By Hamish Larsen, CEO of Badges And Medals
Does this sound familiar?
Your box of custom medals has just landed on your doorstep.
You open it up, excited, and what do you see?
Dozens of medals, with each one wrapped in a single-use plastic bag.
Your heart sinks.
Now, on top of everything else on your plate, you and your team must unwrap each medal before handing it out.
But here’s the real kicker…
What do you do with the pile of plastic afterwards?
It’s not just a headache - it’s a waste.
Chances are the plastic will go straight into the bin and then into landfill.
This is the kind of environmental oversight that your current medal supplier doesn’t even think about.
And that’s just the packaging.
Most folks don’t realise how much harm their current supplier is causing.
It’s not one thing, but several, that pile up to make a serious environmental impact.
How do medal suppliers hurt the environment?
When you break it down, the damage shows up in four main areas:
- Materials
- Transport
- Production
- Packaging
Let’s dig into how each one is doing its part to harm the environment.
Materials
Many suppliers make their medals using metal and plastic that hasn't been recycled.
And their custom ribbons aren’t any better.
Most are plastic and, thanks to inks that give them their colours, can't be recycled.
Plus, the mining needed to get metals and plastics wrecks the land, leading to water and air pollution.
And if a supplier is trying to keep costs down, they’re likely getting these from people who shrug off the environment.
Transport
They also might be buying their materials from overseas.
That means your medals are shipped across oceans, and those long shipping distances come with a cost…
More emissions, more pollution, and more harm to the planet.
Production
But the emissions don't just come from transport.
Medals are often made using high-energy machines that are powered by fossil fuels.
That means a lot of emissions, and most suppliers don't bother with carbon offset programs to make up for it.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Almost every step of the production process adds to the environmental tally.
One that the industry could easily avoid if it cared enough to change.
For example, a lot of suppliers create moulds that can only be used once before being tossed aside.
Some also crack out extra medals - either for stock or as a backup - and when they're not wanted, bin them.
Packaging
As you already know, many suppliers still wrap their medals in plastic bags.
Why? To protect them from scratching each other…
Even though there are plenty of other ways to do that, like using tissue paper.
And where does that plastic go? Straight in the bin, then off to landfill.
Plastic takes tens if not thousands of years to break down - if at all.
So, why are these problems overlooked?
People overlook these problems because they’re not obvious.
Suppliers don't often talk about the environmental toll of making their medals.
It’s all hidden behind the final product - shiny, polished, and ready to impress.
Even if you know the impact medals have on the environment, the scale of the problem feels small.
A few medals might seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the larger environmental issues we hear about daily.
But multiply that by the thousands of events happening worldwide each year, and suddenly, it’s not so insignificant anymore.
What can you do to make your medals more sustainable?
The truth is that a lot of medal suppliers are stuck in old, environmentally damaging ways.
But there are suppliers out there, like us at Badges And Medals, who focus on doing things differently.
We use recycled materials, sustainable packaging, green production methods, and offset emissions.
In fact, we have a whole page on our website that talks about this.
The point is that you have options.
You don’t have to keep buying from suppliers who don’t care about the environment.
You can make a change - for your events, your medals, and the planet.