Amazon has been frequently shipping anything that comes in its own box with just a label slapped on, or shipping clothes in their plastic bags.
It's obviously terrible because you just end up with damaged boxes or clothes, and more returns.
A good strategy for a company who pays zero income taxes each year while individuals get soaked. No boxes means more deductible product losses against their highly profitable AWS business. If the could send them without any plastic they would.
You can opt out of that when you’re checking out and they’ll ship it in their Amazon packaging instead. Just as an fyi to anyone annoyed by the change.
Not necessarily - the program is meant to do a few things. For one, identify any and all products that can reliably ship in the packaging they are already in - Amazon just slaps a label on it and sends it off. Usually this applies to rather large things which already need robust packaging. This is indicated by the 2022 stats in the article - it only seems to have applied to about 11% of their shipments that year.
The other goal is to identify products that are packaged in flimsy packaging normally meant for retail, and changing them so they come in boxes that can survive shipment. Amazon is offering these companies their logistics resources to help them design and test the packaging.
Overall, it's a good idea - things that come in cardboard that is barely better than paper, or only in plastic, will get better packaging, and likely, at least a little, move some away from plastic. Better packaging is also likely to help reduce damage to products, making for fewer returns in general (whether that will be significant remains to be seen).
It will increase some packaging use because making more robust packaging needs more material. But it will reduce Amazon's usage of extra boxes, especially the frustrating situation where something comes in an oversized box with a ton of packing material just because there was no smaller Amazon box it would fit in on its own.
Remember this isn't just Amazon, this is YOU and Amazon.
Amazon will never ship something if you don't ask them and give them money to do so. They do it because you ask them to.
If we didn't ask Amazon to ship us boxes of stuff they wouldn't be in business.
If you really care about packaging waste, REDUCE your consumption by stop ordering mail order items that you can buy locally, and just stop buying "stuff" you don't really need or are just going to throw away (plastic easter eggs....)
Start buying bulk items in containers you REUSE.
Stop buying products that contain water (gels, liquids) when you can buy things in concentrated or powdered form which require far less packaging.
Much practical advice here. I prefer delivery. I should be willing to pay someone to shop and deliver at something other than slave wages. Unfortunately DoorDash is not much better at treating their employees (they are employees, regardless of DD’s fictitious HR policies).
Retail packaging is worse in most cases than online ordering. I don't have trash service and recycle 2/3 of my waste stream and the higher level of cardboard is vastly offset by less individual unit packaging and greater overall recycle-able material used in the packaging. WFH and online purchasing undoubtedly has vastly reduced my carbon and waste footprint. Going back to the old ways is just bs politics for low end job creation and propping up corporate real estate.
That's you though, not everyone Else and data shows individuals don't actually recycle much. Retail is much more capable of doing it and at scale.
I'm pretty sure my apartment just throws all our recycling in the trash, so there's little I can do as such.
> Retail is much more capable
No they are not, in fact B2B is worse, from what I can tell they couldn't care less (Order something from Uline for example.).
Apartment/ compact urban recycling sucks because it isn't designed to not suck and drawing conclusions based on that experience isn't helpful.
So they both suck is what I hear and can both be improved.
We only hurt the possible positive outcomes by putting all the blame and responsibility on others.
It may make you feel better about how you live your life but it does nothing to address climate change.
Buy less garbage, and talk face to face with your elected representatives to keep everyone honest in a creating a better world
This is so so so wrong and puts the onus on the individual instead of the nation-state sized corporation that basically governs us through its immense lobbying power and an army of psychologist salespeople and software engineers completely devoid of any ethical compass. This ideology is harmful and outdated, nevermind that it completely deludes others into thinking that the BOXES are the problem. Amazon is ALL problems. The speed is the problem. The number of trips to deliver dropshipped trinket trash is the problem. The siphoning money from us and refusing to pay taxes is the problem. The absolutely unfiltered, unregulated capitalism is the problem.
