Saving the planet, one box at a time

[Happy Jack]

I ordered something tiny from components supplier CPC. I was expecting a small padded envelope (maybe A5) to be pushed through my letterbox.

The postman brought me a box similar to the ones you buy 5 reams of photocopier paper in.

[Happy Jack]

Well boy howdy, that can't be right, I thought. So I opened it. Most of it was bubble wrap.

[Happy Jack]

What was all the weight then? Ah, that would be this:

[Happy Jack]

And the goods I had actually ordered?

[Happy Jack]

My goods weighed 80g.

The catalogue weighed 2.2Kg.

[Happy Jack]

The sticker on the cover of the catalogue warns that the prices are probably out of date so you should go to the website before buying anything.

I'm not making this up.

 

[Silvia Bluejay]

[Skinnyman]

Wow. Multiply by quite a few customers and that's a lot of unnecessary recycling.

Do Argos still print millions of catalogues?

And i see that Yellow Pages has finally stopped printing a real book.

Looks like CPC are trying to take up the slack all on their own

[EBS_freak]

Seems they are trying to catch Amazon up.

[lowregisterhead]

I experience the same wastefulness on a regular basis. Bizarre. Without wishing to be nosy, what are you using the BNC patch leads for?? 🙂

[Count Bassy]

On the catalogue pricing being out of date thing, I've never seen that before with CPC so I guess they are covering themselves in these turbulent times (B word etc.)

Edited January 23, 2019 by Count Bassy

[KiOgon]

Hopeless!

My lad ordered a 100 watt soldering iron, when it came the whole thing glowed red hot - I told him to get it replaced.

Few days later a huge box, I'd say 60 x 60 x 80cm at least arrived, he said the only thing he was waiting for was the soldering iron - sure enough !!!!!!

The suplier's excuse was 'because it came direct from the factory, they only had packing for bulk deliveries'.

[Happy Jack]

23 minutes ago, lowregisterhead said:

I experience the same wastefulness on a regular basis. Bizarre. Without wishing to be nosy, what are you using the BNC patch leads for?? 🙂

Extending the aerial cables on a wireless headset mic so that the antennae can be front-mounted.

[Teebs]

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/tesco-dinner-set-box-row-10488851

 

Edited January 23, 2019 by Teebs

[Barking Spiders]

Ay caramba!  WTF these companies playing at!. The other day I received an A4 plus size plastic coated jiffy bag,  containing a digipak CD!!!. I emailed Amazon saying it was a bit unnecessary  when a CD size cardboard envelope would've been sufficient

[Guest oZZma]

I ordered a few very small items to make pedals from Amazon

Solder tips, wire, desidering pump, stuff like that

Amazon sent me each item in a separate A4 sized box... I wanted to take a photo just to show how stupid is that.

Edited January 23, 2019 by oZZma

[taunton-hobbit]

I had some bird at my old accountants quote me just shy of 300quid to taxi my accounts back to Devon from Buckinghamshire

I suggested they were posted (about 3 quid) and she seemed to find this somewhat strange.........

not as strange as the fuel & pollution involved in sending a hire care on a 500mile trip.........

(I've got nice sensible accountants now)

😎

[Barking Spiders]

What's particularly irksome about Amazon is they've been taken to task ages ago about overpackaging but still continue not to take the blindest bit of notice.  Then again Jeff Bezos is hardly noted for his 'green' credentials.

[Guest oZZma]

I got a similar experience with Thomann too

I ordered one pedal for a friend, a 2U rack case (which I sent back later) and some cables. I got a GUITAR-SIZED box. I sent an email to the customer care that time 😠

 

Edited January 23, 2019 by oZZma

[fleabag]

Apart from all the planet choking packing above, one thing that irked me was when the caring uk Gov made all shops charge 5p for a plastic bag, for the hard of thinking, who often dont take their own. Barely anyone would care at forking out 5p. If they'd made that price £1, maybe it would have made a much bigger difference.

It's not a mental challenge to take reusable bags. If an idiot like me , who's been using the same bags for 7 or 8 years can manage it, anyone can

[taunton-hobbit]

^ ^ ^   S'only them wot runs the train set going through the motions -

it shuts up the mob howling for something or other.........

😎

[KiOgon]

On the other hand - Dinner Sets

I ordered a 4 place dinner set at sale price from M&S, it arrived in a massive Christmas designer box, but when opened the actual dinner set box inside was surrounded by air bags, lots of them, but nothing above or below.  Most of the pieces were smashed so I 'phoned to complain and explained the lack of protection. Box number 2 arrived, externally smaller than the first with even less packing, again none top or bottom, once more - many items smashed.  Third verse same as the first! So on my third call of complaint I was really upset to hear they had no more of that design so I had to accept a full refund 🙂

Out of the remaining unbroken pieces we ended up with a 6 place set, minus 1 bowl, for nothing, apart from my wasted time and aggravation.

Ridiculous cost to M&S, for the sake of a bit of sensible packing in the first place.

[yorks5stringer]

1 hour ago, taunton-hobbit said:

I had someone bird at my old accountants quote me just shy of 300quid to taxi my accounts back to Devon from Buckinghamshire

I suggested they were posted (about 3 quid) and she seemed to find this somewhat strange.........

not as strange as the fuel & pollution involved in sending a hire care on a 500mile trip.........

(I've got nice sensible accountants now)

😎

I've corrected this for you 🙄

[A.G.E.N.T.E.]

A dark side of the e-commerce 

[tauzero]

1 hour ago, fleabag said:

Apart from all the planet choking packing above, one thing that irked me was when the caring uk Gov made all shops charge 5p for a plastic bag, for the hard of thinking, who often dont take their own. Barely anyone would care at forking out 5p. If they'd made that price £1, maybe it would have made a much bigger difference.

It's not a mental challenge to take reusable bags. If an idiot like me , who's been using the same bags for 7 or 8 years can manage it, anyone can

Apparently their use has dropped by 86% from the big 7 supermarkets, so it has had an impact. I was surprised. Must remember to put a reusable bag or two in my car.

Today's multiple parcels have generally been pretty good on packaging. One from Thomann with a monitor in its box inside another box but that included another couple of items. Another order a couple of days ago for a couple of small items came in a small box. And recent deliveries from CPC have been in a jiffy bag when all they needed was a jiffy bag.