EnergyVital can be plastic-free.

Funny headline. From 2019 to 2026 it said "EnergyVital is plastic-free". However, we have a significant problem due to developments in recent years

• Shipping costs at DHL have become increasingly expensive, with the 1 kg weight limit and the thickness (more or less than 8 cm) of the parcels being particularly important for categorisation in the DHL tariff
• Packaging materials have become enormously more expensive, especially since 2022
• Political and bureaucraticinterference has increased enormously, as have the associated costs. And above all without any recognisable benefit, see our article Nix Versandfreiheit für Onlineshops - Oder: Die EU zer zerlegt sich selbst!
  
• Manufacturers are increasingly switching from plastic to glass. That's good news in itself, but it also means much heavier parcels and a considerable increase in the amount of padding required
• DHL's transport quality is steadily declining, and incidents involving glass breakage have increased enormously in the last 6 months. At the same time, there is hardly ever any compensation from DHL, they always come up with an excuse such as "insufficient packaging", which is why we have increased the padding and thus the size of our parcels by around 50% since 01.2026!

Costs have therefore risen enormously in recent years, first from 2022 (sudden increase in energy and packaging material costs due to the war in Ukraine) and then again from 2025 due to the increasing use of glass packaging.
However, our very favourable shipping prices of around 4 euros and free from 30-40 euros have remained the same for 10 years!

Previously, we were just about able to buffer this without increasing the shipping costs, but no longer. However, the option of significantly increasing the shipping costs is also out of the question, as we would otherwise slip extremely in the price search engines and many customers would only look at the price and not the circumstances, so that would be an enormous drop in sales.

So the obvious solution would be to save costs! We don't want to do this to our customers by switching from DHL to GLS or Hermes. So we have to make the parcels much smaller and lighter again, and we can't do that with glass bottles in pure cardboard packaging.

Unfortunately, bubble wrap is unbeatable when it comes to protecting the glass and saving shipping costs with smaller parcels, not to mention the lower exhaust emissions during transport, which somewhat relativises the argument of the environmental benefits of cardboard versus plastic.

The fairest thing would be to let customers decide for themselves what environmental protection is worth to them. We will therefore set up an option in the shop where customers can decide for themselves whether they want the parcel to be completely plastic-free for an extra charge of 1 euro. This euro does not cover our additional costs, a completely plastic-free parcel costs us approx. 1.20-1.50 euros more per parcel due to higher postage and because padded cardboard is considerably more expensive than padded film (30 cents vs. 10 cents), which means that we are actually subsidising 20-50 cents in this case!

But we already subsidise shipping all the time anyway! A little more customer participation would only be fair.

Our actual shipping costs

Our most common parcel so far has been the small parcel from DHL. According to the calculation (box, padding, postage...) this costs 3.95 euros. The plastic-free version costs 4.15 euros.

However, due to the switch from plastic to glass, we can use this less and less for all our brands. This is mainly due to the fact that bubble wrap paper is much heavier and thicker than bubble wrap and at the same time provides less cushioning.
As a result, the small parcel has been used less and less since 1 January 2026 and a normal, more expensive parcel is needed more often.
A parcel up to 1 kg costs us €5.15, with more expensive plastic-free padding material €5.35.
As glass is much heavier in itself, a 1-3 kg parcel is increasingly needed, which costs us €5.35. The small surcharge for a parcel under 1 kg can be explained by the fact that we no longer have to pay attention to every gram with such a large parcel and can pad it with free cardboard waste from the material that our suppliers send us anyway.

This means that the significant cost increase since 2025 is mainly due to two factors: firstly, the increase in the weight of the parcels due to heavy cardboard padding and glass and, secondly, the fact that we therefore have to choose a higher parcel size more often than before.

We therefore always pay 3.95 - 5.35 euros postage for each parcel, with an upward trend, but only charge our customers 3.90 euros and cover the costs in full for orders over 48 euros!

We don't want to completely abandon our good intentions of going plastic-free, but we can't do it without involving our customers. From now on, everyone has the choice of whether or not they want to contribute to plastic freedom with an extra 1 euro!

Differentiated scientific evaluation

This question cannot be answered in such a primitive way, i.e. along the lines of "paper is good, plastic is bad"
There are other factors that can tip the scales in favour of plastic

• Water and energy consumption during production: Bubble wrap clearly has the edge here!
• Purity of materials: It is important that the cardboard is pure, coated cardboard is hazardous waste. The same applies to film: pure film like this one is easy to recycle via the yellow bag, but a composite of film with other materials is not.
• A heavy and large cardboard box leads to significantly higher fuel consumption in a DHL lorry than a small and light one.

Of course, the plastic lobby will always find reasons why plastic is better, as here: Advantages of polythene bags over paper bags: An environmental and economic analysis

But the eco and paper lobbies are no "green angels" either, and like to interpret the truth more in their own favour: Comparison of cardboard and plastic: Sustainability in packaging

The truth will probably lie somewhere in between. There are also sources of information that may be a little more neutral, because they are not biased in favour of cardboard or plastic, such as here: Cardboard packaging vs. plastic packaging: Which is better?

Our packaging materials

In general, of course, we always try to ship as environmentally consciously as possible, but we must not lose sight of our vital financial interests as a company. An exemplary and "regardless of losses" ecological company is of no use to anyone if it is insolvent..

Here are our packaging materials

• This is the main shipping carton we use. It's not FSC-certified, but that doesn't matter much, because unfortunately it's nothing more than a big greenwashing scam, see here: ARD MediathekDie Ausbeutung der Urwälder.
  We still have stock until around mid-2026, when this is used up we will use FSC cardboard again forparcels and goods post, but also use the much better grass cardboardas often as possible (in terms of environmental protection, technically the "normal" cardboard is better, which is why it is used when necessary).
• Instead of packing tape from Tesa, we then use this:Then our customers can finally put the entire parcel in the waste paper without pre-treatment.
• If it needs to be a little stronger, paper tape is not enough, then we use MONTA biopack PLA adhesive tape, which consists mainly of corn starch and is the first certified ecological adhesive tape made in Germany.
• Glass containers need to be well padded, for which we use AirPro Green shipping bags or bubble wrap.
• Unfortunately, both are expensive and not very suitable for real protection. In future, we will therefore supplement this with bubble wrap. This film is not only easy to recycle, as it is pure and has no other adhesives such as paper. You can also simply reuse it at home instead of throwing it away. For example, it's ideal for packing porcelain safely, e.g. before moving or for storage.
  This bubble wrap is actually the only change to our previous "plastic-free" status, otherwise everything remains as environmentally friendly as before! And of course it will not be used if plastic-free is selected as the shipping method.
• With our packaging chips, you can make your compost heap happy in future: Packaging chips
• And even customers from Switzerland, who need separate bags for customs documents, will receive their goods plastic-free in future: green paper delivery note bags.

We hope our customers will understand this. However, we don't think this will be a problem, especially as it is now up to each customer to ensure the desired and desirable freedom from plastic by adding "plastic-free" for 1 euro!

Unfortunately, we cannot give our foreign customers this choice. The difference in parcels sent abroad between parcels that are 1 cm thicker or thinner or 10 g heavier or lighter can easily amount to €8. It is unlikely that many customers would be prepared to pay such a surcharge. We therefore decide for ourselves how we pack these parcels. Of course, we always prioritise plastic-free packaging whenever possible!