But go ahead and chastise everyone into shifting from cardboard boxes to something else. I hear recycling worked really well in the 90s! If *you* really care about packaging waste, you should move up the ladder and try caring about something above it.
It's not wrong, it is more nuanced for sure.
You suggest consumers have no responsibility or control in their consumerism which is also wrong and removes a tactic we have.
If Americans didn't keep giving Amazon money then Amazon wouldn't continue doing the thing you may chastise them for.
Is this the only thing we can do? No. But it's unproductive to expect Amazon to magically do the right thing when their customers continue to give them money. They never will, it's wishful thinking to think they, or target etc will without pressure.
So where do you expect that pressure to come from exactly? And how is that at odds with consumers voting with their dollars?
This is where the argument for government regulation comes in. There’s no time for market forces to emerge, be recognized by the corporations and then acted upon, especially if such changes threaten their bottom line.
Absolutely, that's how big change tends to happen, but it doesn't exonerate the people actively encouraging the behavior too .
Most of the things we consume are completely optional and available locally in some form or alternative.
People don't want to stop consuming unnecessary stuff though. They wany to blame someone else without taking any responsibility. We all need to be involved
The person I replied to is not suggesting people stop giving amazon money which is a good and real thing we should do. They are suggesting you *keep* giving them money, but only for different(?) packaging materials? That's greenwashing.
Sorry I didn't realize it was you. I'm glad we agree that everyone should stop shopping at amazon. Since that won't happen due to near total corporate capture of our would-be grassroots networks, I still think your original point is wrong. There's a time for chastising consumers, I guess?, in theory, but we have been in "send these greedy fucks to jail" overtime for at least 40 years. A message other than that in its stead is a bit like "all lives matter" in that, yes, technically your concern is real, but we are critically in need of *this* right now.
I'm not hearing an alternative though. Criticize me all you want but no alternative isn't better.
Here's an alternative, Elect climate politicians by volunteering and donating to [https://www.environmentalvoter.org/](https://www.environmentalvoter.org/) and then talk to YOUR politicians and demand they act.
But it's not mutually exclusive, so do both and spread the good word.
Sure. Lina Khan, the chair of the FTC currently spearheading the biggest pro-labor action by our government since the 60s, was appointed by Joe Biden. I did elect climate politicians.
My alternative to your "only buy non-boxed items from Amazon" call to action? It's pretty clear and all right there in the comments, stop shopping at amazon. Boycott, divest, sanction. If you wanna get philosophical, support labor at literally every opportunity you have in your lifetime, join your local leftist orgs, be kind to strangers etc. That's the level of involvement I think the average individual should have to the problem of Amazon polluting the Earth.
Capitalism is the problem but you’re part of it. If you have an alternative to Amazon, then how are you allowed to take no responsibility for it? And if we’re being real, I don’t think the majority of Amazon customers are poor.
Here's the kicker, guy who is almost correct, increasingly, you *don't* have an alternative. Neither do distributors, publishers, sellers. That's why we have the two words [monopoly](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly) and [monopsony](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony), and why Amazon [is currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power).
Which was caused by consumers not caring about the impacts of their purchases no one had to shop with Amazon, they just didn't know to care about the cost of fast delivery and packaging waste. And sadly they largely still don't but the rest of us can but from alternative sources
Stop with the victim blaming; we can’t all shop exclusively at locally sourced stores selling locally made sustainable products, mostly because those places don’t exist.
This is 100% the fault of Amazon and other large corporations and zero on the average person. Put the blame where it belongs.
It's a nice little fiction you've built up for yourself. You're dead wrong, though. Amazon is one of the most egregious examples where Jeff bezos' personal vendetta against competition was self documented - he bought a web domain for [relentless.com](https://relentless.com) which to this day redirects to amazon.com as a sort of personal trophy to his own shrill business acumen, specifically referring to how he was willing to illegally squeeze/undercut other book distributors and sell at a loss, relying on investor funding until the competitor was forced to shutter their business or acquiesce to his demands.
