Sustainability

Sustainability, Delivered.

Gridlock is cardboard, cut so it holds its own shape. Nothing but the cut holds it together, so the whole insert goes in the recycling in one piece.

How it holds together

The sheets are notched, and you push them into one another. That’s the whole joint. No tape, no glue, no staples, and that turns out to matter more at the end of the insert’s life than at the start. An insert held together with adhesive is recyclable on paper and not in practice, because somebody has to pull it apart first, and most people won’t. The pictures are on Assembly.

Two hands slotting the notched cardboard sheets into one another

It replaces the foam

A fitted insert does the job the foam and the bubble wrap were doing. Once a piece is held on every side there is no gap left to fill, so nothing else needs to go in the box with it.

What your customer unpacks

Cardboard, and the thing they ordered. It all goes in the same bin, so nobody is left holding a bag of peanuts or a sheet of bubble wrap that has to go in with the general waste.

An open shipping box on a kitchen counter with a Gridlock insert inside, each can standing in its own cell

The thing we will not trade away

One material, the whole way through. When a supplier offers us a cheaper board that needs a coating or a laminate to hold its shape, we say no. A coated sheet stops counting as cardboard the moment it reaches a sorting facility, and everything else on this page depends on it still counting.

Which way the rules are moving

Two California laws are worth a look, because a lot of what you sell ends up there. The producer responsibility rules for packaging became final on 1 May 2026, and the exemption for small sellers is not automatic: you have to register to claim it.

The second one is about what you are allowed to print. From 4 October 2026, calling something recyclable in California without qualifying it means the material has to clear two bars. It has to be collected across at least 60 percent of the state, and sorted by facilities serving at least 60 percent of those programs. Plain uncoated cardboard is on the state’s list. Foam and mixed-material fill are what the rule is aimed at.

None of this is a deadline landing on a small shop this month. It is the direction, and if you are already off foam there is nothing here for you to change.

Flat until you need it

Inserts ship flat and store flat, then stand up in about thirty seconds. A flat parcel takes less room in a van than a moulded one, and less room on your shelf than the peanuts it replaces.

What we are not claiming

There is no recycled-content percentage on this page, no forestry certification and no carbon figure, because we have not measured any of them.

We also have not finished the paperwork behind the word recyclable. The California rule above wants that word backed up against the specific board, inks and adhesives in a particular product, and ours has not been through it. Cardboard as a material is on the state’s list. Our own sheet has not been checked against it, and we are not going to write as though it has.

When we can say any of it accurately it will be here. We would rather leave the gap than fill it with a number nobody checked.