Smart Move
Published in FirstMonday Magazine January 2010
Local entrepreneur hopes cardboard goes the way of the dinosaur. In other words, he is rethinking the way Americans move.
People tend to put on their thinking caps during a recession. Take Jim Henson for example. During the Eisenhower depression he invented his world famous Muppet characters and subsequently launched a behemoth entertainment empire. Hewlett-Packard Development Company also got its start during down times. It grew from a $538,000 investment in a garage at the end of the Great Depression. Most likely, history will repeat itself. We’ll see another Trader Joe’s or MTV get its start during the current tough economic climate. And, chances are, BungoBox, a Casselberry-based company, will be a contender.
It sprang up last year and its eco-friendly idea is proving to be popular in both the commercial and residential markets. “The beauty of it is that it’s a simple concept,” says Bob Cannon, co-founder of BungoBox. “We rent reusable plastic bins as an alternative to the traditional disposable cardboard box and packing tape.”
Trash Talking
Let’s face it: Only about half of cardboard that Americans discard actually gets recycled, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And since the average American moves more than 16 times in a lifetime, all the bubble wrap, Styrofoam peanuts and boxes really add up. Consider this: If you use an average of 50 boxes per move, each person runs through about 800 cardboard boxes alone. “When you reuse cardboard boxes, they can last for approximately four moves, however, many times they are discarded after only one move and end up in a landfill,” says Cannon.
The stronger, more durable plastic bins that BungoBox rents can be reused several hundred times. After that, they are recycled and made into new bins. “It just made more sense to use a reusable, environmentally conscious product over the alternative,” says Greg Dalglish, who used BungoBox products when he moved from Columbia, S.C., to Orlando in October. Better yet, he was pleasantly surprised that the price to rent BungoBoxes, which include large, extra large and wardrobe-size boxes, was actually less than the cost of cardboard boxes.
The cost to rent a BungoBox is $1.75 per week. The cost of a similar cardboard box is $3.50 or more.
Angela Shaw also used BungoBox products recently to move delicate event decorations from the University of Central Florida’s main campus to SeaWorld. Not only were none of the items damaged en route, she was wowed by how easily the bins stacked on top of each other, like life-size legos. With the help of a dolly, she easily moved four BungoBoxes at once. “In the past, we've used cardboard boxes that we've had to collect and store around the office,” she says, “Or, we’ve purchased oversized plastic bins that usually resulted in unmanageable weight loads.”
Startup Smiles
The concept of renting reusable plastic bins is certainly not new. In the past, however, it’s been limited to Fortune 500 companies, moving from office to office. Or, supermarkets and pharmacies that need to move products. Now that the residential market has picked up on it, the popularity will likely grow.
Plus, “The fact that the economy is so sideways right now has actually worked in our favor,” says Cannon. “We were able to get the business up and running without a huge investment of capital.” In fact, BungoBox’s founders snatched up a 4,000-square-foot warehouse recently at a 50 percent discount. “Our trucks, all our expenditures were bought at a discount,” Cannon happily explains. Overall, BungoBox founders say their goal is to reinvent the moving process. “Twenty years down the road, who knows, perhaps cardboard will be a thing of the past,” says Cannon.
For more information, visit www.bungobox.com. And look for more BungoBox locations in the future, as the founders hope to franchise starting with an Atlanta location within six months.
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