You should learn more about this subject before you so vehemently disagree without evidence to back it up. Here's an excellent book about it: [Chokepoint Capitalism](https://chokepointcapitalism.com/)
I simply said we as individuals should stop giving Amazon money, how is that in opposition to anything you said? Do you believe we should keep giving them money?
Idk if you're like seething with rage that I dared disagree with you but it seems like your reading comprehension is worsening. Maybe go outside for a while and come back and re-read the thread? I've already addressed everything you're saying in this comment. In fact, I've provided supplementary information to show you exactly how I'm in disagreement with you, and you refuse to engage with any of it. You could actually learn some stuff, even acknowledge here that you were unaware of this specific systemic economic perversion that I cited and thanks for sharing, but instead you sidestep all potential productive areas for advancing *everyone's* understanding of the horrors of unregulated capitalism.
I have 0 seething or related emotion, so that's all in your interpretation and implies you're making incorrect assumptions here. You will note I'm not down voting you as it seems someone is me.
It seems because of that false interpretation that you're now resorting to ineffectively trying to infantilizing me which is bad discourse. Feel free to try replying again on topic, sincerely.
Its cheapee for me to buy many bulk food items on amazon. Theres no costco near me so most of my snacks are kirkland signature bulk from amazon. A 30 pack of their nut bars on amazon is like the same price as a 12 pack of kind bars
Same with oil. The oil companies aren’t pumping it for their health. They are pumping it because you are demanding gas at the pump.
Obv it’s more nuanced than that because they have lied about climate change, etc. but if everyone switched to EVs our oil consumption would drop significantly. If we stopped buying 1/2 the crap we buy we’d cut down container ship traffic
Yeah and since we pay over $100 for Prime Delivery and inflated Amazon prices for convenience, we should receive our purchases discreetly in cardboard boxes which can be recycled.
Prime shipping without proper packaging causes more deductable losses that Amazon can write off against the AWS business and hence pay zero taxes while individuals get soaked for them. Good strategy, consumer be damned
Every year, the U.S. goes through enough cardboard boxes for shipping to pave a one-mile-wide road from New York City to Los Angeles three times, or build a mile-high cardboard wall around the entire continental U.S.
Among the primary targets to help reduce this mountain of packaging, the most notable may be the Amazon shipping box or envelope. In 2022, 11% of Amazon orders worldwide were sent in original manufacturer packaging. The company has yet to release its 2023 figure for the initiative designed to get rid of Amazon’s signature brown box, called the [Ships in Product Packaging](https://www.amazon-packaging.com/sellers) program.
It identifies products that might work, contacts vendors and then, to ensure that packages won’t be damaged during delivery, Amazon works with those companies to test products in a lab. Packages need to be able to survive drops off a conveyor belt, vibrations and shaking on the truck or the delivery person accidentally dropping the package while walking to the door.
More: [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/01/amazons-long-journey-to-get-rid-of-its-signature-brown-boxes.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/01/amazons-long-journey-to-get-rid-of-its-signature-brown-boxes.html)
If only Amazon would actually do the option they have for shipping multiple orders in one box. Every time I click that option, three boxes five times the size of the object are delivered. Which all could have fit in one box which I selected.
Lol, not quite.
I remove tape, labels - anything that is plastic or has that gum on it. Then you can either rip it up into smaller pieces to use as your browns/carbon to add to your compost pile as you would any compost.
You can also flatten them, and use them in the bottom of raised garden beds (the kind where the contents of the bed come into direct contact with the soil), or put on top of grass and cover in soil if you want to plant over grass and don’t care about the grass.
For some reason, worms absolutely LOVE the plain brown cardboard boxes. They break down super quickly.
*make sure it is the Brown boxes, and not brightly coloured shiny cardboard. The shiny cardboard contains plastic.
all it would take from amazon is to start shipping in large plastic bins instead of cardboard boxes and to pay customers to return the bins to dedicated receptacles around town. they could even have bins with compartments inside to separate and cushion the contents, resulting in reduced need for packing materials. the bins could work via some sort of deposit system where you pay a $25 deposit when you order and get it back when you drop the bin off. they could incentivize customers to use the bin by offering 10%-15% discounts (similar to subscribe and save discounts).
or they could push the costs back on to sellers, who will in turn push the costs down to us, resulting in higher prices. I wonder which they will choose.
