storing your family's overflow in a storage unit

Once you've located a green self-storage facility and become a regular customer, it's time to go one step further and help further the green agenda. You can help the self-storage facility in their mission to save the world in a variety of ways. Here are three options that you can deploy to utilize your influence and potential in an environmentally friendly effort to make the most of an earth-friendly storage facility. 

1. Participate in all the green options available 

The first step is to investigate and make full use of all the services and green options your facility offers. In addition to using solar panels or sourcing some other type of green power, green self-storage facilities often facilitate these other types of earth-friendly choices: 

• Donations. Your storage facility may include a donations drop-off room where you can place unwanted items. This is a quick and easy way to donate items for re-use without even making an extra stop on the way home. Ask for information about where the items are donated to; it's probably a local charity or thrift shop. 
• Recycled and re-used boxes. The business may allow you to drop off cardboard boxes once you're done with them so that the next storage customer can use them. Or they may opt for plastic storage containers, which can be re-used even more often.
• Alternative packing materials. The facility may offer brown paper or some other eco-friendly packing material, or may offer educational literature on what types of materials you can use for packaging as an alternative to single-use packing peanuts and other resource-sucking products.

2. Select the right size and type of unit

Two types of units that are often available are traditional storage units (non-climate-controlled) and climate-controlled units. The difference between the two is that climate-controlled units have a more strictly monitored temperature and the humidity is kept lower. That doesn't mean that traditional storage units aren't heated and air-conditioned, though. It just means that they aren't always kept at a comfortable room temperature because they have a wider range of acceptable temperatures. If your storage items can handle this wider range of temperatures, you should opt for the non-climate-controlled storage because it uses less energy to maintain. And be sure to get the size of unit that is closest to the actual amount of storage space you need. Renting lots of unused, unnecessary space is bad for the environment and bad for your budget too.

3. Advocate for green practices with friends and other customers

If you've been lucky enough to find a truly earth-friendly self-storage, don't keep it to yourself. Be sure all your friends know about it, so that when they need to store things they can take advantage of it as well instead of going to a less sustainable facility. And be sure to offer your boxes to other customers when you're done with them, and share any tips you have about earth-friendly packing and storage to encourage more responsible self-storage experiences like your own. 

Use these three tips to influence the world for good by being eco-friendly in your storage habits and encouraging others to do the same. Your green self-storage facility will be grateful for your support and the Earth will be grateful for your care.

Contact a local facility, such as Gray Storage Solutions, for further assistance.