Shipping Sins
When I was in 7th grade science class we did a project called the Egg Drop, in which each student had to independently design and create some sort of packaging that would protect a raw egg from breaking when dropped from the top of the bleachers onto the hard gym floor. You were graded first on whether or not your egg broke, but you also got more points the smaller your packaging was. I remember mine was part of a large sponge that I had sliced in half and out of which I carved a snug place for my egg. The whole sponge was then put inside a box and taped shut. I think I got an A on that project.
Some time after that activity we did the Naked Egg Drop, in which you dropped your egg into or onto something that cushioned the fall. Again, points were awarded for how small your target was, and from the top of the bleachers it was not always easy to judge if you were on the mark. I think my cushion was my mom's largest Tupperware bowl filled with Ziploc bags full of water. And I'm pretty sure my egg broke that time. I seem to recall it hitting the rim of the bowl.
Today I think of the Egg Drop project when I see the way things are packaged for shipping. Case in point: the Chumby.
A Chumby is a wireless internet media device we recently purchased to easily enjoy Pandora Radio in any room of the house, along with many, many other apps, like weather reports, photo slideshows from Flickr and Picasa, Facebook, daily Bible verses, Spanish word of the day, This Day in History, etc. We mainly got it for the many internet radio stations, podcasts, and Pandora. I love being able to listen to my customized radio stations in any room easily without using my laptop. So I'm a big fan of the Chumby.
I'm not a big fan of how this little device was packaged for shipping. The shipping folks got the protection factor right, as our Chumby came to us in full working order. But I give them an F minus on the size factor.
The device is about the size of my fist and yet our son could fit in that box. And what was filling in the blank space in the box? Biogdegradable cardboard? Bags of air?
No.
Polystyrene. That will never decompose.
Idiots.
In Chumby's defense, I bought it form a third party wholesaler, so the idiots have no official connection with Chumby.
Working for the Postal Service, I would offer only the rationale that large boxes tend to be treated much kinder, thrown less, and very seldom wind up at the bottom of containers with all kinds of other boxes (read: weight) crushing down on them.
And Priority Mail shipping rates are such that it would not have cost the mailer much more to use the larger box with the polystyrene, neither of which add any significant weight.
As to their choice of non-recyclable material, they're on their own, there. Wrath away.
We have a Chumby and I love it. My husband set it up so it rotates between the weather and our family Google calendar. As for the packaging, we have that trouble all the time. Plus, our city doesn't recycle Styrofoam, so I'm stuck throwing it away. Yuck!