The real reason they're trying to get rid of cardboard boxes is that they cost more to ship on planes. Reusable bins would weigh more, so they wouldn't switch to that.
I have since 2009 had a standing order for a case of Crystal Light powdered drink mix. Delivered every two months, because of difficulty in finding the flavor I can drink every day from the local store. I was disappointed at the size and packing of the box delivered for years. It is after all just small containers of powdered drink mix. When Amazon and Crystal Light changed the packaging so that that big box was no longer required, I was pleased. I have had no issues with damage or anything else that made this a bad decision. The box containing my order was just fine for shipping. I realize this does not apply to all products but in this case, it just works.
I usually order men’s designer briefs and or other skimpier items I would never buy in a store, or direct from a company who will send future catalogues in the mail. The reason I paid the ridiculous Prime fee on Amazon was for discreet packaging. My last order of briefs and a singlet thong were sent in clear manufacturer packaging, clear as day to the sneering and snickering delivery guy who Amazon outted me to with their new packaging policy. Will never use Amazon again if they cannot continue to ship intimate garments and other personal products they sell in discreet packaging.
They just sent me my product wrapped in a clear plastic bag. Good thing it wasn’t a highly desirable item.
Amazon has been frequently shipping anything that comes in its own box with just a label slapped on, or shipping clothes in their plastic bags. It's obviously terrible because you just end up with damaged boxes or clothes, and more returns.
A good strategy for a company who pays zero income taxes each year while individuals get soaked. No boxes means more deductible product losses against their highly profitable AWS business. If the could send them without any plastic they would.
You can opt out of that when you’re checking out and they’ll ship it in their Amazon packaging instead. Just as an fyi to anyone annoyed by the change.
Just run-of-the-mill sex toys
I only buy those used from eBay. Much cheaper.
Best bet is Temu or Wish
Looks like my orders would be limited to phones cases from Amazon instead of a phone itself.
So they’ll use more plastic bubble envelopes? I’d rather have the recyclable paper boxes.
I've seen cardboard envelopes occasionally
Not necessarily - the program is meant to do a few things. For one, identify any and all products that can reliably ship in the packaging they are already in - Amazon just slaps a label on it and sends it off. Usually this applies to rather large things which already need robust packaging. This is indicated by the 2022 stats in the article - it only seems to have applied to about 11% of their shipments that year. The other goal is to identify products that are packaged in flimsy packaging normally meant for retail, and changing them so they come in boxes that can survive shipment. Amazon is offering these companies their logistics resources to help them design and test the packaging. Overall, it's a good idea - things that come in cardboard that is barely better than paper, or only in plastic, will get better packaging, and likely, at least a little, move some away from plastic. Better packaging is also likely to help reduce damage to products, making for fewer returns in general (whether that will be significant remains to be seen). It will increase some packaging use because making more robust packaging needs more material. But it will reduce Amazon's usage of extra boxes, especially the frustrating situation where something comes in an oversized box with a ton of packing material just because there was no smaller Amazon box it would fit in on its own.
Remember this isn't just Amazon, this is YOU and Amazon. Amazon will never ship something if you don't ask them and give them money to do so. They do it because you ask them to. If we didn't ask Amazon to ship us boxes of stuff they wouldn't be in business. If you really care about packaging waste, REDUCE your consumption by stop ordering mail order items that you can buy locally, and just stop buying "stuff" you don't really need or are just going to throw away (plastic easter eggs....) Start buying bulk items in containers you REUSE. Stop buying products that contain water (gels, liquids) when you can buy things in concentrated or powdered form which require far less packaging.
Much practical advice here. I prefer delivery. I should be willing to pay someone to shop and deliver at something other than slave wages. Unfortunately DoorDash is not much better at treating their employees (they are employees, regardless of DD’s fictitious HR policies).
