Amazon Prime: What Are They Thinking with Their Packaging?!

Another order, another example of overpackaging from Amazon.

I have written many blog posts on Amazon Prime and their wasteful packaging since becoming a member a little less than a year ago. Unfortunately, Amazon continues to disappoint me with their voluminous and wasteful packaging (you can read my other Amazon posts here and here and here and here and here and here and here.). Despite having a feedback section where customers can report how the packaging was on their items (where one can fill in if the box was too big or just right and whether the items were adequately protected, along with leaving written comments if desired), I continue to receive overpackaged shipments with wasted cardboard, packing paper, and bubble wrap. Sometimes I will receive a well packaged shipment and hope that the Amazon overpackaging is ending and then they hit me with wasteful shipments again.

I received two packages this week from Amazon Prime. One package was bath toys for my baby. There were three varieties of toys, all very small, yet the box I received was very big. I opened it and found a ton of packing paper. When I pulled the packing paper back there was almost nothing but empty space in the box. What a waste! When is Amazon going to stop overpackaging shipments like this? Their packaging is regularly shocking (at least in my household). Yes, I can recycle packing paper and cardboard, but reducing is better than wasting precious resources.

Another big box from Amazon.

A big box with lots of packing paper.

I was stunned when I looked in the box and found all of that empty space.

What was Amazon thinking?! Such a big box for such little items.

All of this packaging from Amazon and I still had the packaging on the children's toys too.

For children's items there was not a lot of packaging. Unfortunately, Amazon negated this with their packaging.

The Playgro and Munchkin bath toys were surprisingly well packaged for children's items, but Amazon sure failed in their packaging.

Another package that arrive this week was a tiny bottle of rose hip oil. It came in a big bubble envelope. When I opened the envelope, there a tiny bubble wrapped bottle at the bottom of it. There was so much wasted space. Why was this sent in such a huge envelope? Again, what a waste of packaging materials.

I was surprised by the size of the envelope when it arrived.

I couldn't believe how much empty space there was in the envelope.

A giant envelope for a tiny bottle of oil in bubble wrap.

All of this packaging for a tiny self-sealed bottle of rose hip oil.

I will continue to fill out Amazon’s packaging feedback section on their website for my orders, but since the packaging continues to disappoint, I don’t know if I’m wasting my time. Surely, Amazon could save money by using less packaging materials and thereby have smaller shipping costs. Come on, Amazon!

Cadbury Fun Treats: There’s Nothing Fun About a Half Empty Box

Because it's "fun" to get only a microscopic piece of a chocolate bar . . . 

We didn’t expect a lot of trick-or-treaters in our neighbourhood, so my husband bought a smaller box of chocolate bars that usual. He bought the Cadbury Fun Treats 45 count or 501 grams box.

This box was about a foot tall so it makes it seem as if your 45 chocolate bars might actually be a fairly generous size; they're not.

We left them in the cupboard until Hallowe’en, when I opened the box.

Great a half empty box. That's what every customer wants to see.

What a rip off! The box looked like it was almost empty.

It was half empty. It’s bad enough that Hallowe’en candy is even more of a rip-off then it was when we were children (how much smaller can these chocolate bars get before they’re invisible?), but then Cadbury has to add to that by wasting half a box with empty space (when there is already a bunch of packaging happening since each microscopic bar is already individually wrapped in plastic).

Why would they do this? Is it to deceive customers into thinking there are more chocolate bars than there are? Or that they’re bigger than they are? It certainly isn’t to protect the chocolate bars (as companies claim that “slack fill” protects chips in half empty bags). Whatever the reason, they should just cut this wasteful practice out. Wasting all that cardboard is disgusting. The generation that’s trick-or-treating now will be upset not only with the size of the “fun” sized chocolate bars, but also by the state of the Earth that they inherit. Yes, cardboard is recyclable, but reducing and eliminating waste is better (50% of the box was unnecessary, so 50% of it would not need to be recycled now if it had not been used in the first place and there would have been 50% less resources used on either end, trees, dye, water, energy and then energy to recycle as well as fuel for the recycling trucks and on and on). Recycling takes a lot of resources to do so it shouldn't make us feel that great that something that is waste is recyclable. It would be better to just reduce or eliminate that waste to begin with. Companies that have so many customers who are children should lead by example and reduce their packaging and footprint on the environment to help these young customers have a better future where there might actually be some resources left for them.

