I love online shopping. I can find what I want with the greatest of ease, check out product reviews and compare prices without ever leaving my desk. Why waste gas driving from store to store, right? Unfortunately, I think that any benefits my stationary shopping may have are negated by the utterly gob-smacking over-packaging my purchases arrive in. My most recent purchase was a spatula; this is what I got:
What the what?? It’s not a Fabergé egg and that’s an awfully big box for such a small kitchen utensil. This kind of waste is rampant and I know I’m not the only one to find it completely outrageous: check out this flickr stream dedicated to ridiculously over-packaged items. But can anything beat the delivery one customer received of a mouse on a wooden pallet?
And when it comes to paper waste, this is the receipt for one bottle of eye drops from my local supermarket: an almost 2 foot long receipt for a 4 1/2″ bottle package of eye drops. (In the past, after actual grocery shopping, I’ve had receipts as long as I am tall.) And, no, kind cashier, I don’t need a bag for that.
I agree. It’s outrageous the waste involved. What are they thinking?