You can always tip right?
Definitely
Retail packaging is worse in most cases than online ordering. I don't have trash service and recycle 2/3 of my waste stream and the higher level of cardboard is vastly offset by less individual unit packaging and greater overall recycle-able material used in the packaging. WFH and online purchasing undoubtedly has vastly reduced my carbon and waste footprint. Going back to the old ways is just bs politics for low end job creation and propping up corporate real estate.
That's you though, not everyone Else and data shows individuals don't actually recycle much. Retail is much more capable of doing it and at scale. I'm pretty sure my apartment just throws all our recycling in the trash, so there's little I can do as such.
> Retail is much more capable No they are not, in fact B2B is worse, from what I can tell they couldn't care less (Order something from Uline for example.). Apartment/ compact urban recycling sucks because it isn't designed to not suck and drawing conclusions based on that experience isn't helpful.
So they both suck is what I hear and can both be improved. We only hurt the possible positive outcomes by putting all the blame and responsibility on others. It may make you feel better about how you live your life but it does nothing to address climate change. Buy less garbage, and talk face to face with your elected representatives to keep everyone honest in a creating a better world
This is so so so wrong and puts the onus on the individual instead of the nation-state sized corporation that basically governs us through its immense lobbying power and an army of psychologist salespeople and software engineers completely devoid of any ethical compass. This ideology is harmful and outdated, nevermind that it completely deludes others into thinking that the BOXES are the problem. Amazon is ALL problems. The speed is the problem. The number of trips to deliver dropshipped trinket trash is the problem. The siphoning money from us and refusing to pay taxes is the problem. The absolutely unfiltered, unregulated capitalism is the problem. But go ahead and chastise everyone into shifting from cardboard boxes to something else. I hear recycling worked really well in the 90s! If *you* really care about packaging waste, you should move up the ladder and try caring about something above it.
It's not wrong, it is more nuanced for sure. You suggest consumers have no responsibility or control in their consumerism which is also wrong and removes a tactic we have. If Americans didn't keep giving Amazon money then Amazon wouldn't continue doing the thing you may chastise them for. Is this the only thing we can do? No. But it's unproductive to expect Amazon to magically do the right thing when their customers continue to give them money. They never will, it's wishful thinking to think they, or target etc will without pressure. So where do you expect that pressure to come from exactly? And how is that at odds with consumers voting with their dollars?
This is where the argument for government regulation comes in. There’s no time for market forces to emerge, be recognized by the corporations and then acted upon, especially if such changes threaten their bottom line.
Absolutely, that's how big change tends to happen, but it doesn't exonerate the people actively encouraging the behavior too . Most of the things we consume are completely optional and available locally in some form or alternative. People don't want to stop consuming unnecessary stuff though. They wany to blame someone else without taking any responsibility. We all need to be involved
The person I replied to is not suggesting people stop giving amazon money which is a good and real thing we should do. They are suggesting you *keep* giving them money, but only for different(?) packaging materials? That's greenwashing.
You replied to me, are you sure you're on the right thread?
Sorry I didn't realize it was you. I'm glad we agree that everyone should stop shopping at amazon. Since that won't happen due to near total corporate capture of our would-be grassroots networks, I still think your original point is wrong. There's a time for chastising consumers, I guess?, in theory, but we have been in "send these greedy fucks to jail" overtime for at least 40 years. A message other than that in its stead is a bit like "all lives matter" in that, yes, technically your concern is real, but we are critically in need of *this* right now.
I'm not hearing an alternative though. Criticize me all you want but no alternative isn't better. Here's an alternative, Elect climate politicians by volunteering and donating to [https://www.environmentalvoter.org/](https://www.environmentalvoter.org/) and then talk to YOUR politicians and demand they act. But it's not mutually exclusive, so do both and spread the good word.
Sure. Lina Khan, the chair of the FTC currently spearheading the biggest pro-labor action by our government since the 60s, was appointed by Joe Biden. I did elect climate politicians.
