Thinking Outside the (Reused) Box

In this week’s episode of our NothingWasted! Podcast, we chat with Marty Metro, founder and CEO of Used Cardboard Boxes, Inc. (UCB). UCB takes an innovative approach to providing low-cost, earth-friendly moving boxes, “rescuing” truckloads of quality used boxes from large companies that might otherwise recycle them or simply throw them away.

We spoke with Metro about technology, sustainability, the importance of logistics and more.

Here’s a sneak peek into the discussion:

Waste360: Are you seeing a genuine interest from the big retailers in reducing their impact on the environment?

Marty Metro: I’m seeing a genuine interest, but interest is the easiest part. Interest doesn’t pay the bills; effective logistics pays the bills. The devil is in the details. It has to be worth the company’s time, and in order to get a large company to make a change, you really have to work through the logistics, have an enormous supply of boxes and deliver on time. Our business seems very simple, but it’s really not.

Waste360: Can you tell us a little bit about your backend technology and the role it plays in your business model?

Marty Metro: It is everything. We built our software to be able to track not just all the boxes but also how they are used and what substitutes might work just as well as what the customer is looking for. So, our portal became a matchmaker of people with boxes that they might not have even thought they could have used. We have expanded that to create the W.A.T.E.R program that is essentially a proprietary waste management tool.

Read transcript here.