Responsibility

Responsibility

Most brand pages like this one are written to make you feel good. This one is written to tell you where things actually stand.

Alphes is a small Australian operation. We're not going to claim certifications we don't hold, partnerships we haven't signed or percentages we can't verify. What follows is the honest version — the parts we're happy with, and the parts we're not.

Where our gear comes from

Our products are manufactured overseas, primarily in Asia, by contract factories. We don't own those factories. Being straight with you about that matters more to us than sounding like we do.

We choose suppliers on build quality and consistency, and we buy in small, repeated runs rather than enormous one-off orders. That's partly a cash decision and partly a deliberate one: small runs mean less gear sitting in a warehouse waiting to be discounted, written off or landfilled.

The most responsible thing we sell is gear you don't replace

Every environmental conversation about products eventually arrives at the same place: the lowest-impact item is the one you already own. So our first commitment isn't a material or a label — it's longevity.

That shapes real decisions. We favour rechargeable over disposable batteries wherever the product allows it. We favour standard USB-C charging over proprietary cables that die with the device. We favour simple mechanisms over clever ones, because clever things break in cold weather and can't be fixed at a campsite.

If something you bought from us fails early, tell us. We'd rather sort it out than have it thrown away.

Batteries and electronics

A good portion of what we sell contains a lithium battery. Those batteries must never go in your household rubbish or kerbside recycling — they're a genuine fire risk in waste trucks and sorting facilities, and Australia has had a real problem with this.

When a battery-powered item finally reaches the end of its life, take it to a dedicated battery or e-waste drop-off point. B-cycle operates a free national battery recycling network with drop-off points in supermarkets, hardware stores and council facilities across Australia; most councils also run e-waste collection. Your local council website will tell you the nearest option.

If you're not sure what to do with something you bought from us, email help@bealphes.com and we'll help you work it out.

Packaging

We ship in the smallest box or satchel the order will safely fit, and we reuse inbound cartons where they're clean and intact. If your order turns up in a box that's obviously had a previous life, that's on purpose, not an accident.

We don't add printed inserts, thank-you cards, tissue paper or any of the other unboxing theatre that goes straight in the bin. A packing slip and the gear.

We can't yet control the packaging our suppliers use on the inbound leg, and some of it is worse than we'd like. We're working on it and we'll say so plainly here when it changes.

Leave no trace

Everything we sell is designed to go somewhere that was fine before we got there. The basics still hold: carry out what you carry in, including food scraps and orange peel. Stay on the track. Camp on durable ground. Keep lights pointed down and dimmed at night — wildlife and the people camped forty metres away will both thank you.

Much of the country you'll take this gear into is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land, cared for continuously for tens of thousands of years. Where access rules, seasonal closures or cultural restrictions apply, they exist for good reason. Respect them.

What we haven't solved yet

We think it's dishonest to publish a page like this without a list like this one.

• We don't hold third-party ethical or environmental certification. We won't imply otherwise.
• We don't currently run a formal take-back or repair programme. We handle failures case by case, which works at our size and won't forever.
• We don't offset the carbon of our freight. We'd rather not buy a claim we can't audit, and we'd rather reduce shipments than pay to feel neutral. Open to being argued out of this position.
• We don't audit our factories in person. We're too small to. We're honest about that rather than dressing up a supplier questionnaire as due diligence.

Tell us where we're wrong

If you know this area better than we do — and plenty of people will — we genuinely want to hear it. Write to help@bealphes.com. We update this page when the facts change, not when the marketing calendar says to.

Last reviewed: September 2026.