Wednesday, April 23, 2008

It's Not Easy Being Green

I, like many, shop on line. I worked in retail too long to get a thrill out of going to the mall. Shopping no longer floats my boat. I like shopping on line because I don't have to deal with crowds, waiting in line, undertrained sales people - if any are available, overly zealous sales people who are on commission, and mall food. I have a few sites I frequent because the service is great and sometimes I even get free shipping, and with today's gas prices, free shipping is worth it.

This week I orderd 3 small cosmetic items: two lip liner pencils and a powdered eye liner/eye shadow. The lip liner pencils are about 5" in length and about 1/4" in diameter, and the shadow/liner is 5"in diameter, 3/4" high.



These products, which I've used before, came in a timely fashion. Guess how they were shipped? Here's a few options:

A) 8 1/4" X 11" puffy envelope, made from recycled material.



B) 11 1/4" X 15" puffy envelope , made with recycled material.



1) All three items arrived in envelope A.
2) All three items arrived in envelope B.
3) Each item arrived separately, in three separate A envelopes.
4) Each item arrived separately, in three separate B envelopes.
5) Each item arrived separately, first packed in envelope A, then placed in envelope B.


You've probably guessed, already, but it's choice #5. I can understand if the company pre-packs an item for shipping, which makes handling inventory of smaller products easy, BUT why don't they ship the three items together, instead of three separate large envelopes for such tiny products? The items come from the same company, the same warehouse. Now, in addition to three new cosmetics, I also have 6 shipping envelopes that I really don't need. Yes, they will be recycled.

Yesterday's song:
Pace Is The Trick - Interpol - Barbie2be

PEACE

5 comments:

Michelle said...

Weird. You should send that to Consumerist.com. They have a thing for packaging/shipping stories. You have to send them a pic of all the packing materials in one shot so can see how intense it is.

Anyway. I ate an AccelGel about 20 minutes before the gym today and I think it was too soon. Felt burpy (TMI) and not energized. I'll try an hour next time and see how that works.

What makeup site do you use?

Backofpack said...

That is crazy! I hate when they overpack stuff, just hate it.

barbie2be said...

i have been thinking abot stuff like overpackaging a lot more recently. ever since i had to write that essay on hotels going green. i really have the waste the overpackaging causes. i have become so diligent at home and at work about recycling. my roommates are starting to think i am crazy. well, crazier than normal because i will go through the stuff they put in the trash and re-sort it into recycling if that is were it really should be. :)

simplypink said...

Packaging gets me too! I order alot from Amazon. I sometimes get a couple of books and they send them in a box when the could have used an envelope. The worst packaging thing is toys. UGH! Talk about over doing it.

Irene said...

Michelle,
It was packing overkill. I used to work in a shipping department and we would group things together and ship them out in one package. With the gels it's a lot of experementation.

Michelle (BOP),
Hey, two Michelles! Yeah, we're supposed to be thinking green and recycle but large companies need to do it, too.

Barbie2be,
My boss is the same way, and I guess it rubbed off. She'll also go through trash and separate!

SP,
Oh yeah, toys come with way too much stuff on them to keep them in the box, plus they make it so hard to open them! I suppose the hard to open part is with reason, but they could cut down on the waste.