Padded Shipping Envelope Reuse

Padded shipping envelopes are relatively expensive, which is in addition to the time and travel cost if a trip to the store is required to purchase them. Many items purchased from online stores are shipped in padded envelopes that are ideal for reuse. Amazon, for example, uses padded envelopes for many of its smaller items.

A padded envelope could be used as is, with the various companies’ logo imprints. Alternately, it may be desirable to remove the company’s information from the envelope. Amazon’s padded shipping envelopes are printed with an ink that is soluble in isopropyl alcohol.

Isopropyl Alcohol

Paper Towel or Kleenex

The first step in reusing Amazon’s envelopes is to peel the labels off the envelopes. The labels can be peeled off by starting at the corners and working around the edges. Some of the adhesive backing of the label may separate and will still be stuck to the envelope. This is removed in the next step.

Wet a small square of paper towel, or a Kleenex, with isopropyl alcohol. Use the alcohol-soaked paper to rub out the ink on the envelope. The alcohol will dissolve the ink and absorb it into the paper. I discovered that 91% alcohol removes ink better than 70% alcohol.

The residual adhesive backing, that remained on the envelope after the label removal, will be softened by the alcohol and is easily removed.

Here is an example of a cleaned envelope. The blue trim on the bottom edge of the envelope, with the recycle symbols, was left in place. On the other side of the envelope, only the portion of the blue edge with company info was removed.

This envelope is now ready to ship my items.