My boys’ lockdown haircuts (or lack of) have meant that this year’s school photos have turned out to be a great source of amusement for me.
However, having recently put all of the previous school photos up on the wall I knew that I already had a collection of unused cardboard frames (mounts) stashed in a drawer. So when I tried to complete the order form for this year I made sure that I looked for an option without one. Unfortunately, there wasn’t an option for the size that I wanted and so I contacted the supplier to see if it was possible.
I was delighted to find that they were very open to my concerns about so many of these frames going to waste and they said that it was something that they were already looking into. Apparently, more and more people are now just ordering the digital copies of the photos however for the printed versions they do still need some kind of cardboard to protect the photo from damage during delivery (ie stuffed in a school bag), although I did point out that this protection could potentially still be achieved with something less wasteful.
They did however say that if customers called them directly to place the order then there is definitely the option to order the photos without a cardboard frame and it would even make the purchase a bit cheaper. They also said that they would look again at trying to redesign their order form so that it could include more no frame options. In the meantime though they agreed that if I wanted to give my unused frames back to the school they would collect them when they delivered the photos and the frames would definitely be reused.
Once again I have been so surprised by how keen a company has been to accommodate my sustainability requests. It really does spur me on to continue to ask my questions whenever I see an opportunity for change as on the whole the responses I have received have been very positive.
I’m afraid that I can’t share the actual school photos of my boys, as I can guarantee that they will be embarrassed by them when they are older and I would never be forgiven!