Waste

Waste

Wednesday 13 September 2017

Amazon Prime: Big Boxes for Little Products

I ordered a little hairbrush for my baby and a potato masher through Amazon Prime. It arrived the other day I was confused by the size of the box, wondering just how big the potato masher and baby hairbrush could be.


When I opened the box there was a bit of bubble wrap and tons of empty space.


Once the bubble wrap was removed, there was a little brush (maybe four inches long) in minimal packaging and a potato masher, (only in a plastic bag) that while substantial, was not big enough to warrant the size of the box used.

Look at all of that empty space.

Couldn't a smaller box or a bubble envelope be used to mail items like these?
Wasn’t there a smaller box available? Or how about a bubble mailing envelope? I know that cardboard is recyclable, but it takes a lot of resources to both produce cardboard and then to recycle it.

Another box for my recycling pile!
I love that Amazon Prime usually gets things to me in the time quoted (a couple of times they have failed to deliver in their Prime delivery guaranteed dates, but their customer service is excellent) and that it is quick- this is particularly useful when you discover you need something for your home or baby. But I wish that Amazon would review its packaging procedures to reduce the amount of and size of packaging it uses. This was definitely another incident of Amazon overpackaging.

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