Our Story
Hello and welcome to Dragon Totes, a locally and woman-owned business in Milton, Ontario.
Here is our fearless leader, Bo!
Bo moved to Milton in 2019 to be with her sister. She has 3 amazing kids who are homeschooled. Bo loves to spend time in nature, and Milton is a perfect place for that. There is plenty of camping, hiking, swimming, skiing and biking to do, in and around Milton.
How WAS Dragon Totes CREATED?
In 2019, Bo realized that toxic mold in her house was making her family extremely sick! After spending tens of thousands of dollars trying to remediate the house and feel better, her sensitivity to mold won and she had to sell her house and toss most of her belongings. She decided to move to Canada to be with her sister. While packing up for the move, she realized she could not use cardboard boxes! Her meticulously remediated belongings will be contaminated again sitting in cardboard boxes. Plus cardboard is full of chemicals which could make any sensitive person ill.
She decided that plastic tote boxes were the answer and went to Walmart to get a bunch of them. As you can imagine, this got very expensive! It was hard to find durable tote boxes, and in large quantities in the same style for easy stacking. Some lids and tote boxes cracked due to being thrown around and stacking. Plus, before using the plastic totes, they had to be cleaned!
Still, those plastic totes were worth it. Her stuff didn’t smell bad after unpacking and it was easy to move them around.
If only there were a service to make this easier?
MOVING ISSUES: TRUE STORIES
Bo moved many times in her life. Except for the last two moves, she always used cardboard boxes, both free and paid. Here is her story:
“Not all moves go as planned, our new place was not ready on time and we had to store our boxes in someone’s basement. Well, this basement flooded! All the bottom boxes were soaked and ruined. Of course, because the boxes were flimsy, we put the heavy ones at the bottom. That meant they were filled with books, paper and other valuables that were not ruined. What a mess!”
Cardboard is very porous and soaks up a lot of moisture. You’ll be surprised at how much the humidity level of your basement goes down by having a bunch of cardboard boxes stored in it. Once you remove the boxes, you’ll see the level rise again! Your boxes are soaking up the yucky basement or garage moisture. Your belongings will be yucky and will have to be washed and cleaned before use.
Even if cardboard was ok, Bo is very environmentally conscious and always hated using so much tape. It’s a hassle to tape up all the boxes just to pack, tape them up to secure them, then you need to remove all the tape again so the boxes are recycled properly. Lots of work!
Once Bo heard about her friends’ struggles with bed bugs from moving, cardboard boxes were out for sure! Bed Bugs are so hard to get rid of even after spending thousands of dollars.
All the money spent on the boxes themselves, tape, replacing damaged items, remediating for bed bugs and mold were not worth it. Plastic totes were definitely the way to go.
HOW IS DRAGON TOTES DIFFERENT?
We are a local company aiming to please every client! You will get a personal service with a one-on-one focus on your needs.
We do our best to make your moving experience as smooth as possible. We deliver the clean tote boxes straight to you, and once you are done unpacking at the new place we will pick them up from you. You do not have to go out and get the cardboard boxes or tape, nor do you have to stress about disposing any of it.
Our tote boxes are durable and convenient. They stack up nicely and have attached lids. You will be able to fill the boxes more because our totes cannot be crushed like cardboard boxes. Your movers will thank you for these easy stacking totes.
We always aim for the highest customer satisfaction. We will be here to answer any questions you have.
Let us help you make your move convenient, eco-friendly and stress-free!
Cardboard vs. Totes
Recycling Cardboard is only done about 25% of the time by Canadians (surprising isn’t it?). And for the 25% that we recycle, that cardboard could be rejected if too much tape is on it. Plus all the tape is thrown away too, which creates excess waste. All of that tape and the cardboard that were not recycled will need to be incinerated or go to the landfill.
Recycling cardboard also uses a lot of energy, fuel, and water. It also deteriorates the environment since trees have to be cut down to manufacture them, only to be discarded. Cardboard makes up to 10% of urban landfills and recycling cardboard takes 75% of the energy needed to make new cardboard!
For each cardboard that is recycled, 40% is used to make a new one, and 60% is non useable sludge. This sludge is then burned and releasing C02 emissions into the environment, or dumped in a landfill. So no, cardboard is NOT good for the environment!
We strongly encourage you to rent our Moving Totes vs. using cardboard boxes.
It’s true that finding free cardboard boxes is a more affordable solution than renting our Totes. But price is the only positive thing about it! If the cost is your only deciding factor, then yes, go dumpster diving and find yourself some used, soggy, dirty cardboard for free. Then go home and tape it up, and fit a couple of things in it. Then go find another dumpster for a couple more boxes. Or you can get classy by skipping the dumpster and grabbing some from the LCBO. Have you seen the size of those boxes? You can barely fit anything in there and many don’t have lids! By re-taping all the boxes, you are wasting time and adding to landfills for no good reason with all that additional tape. Seems like a lot of unnecessary work for not a very good result.
Instead, we recommend opting for convenience and helping the environment. Consider our totes that are durable, water resistant, clean, sanitized, roomy, bacteria, mold and bug free, AND are better for the environment! They can come right to your door so that you don’t have to waste time driving from store to store, or dumpster to dumpster, looking for a couple of boxes at a time. And you don’t have to waste time taping all those free cardboard boxes. Do you really want to put your linens, clothes and kitchen items in a box that had chemicals, bed bugs, pen dander or bacteria? Gross! Instead, ours come right to you, pre-assembled, ready to go!
Some people ask us, “How can you say that your totes are environmentally friendly when they are made of plastic?” This is a great question! Our totes are made from 100% recycled plastic and can be used up to 400 times before needing to be recycled. We found a way to repurpose plastic.
Cardboard is good for 1-3 times and then needs to be discarded. Sure, you can recycle some cardboard, but 75% of it ends in a landfill. Our totes are super eco friendly and have a much longer shelf life. And they are made from existing plastic. You will not find our totes in a landfill because we recycle our Plastic Totes 100% of the time.
We give new purpose to our damaged totes! Since they are made out of High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), we can take them to a recycling plant and make them into new HDPE items. We can recycle plastic totes and successfully create zero waste! Unlike cardboard boxes where most of them end up in a landfill, we are doing our part in helping the environment by repurposing plastic that already exists.
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