prAna Is Taking Packaging Back To Basics
In our continuous effort to promote conservation and positive change… prAna is taking packaging back to basics. We’re excited to introduce our new packaging (or lack there of).
With our Spring 2011 line, prAna will begin shipping some of our products without individual poly bags. Customers will see the difference right away when they receive their orders from prAna. Depending on the color and style of garment you purchase some of your product will remain in a poly bag and other products will be folded and tied.
What is the issue?
In the apparel industry specifically most garments are wrapped in an individual plastic bag. That is a lot of plastic. Managing our relationship with plastic is a difficult one it is super useful, but it has a serious impact on the environment. Once discarded, the vast majority of plastic products end up in landfills, rivers, storm drains, and 
eventually the marine ecosystem, threatening wildlife.
The bags are used to protect the garments through the shipping process from factory to warehouse and then onto the customer. For our stores the garments are unwrapped and then displayed, the store is then responsible for disposing of the plastic. LDPE #4 which is a light, soft plastics is often very difficult to recycle because of its weight is not economically viable to recycle. This is an even bigger problem for our website customers all over the country many of which do not have the option to recycle soft plastics and therefore it ends up in landfill.
•We’re not a large company, and prAna still produced 12,617 lbs of plastic in 2010.
How are we doing it?
We felt it was time to start addressing the amount of waste we produce here at prAna and the individual product bags were a great place to start. Many of our retailer store partners often request this feeling that the plastic isn’t always needed and is hard to recycle and therefore often thrown away.
prAna had to make some big changes to our operations to change over about a third of our products to be removed from the individual plastic bags, we had to identify which colors and styles we felt did not need the additional protection, then we informed the factories who then had to change how they packed our products. Now our product goes into a large master bag and is tied to keep it in order and the hang tag available.
Why we are excited!
This change will eliminate 250,000 individual poly bags with prAna’s Spring line alone. That’s 1,684 lbs of plastic, equivalent to the average amount of garbage an American produces in one year.
The impact is not only an environmental one, but we are seeing a reduction in labor time and disposal costs of individual plastic bags while being able to maintain the aesthetic and integrity of the product. The photo of the ball stuffed with plastic bags was used at a recent trade show to illustrate how many bags are used for one shipment to our store.
Why we think you might be excited!
Depending on what you order from prAna, you might receive some of your purchases with a poly bag and some without. While we are looking for alternatives we are continuing to protect some garments in an individual poly bag, but for a third of our line the product will arrive tied and no bag. We hope you also like the change…
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Feel free to work towards keeping the tags on your products as well. The lovely little safety pin has a tendency to break, bend, and simply come off, along with the adorable ribbon used to secure the price tag. This results in wasted plastic and paper to re-tag your products.
February 21st, 2011 at 2:47 pmGreat way to help the environment and your costs.
February 22nd, 2011 at 9:15 amThanks Configurations. We just think it is the right thing to do
February 22nd, 2011 at 11:47 am@Travis Thanks for the feedback!
February 22nd, 2011 at 12:24 pmI agree with Travis…………….stop the tags with their pins, ribbons/strings and so on…………and please, stop all the plastic. The next trick is to decrease the cardboard use.
March 16th, 2011 at 4:04 pm@LisaBrown Thanks Lisa! We are on it
March 16th, 2011 at 4:37 pmThanks… Great Step Forward
March 16th, 2011 at 8:33 pmBravo, Prana! I live near the ocean and work with a marine animal rescue group and we see the downside of blowing plastic bags all the time: ingested by turtles and other marine animals and clinging to mangroves, they never cease to sadden me when I see them in our beautiful ocean.
March 17th, 2011 at 8:26 amA step in the right direction for sure! Thanks. While you’re at it, why not reduce the amount of plastic offered in your clothing… I find wool to be far superior to poly in every application, and wool does not stink after a sweaty yoga class! And on another note, please please bring back the sonora pant… Thank you Kindly
March 17th, 2011 at 8:47 amThanks Prana! It’s time being conscious of our environment is the norm, instead of the exception!! This is very exciting!! Well done!
