realize I am new, so I don't expect these kind responses forever. Really do appreciate real people and real opinions. They help a lot. Thank you.
Outstanding idea Cecil! The concept seems sound. However, I'm wondering if the supply of recycled box spring frames might be quickly outpaced by the demand for the crates?
While I totally agree with you that if the flegling mattress recycling industry were called upon today to meet the future wood crate demand - assuming oil goes away - the mattress recycling supply of dimensional lumber would fall way short. However, as the current demand for wood crates is practically non-existent and the mattress recycling industry is in its infancy - smart business people have the opportunity to grow both of these industries concurrently. There are 300 million people in the United States, assuming one box springs per three persons and a twenty year life for a box springs - that yields 5,000,000 box springs per year to supply dimensional lumber. And, that is just in the United States. So, given this - our paradigm might well switch 180 degrees and the demand for wood crates may fall short of the mattress recycling supply when both are fully in production. Thanks for your comment. Much appreciated.
Thanks! Not my intent to lead you astray. The Government legislated tire recycling into being profitable. Perhaps some day in the future - Government will legislate mattress recycling into the black as well. In fact, there are places already where mattresses are banned from landfills. If you live where that is already law - you have a chance to make money in the private sector. Otherwise, you may well wish to team up with a non-profit organization as there are several mattress recycling facilities that non-profits are currently operating successfully. Thanks again for your comments.
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