Monthly subscription boxes are all the rage. If you ever watch YouTube videos, dozens of YouTubers review these boxes each month. While one of the earliest unboxing videos dates to the 1970s, when Betamax came out, HelloFresh is one of the most people have seen at least one video review of.
Despite their popularity, subscription boxes aren’t as environmentally friendly as you might believe. Start with the fuel used to ship boxes from warehouses to consumers. Add in all the extra packaging and potential returns. Explore what makes subscription boxes an environmental problem and what consumers need to do to lessen their impact.
What’s In a Box?
Germany’s HelloFresh is one of the best-known and highest-earning monthly subscription boxes. The estimated revenues in 2026 are in the $440 million to $492 million range. They’re certainly not alone. Blue Apron and Butcher Box are other popular food subscription boxes.
You also have pet subscription boxes such as BarkBox, Cratejoy, and MeowBox. There are clothing boxes like Rent the Runway and Stitch Fix. Popular skincare and makeup boxes include Allure Beauty, Dollar Shave Club, and IPSY.
While each box varies in size and contents, expect most to arrive in a cardboard box. Inside, you’ll find the subscription box, padding to prevent damage, ice packs to keep food fresh, plastic wrap and bags, and plastic or glass bottles. There might be inserts such as recipe cards or information sheets.
Cratejoy shows what goes into some of the subscription boxes people get. You have the shipping box and a designer box with the goodies. In the designed box are tissue paper, shredded kraft paper, glass bottles and jars, and paper or foil-wrapped items. Bubble wrap is often used to cushion fragile items.
How Much of This Becomes Trash?
A lot of the items you get in a monthly subscription box end up in the waste stream. A company doesn’t always consider where the items end up in the future.
A McKinsey study several years ago found that 68% of subscription box recipients order them to try new products or gain exclusive access to certain offers—only 32% use monthly subscriptions to replenish commonly-used items.
Consider that and then think about these facts from the EPA.
• 292.4 million tons of waste were generated in 2018, the equivalent of almost 5 pounds per person, per day.• 32.1% of that generated waste was recycled or composted.
• Over 146 million tons went to landfills.
Some items are easy to recycle.
• Cardboard and paper inserts• Most plastic bottles and containers
• Some glass bottles and containers
• Metal cans
• Plastic film (Must be dry and recycled through specialized bins found at most grocery stores)
However, some items in boxes are hard to recycle. Freezer bags put in food boxes are usually drained and thrown away. Foil-lined plastic bags aren’t recyclable in many areas. Wax-coated boxes aren’t recyclable. Styrofoam peanuts go into the trash, too.
If you receive items in your subscription box that you won’t use, such as a bottle of skin cream that makes you break out, you need to empty and rinse the container before recycling it. That cream ends up in the landfill, which isn’t ideal and may be considered hazardous waste if it’s a chemical-based product.
Food items that arrive rotten or spoiled must be composted in some areas or put in the trash in others. As those food items decompose, they release methane into the air, which isn’t ideal.
If I think back to my last subscription box, it was from a coffee subscription company. It was a box within a box. Inside that box were four plastic/foil bags of coffee, postcards, and tasting notes.
The two boxes are easily recycled. Postcards and notecards are also recyclable in my area. The bags, however, are not. Those plastic/foil bags with their plastic/metal bag closing strip go into the trash.
This may not seem too bad, but that plastic bag and strip could take decades to break down. In the meantime, microplastics have been released for decades. They enter the soil where vegetables and fruits grow. They end up in the water and air for you to drink or breathe.
What did I do when I stopped that subscription? I purchase green coffee in burlap bags now and roast it at home. I do use electricity to roast the beans, and those burlap bags end up in the compost, but it’s better than plastic. I also line my raised beds and gardens with cardboard and burlap, which blocks weeds and worms love these materials.
What Are Companies Doing to Make Boxes Better?
Trash and recycling are part of the issue. There’s still another hurdle.
Subscription boxes require “last-mile” shipping. They go from suppliers to a facility where the boxes are picked and packed. Address labels are applied, and dozens of boxes are palletized together.
That pallet is full of boxes that will be shipped by truck or plane to a specific hub or airport. If it’s an airport, they’re loaded onto trucks that go to distribution hubs where they’re loaded onto last-mile trucks to be delivered to a person’s home.
Consider that most tractor-trailers get around 6-8 miles per gallon, and delivery vans get 15-25 miles per gallon. By the time an item reaches you, gallons of fuel have been consumed, increasing emissions.
Some companies are starting to look at the waste and impacts generated by their monthly subscription boxes. HelloFresh donates leftover ingredients to local nonprofits. They’ve switched to renewable energy. They’re also using domestic suppliers to reduce the distance between consumers and food producers.
Companies like Stitch Fix are focusing on brands that use more cotton than polyester or recycled polyester, and on virgin materials. Their boxes contain post-recycled materials, and they don’t oversize them. The outfits you get arrive in a box that’s just big enough. Mailers for returns are made from 100% SFI-certified recycled fiber.
How Can You Lessen Your Impact?
You need to do your part, too. A monthly subscription box is a lot of fun to open, but will you use all the items you get? If there’s a 50/50 chance you’ll end up tossing a lot of it in the trash, it’s not worth subscribing.
If you get items you won’t use, see if you can return them locally. If you can bring them to a UPS Store or Kohl’s location, many shipments can be returned at once rather than just your item, so less fuel is consumed.
Make sure you look up how to recycle the boxes and packaging you receive. If you have a blue glass container, it’s unlikely to be accepted. Reuse it or donate it to someone who collects blue glass.
Don’t immediately recycle boxes. People may need them for moving, gardening, or crafts. Give away as much as you can to those who need it.
Recycle Nation’s search tool makes it easy to find out how to recycle dozens of materials. Enter your ZIP code and the item type to find where you can bring it for recycling or whether you can put it in your curbside container.