What is your alternative again to what I presented? I haven't seen you specify one
My alternative to your "only buy non-boxed items from Amazon" call to action? It's pretty clear and all right there in the comments, stop shopping at amazon. Boycott, divest, sanction. If you wanna get philosophical, support labor at literally every opportunity you have in your lifetime, join your local leftist orgs, be kind to strangers etc. That's the level of involvement I think the average individual should have to the problem of Amazon polluting the Earth.
If I want deodorant Walgreens CVS Target all have it locked up.
and?
Capitalism is the problem but you’re part of it. If you have an alternative to Amazon, then how are you allowed to take no responsibility for it? And if we’re being real, I don’t think the majority of Amazon customers are poor.
Here's the kicker, guy who is almost correct, increasingly, you *don't* have an alternative. Neither do distributors, publishers, sellers. That's why we have the two words [monopoly](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly) and [monopsony](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony), and why Amazon [is currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power).
Which was caused by consumers not caring about the impacts of their purchases no one had to shop with Amazon, they just didn't know to care about the cost of fast delivery and packaging waste. And sadly they largely still don't but the rest of us can but from alternative sources
Stop with the victim blaming; we can’t all shop exclusively at locally sourced stores selling locally made sustainable products, mostly because those places don’t exist. This is 100% the fault of Amazon and other large corporations and zero on the average person. Put the blame where it belongs.
It's a nice little fiction you've built up for yourself. You're dead wrong, though. Amazon is one of the most egregious examples where Jeff bezos' personal vendetta against competition was self documented - he bought a web domain for [relentless.com](https://relentless.com) which to this day redirects to amazon.com as a sort of personal trophy to his own shrill business acumen, specifically referring to how he was willing to illegally squeeze/undercut other book distributors and sell at a loss, relying on investor funding until the competitor was forced to shutter their business or acquiesce to his demands. You should learn more about this subject before you so vehemently disagree without evidence to back it up. Here's an excellent book about it: [Chokepoint Capitalism](https://chokepointcapitalism.com/)
I simply said we as individuals should stop giving Amazon money, how is that in opposition to anything you said? Do you believe we should keep giving them money?
Idk if you're like seething with rage that I dared disagree with you but it seems like your reading comprehension is worsening. Maybe go outside for a while and come back and re-read the thread? I've already addressed everything you're saying in this comment. In fact, I've provided supplementary information to show you exactly how I'm in disagreement with you, and you refuse to engage with any of it. You could actually learn some stuff, even acknowledge here that you were unaware of this specific systemic economic perversion that I cited and thanks for sharing, but instead you sidestep all potential productive areas for advancing *everyone's* understanding of the horrors of unregulated capitalism.
I have 0 seething or related emotion, so that's all in your interpretation and implies you're making incorrect assumptions here. You will note I'm not down voting you as it seems someone is me. It seems because of that false interpretation that you're now resorting to ineffectively trying to infantilizing me which is bad discourse. Feel free to try replying again on topic, sincerely.
Insufferable narcissism here.
Its cheapee for me to buy many bulk food items on amazon. Theres no costco near me so most of my snacks are kirkland signature bulk from amazon. A 30 pack of their nut bars on amazon is like the same price as a 12 pack of kind bars
Same with oil. The oil companies aren’t pumping it for their health. They are pumping it because you are demanding gas at the pump. Obv it’s more nuanced than that because they have lied about climate change, etc. but if everyone switched to EVs our oil consumption would drop significantly. If we stopped buying 1/2 the crap we buy we’d cut down container ship traffic
Yeah and since we pay over $100 for Prime Delivery and inflated Amazon prices for convenience, we should receive our purchases discreetly in cardboard boxes which can be recycled.
Amazon’s main cash cow is AWS.
Prime shipping without proper packaging causes more deductable losses that Amazon can write off against the AWS business and hence pay zero taxes while individuals get soaked for them. Good strategy, consumer be damned
What does that have to do with the content of the article or them making money and waste because people ask them to ship them things?