March 17th, 2011 at 9:50 amFantastic! Love that you are reducing the plastic in the environment. How about paper packaging when protection is needed and reuse cardboard boxes like Mountain Hardware does…
March 17th, 2011 at 11:16 amThanks Prana…that’s why y’all ROCK!!!
March 17th, 2011 at 12:23 pmI also agree with Travis & Lisa – all those little tags and strings and things are just things I have to cut off and throw away. If you convert to stickers though, please use an enviro-friendly adhesive that will not be too hard to peel off the merchandise. I encourage you to share your example with other manufacturers – Patagonia, Kate Quinn, etc… all use enviromentally friendly materials and then wrap them in individual plastic bags – it’s counterproductive. I also encourage you to re-use shipping containers – use reusable containers in the first place and then when you get returns or receive other shipments, re-use those containers as well. The packaging industry is just another middleman taking a slice of the income and polluting our planet.
March 17th, 2011 at 1:44 pmway to be a role model. as always!
March 17th, 2011 at 3:27 pm@EricB Thank you!
March 17th, 2011 at 3:54 pm@BarbaraH The prAna HQ is located near the coast and we are often in the water surfing or just playing with our families. The health of ocean is very important to us and is always on our minds when looking at our impact.
March 17th, 2011 at 3:57 pm@Duncan Thanks! Our designers and product developers are definitely aware of the advantages of wool and we revisit the topic often. We have passed on your request to bring back the Sonora pant! We searched Google shopping and found at least two dealers that are still selling the Sonora!
March 17th, 2011 at 4:00 pm@Rachel Thank you!
March 17th, 2011 at 4:00 pm@Margaret Thanks for the nice comment. We do reuse our cardboard boxes as much as possible, but we have more coming in than we can utilize. We are always open to new ideas at info@prana.com!
March 17th, 2011 at 5:02 pm@ConnieG Thanks!
March 17th, 2011 at 5:02 pm@Susan We have actually come up with some fun ideas for things that people normally throw away! Stay tuned to the prAna blog for more soon
As for sharing, we are open to giving our information to any organization who is interested and we often share our new endeavors on the prAna blog for the world to see 
March 17th, 2011 at 5:05 pm@Gen Thanks!
March 17th, 2011 at 5:05 pmAwesome new approach to shipping your product and helps us online shoppers feel better about ourselves! Thank you PRANA!
March 17th, 2011 at 6:09 pmThe pins and string can be re-used.I keep the pins, which I stash in a jar for future use and the string is stowed away too for future gift wrapping etc. The key is for consumers to be creative…Those little pins do come in handy.
March 18th, 2011 at 1:13 amThank you so much for saying goodbye to plastic bags! I hope many others will follow your example. I feel it is catching on, albeit a long way to go. For example, it is so nice when my local health foods and coop stores ask me if I want a bag, even if I have a few items, and more recently, other stores have started asking this too.
March 18th, 2011 at 5:44 amExcellent. I don’t need my clothing packed in plastic.
March 18th, 2011 at 8:27 am@JacquelineR Thank YOU!
March 18th, 2011 at 10:04 am@Tamanta Creativity, creativity, creativity
March 18th, 2011 at 10:05 am@Jae We haven’t gotten rid of them all yet but we are definitely on our way! Thank you.
March 18th, 2011 at 10:06 am@Niccimo We are of the same mind! Thank You.
March 18th, 2011 at 10:06 amKudos for taking this step to reduce plastic. As for comments about tags, I’ve found both the fabric and paper tags make lovely bookmarks.
March 19th, 2011 at 10:05 amThank you for making this effort. I work at a retail store which receives a box full of plastic trash with every box full of new merchandise. It is very refreshing to see a company making the move away from superfluous plastic packaging! Hopefully others in the industry will follow in similar footsteps.
March 19th, 2011 at 7:37 pm@Deb Thanks!
March 21st, 2011 at 9:57 am@SadieF We are happy to say that there is quite a lot of buzz around our reduction of plastic and some of our peers are currently reviewing their processes!
March 21st, 2011 at 9:58 am