h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

this subject makes me furious ... ordered a wine rack from Aero by Internet ... a steel chrome plated tall wine rack ... it was hand delivered in a van from a depot ... it was wrapped in enough cardboard to house a street of homeless people ... possibly not a good metaphor ... but you get my drift.

I wonder what they would do if you posted it back so they could use it again ?

I really really hate that blister type packing that they use for everything even stuff made of metal that would come to no harm wrapped in tissue paper.

It is one of the few things that could make me march ... if I thought it would do any good ... and the weather was fine ... and there was a nice cosy bar at the end of the march.

I am often tempted to unwrap things in the shop and just take the product i want and leave the wrapping behind

Am I alone in this ? ... it's ok if I am ... I can cope ... it's not unheard of for me to hold my ground while everybody i know grins weakly and leaves me too it

If you actually sent the packaging back, you'd be spreading chaos through the retail world.....All the time they spent training people to wrap things so well that it takes a grenade to open them would be totally wasted. And I love the bubble packaging. Everyone in my house fights to get a piece of the stuff. (Okay, so it doesn't take much to make us happy) I would personally like to get my hands on the sadistic individual who came up with the idea of cellophane for CD packages....As if shrink wrap wasn't bad enough, we absolutely MUST have a form of packaging that requires sharp objects to open them.....

If you have seen the way some carriers treat packages, you will be glad of all the packaging. Some are extremely rough with parcels.

Who's been digging up old threads, then?

In Germany, the retailers, and the suppliers, are obliged to accept any packaging if the customer wants to leave it in the shop. Large bins are placed near the exits of supermarkets for you to deposit your boxes and outer wrappings (you have to be careful to separate plastic and cardboard)

I can't understand the first poster's annoyance at the amount of packaging round stuff that's been sent by post/courier. The way they treat the parcels in those places, and the number of times they are shifted, means that maximum protection is absolutely necessary. Bubble wrap is a brilliant idea as it doesn't weigh too much and increase the price of P&P too much.

If I'm wrapping something up to be sent by post, I use copious amounts of sticky tape, bubble wrap and everything. If anything's worth sending, it's worth making sure it arrives intact.

Last year I ordered a glass-top television stand. It arrived with the top in shards. So I brought it back, and then sent me another. Which also arrived in shards. I made them come back and get that one themselves, and just mounted the television on the wall instead.

Packaging is a good thing.

Must admit my ordinary refuse is greatly reduced since we were able to separate out all of the cardboard packaging waste for recycling.

Packaging is a necessity for protecting your valuable good during delivery but I think for everyday products sold in shops it could be kept to a minimum.

Tamper evident seals in place of shrinkwrapping would be a good move.

Interesting article in New Scientist on packaging recently. As implied by others, it isn't necessarily a bad thing; the wastage caused by damage to insufficiently-protected goods can be far worse for the environment.

Plastic is not as bad as you might think, since it is light and can often be recycled. Cardboard is pretty good IIRC, but paper takes a lot of energy and (and nasty chemicals) to make. Glass isn't as good as you might think, since it is heavy to transport and uses a lot of energy in recycling. Metal (cans etc) is worst, for the same reasons.

TC beat me to it, with the German shop thing.

I always leave all the packaging that I can, since I hate schlepping it all around.