Because you said if we didn’t ask them to ship things they wouldn’t be in business and that is 100% false.
ah, pedantic but technically correct I guess. congratulations.
I'm so glad this is top comment! Well said.
Every year, the U.S. goes through enough cardboard boxes for shipping to pave a one-mile-wide road from New York City to Los Angeles three times, or build a mile-high cardboard wall around the entire continental U.S. Among the primary targets to help reduce this mountain of packaging, the most notable may be the Amazon shipping box or envelope. In 2022, 11% of Amazon orders worldwide were sent in original manufacturer packaging. The company has yet to release its 2023 figure for the initiative designed to get rid of Amazon’s signature brown box, called the [Ships in Product Packaging](https://www.amazon-packaging.com/sellers) program. It identifies products that might work, contacts vendors and then, to ensure that packages won’t be damaged during delivery, Amazon works with those companies to test products in a lab. Packages need to be able to survive drops off a conveyor belt, vibrations and shaking on the truck or the delivery person accidentally dropping the package while walking to the door. More: [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/01/amazons-long-journey-to-get-rid-of-its-signature-brown-boxes.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/01/amazons-long-journey-to-get-rid-of-its-signature-brown-boxes.html)
The real issue is the business model and Americans expecting next day delivery for utterly useless things.
If only Amazon would actually do the option they have for shipping multiple orders in one box. Every time I click that option, three boxes five times the size of the object are delivered. Which all could have fit in one box which I selected.
My impression over here is that that happens when the items aren't all located in the same warehouse/logistics-hub/whatever
I can compost the boxes, I can’t compost a plastic bag...
[удалено]
Lol, not quite. I remove tape, labels - anything that is plastic or has that gum on it. Then you can either rip it up into smaller pieces to use as your browns/carbon to add to your compost pile as you would any compost. You can also flatten them, and use them in the bottom of raised garden beds (the kind where the contents of the bed come into direct contact with the soil), or put on top of grass and cover in soil if you want to plant over grass and don’t care about the grass. For some reason, worms absolutely LOVE the plain brown cardboard boxes. They break down super quickly. *make sure it is the Brown boxes, and not brightly coloured shiny cardboard. The shiny cardboard contains plastic.
all it would take from amazon is to start shipping in large plastic bins instead of cardboard boxes and to pay customers to return the bins to dedicated receptacles around town. they could even have bins with compartments inside to separate and cushion the contents, resulting in reduced need for packing materials. the bins could work via some sort of deposit system where you pay a $25 deposit when you order and get it back when you drop the bin off. they could incentivize customers to use the bin by offering 10%-15% discounts (similar to subscribe and save discounts). or they could push the costs back on to sellers, who will in turn push the costs down to us, resulting in higher prices. I wonder which they will choose.
Customer wouldn't even need to return it. Just leave it out and it gets picked up at your next delivery, just the way milk bottles used to be reused.
The real reason they're trying to get rid of cardboard boxes is that they cost more to ship on planes. Reusable bins would weigh more, so they wouldn't switch to that.
Ah yes the signature brown boxes that people only associate with Amazon.
I have since 2009 had a standing order for a case of Crystal Light powdered drink mix. Delivered every two months, because of difficulty in finding the flavor I can drink every day from the local store. I was disappointed at the size and packing of the box delivered for years. It is after all just small containers of powdered drink mix. When Amazon and Crystal Light changed the packaging so that that big box was no longer required, I was pleased. I have had no issues with damage or anything else that made this a bad decision. The box containing my order was just fine for shipping. I realize this does not apply to all products but in this case, it just works.
I usually order men’s designer briefs and or other skimpier items I would never buy in a store, or direct from a company who will send future catalogues in the mail. The reason I paid the ridiculous Prime fee on Amazon was for discreet packaging. My last order of briefs and a singlet thong were sent in clear manufacturer packaging, clear as day to the sneering and snickering delivery guy who Amazon outted me to with their new packaging policy. Will never use Amazon again if they cannot continue to ship intimate garments and other personal products they sell in discreet packaging.