
E-Commerce: Convenience Built on a Mountain of Cardboard - xoher
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/science/recycling-cardboard-online-shopping-environment.html
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anexprogrammer
What bothers me is not really the cardboard. At least cardboard is from a
renewable resource, can be recycled and is biodegradeable.

The sheer amount of plastics used unnecessarily is depressing. Tech is
especially bad for this and my pet hate of coating boxes with plastic just so
they're a little shinier.

It's a PSU, I doubt I'm even going to _read_ the box. It won't influence my
purchase. I don't need a plastic wallet for the spare cables either. Try an
elastic band, or a cardboard box. A mouse mat doesn't need three layers of
plasticised packaging large enough to put an IBM model M inside (hello
Corsair).

Sometimes I wonder if the manufacturer is actually _wishing_ for the
destruction of the planet. There's no sane reason for a USB stick, cable or
mouse mat to come in tamper sealed plastic, with multiple layers and trays
inside.

The more we adopt online shopping the more the manufacturers seem to want to
supply everything in point of sale displays.

Then Amazon send it to you in a box the size of a small filing cabinet.