And there’s nothing “fun” about a half empty box of candy, Cadbury.

Believe it or not there are 45 "fun" sized chocolate bars in this colander. How much smaller could they get?

Amazon Prime: Box in a Box the Sequel

Another sizable box from Amazon Prime

I ordered a present for one of my sister’s children. It was a hopper ball for children. The package was shipped through Amazon Prime. I have had a series of overpackaged items from Amazon Prime (you can find links to other posts here and here and here).

When this item arrived, the box was large. I was confused given that the ball is just a deflated piece of plastic and should not have occupied much space (especially since it is a small child's size).

I was confused as to why the box was so large for just one item.

When I opened the box, it was filled with two huge long pieces of folded brown packing paper.

Lots and lots of paper.

More packing paper nestled around a cardboard box. 

Once that was removed, there was a box that the hopper ball was in. A box within a box (just like when I ordered diapers from Amazon Prime, link here). The hopper box was quite small and there was no wasted space inside of its box. The waste came from Amazon Prime alone. Why could they not have wrapped the product box in paper or plastic or even used a bubble mailer rather than a much larger than needed box plus all of that paper?

A box in a box.

The product itself looks tiny compared to all the cardboard and paper that it came wrapped in.

The paper and the box are of no use to me, so they went right out to the recycling. What a waste of resources. Even if they are recycled, it takes a lot of energy and resources to both produce and recycle them. It would be much better if they had not been used in the first place. I have had a few Amazon Prime packages that were wrapped very well in that they did not use overly large boxes or a lot of packing materials or redundant boxes, but many of my packages from Amazon Prime are overpackaged (and from reviewing Twitter, it seems that a lot of other Amazon customers are experiencing overpackaging).

Packaging is something that companies need to pay more attention to as they start receiving more online orders and have to ship more. Overpackaging is a problem that is going to impact us all in the future when our precious resources have been used and there is nothing left but a bunch of garbage and mountains of recycling to process.

Amazon Prime, Halo SleepSack, and Safety 1st Secure Plug Protectors: Overpackaging that Our Children Will Not Appreciate in the Future

I ordered a sleep sack for my baby (this is what is recommended now instead of using a blanket) plus safety covers for the electrical outlets around my house last week from Amazon Prime. I’ve mentioned before in previous posts (you can find them here and here) that I have a membership because I don’t get out of the house much anymore and infants don’t come with a lot (even though they apparently need a lot). 

The package arrived in a box as usual. I must point out that this delivery was the third one from Amazon Prime which failed to reach our house by the guaranteed date. Fortunately, Amazon Prime has excellent customer service, so they have made this right. What Amazon has not done right is packaging (again, see posts listed above).

I thought the box looked big when I received it. Here it is on my washing machine.

Nothing under that plastic bubble wrap.

Lots of empty space in this big box.

Another big box for the recycling heap.

A baby sleep sack is small, light, and already packaged in a bunch of stuff, or at least it was in the case of the Halo SleepSack. Electrical plug protectors are small and probably pretty hard to damage. These Safety 1st ones were in a pretty small plastic package. The box that Amazon used was about twice as big as was needed. 50% wasted space, 50% wasted cardboard, 50% more space taken up on a plane/truck/train, 50% more cardboard and resources needed to produce the box, and 50% more box to process at the recycling plant.

These two little items shouldn't need such a big box.

There was also plastic bubble wrap in the box (and it's the annoying large bubble wrap that's not that useful for reusing- I reuse fine bubble wrap on trips where I take it with me to bring back more fragile souvenirs), presumably to use up all the wasted space. It’s not like a cloth sleep sack or a box of plastic plug covers would break. I don’t understand why Amazon couldn’t put this in a small bubble mailer or cardboard mailer. Why a box?

More plastic that will either be thrown out or recycled, but probably not reused (on trips I reuse the finer bubble wrap in my suitcase to bring back more fragile souvenirs).

I am disappointed also by the amount of packaging used on the Halo SleepSack. This is specifically a children’s product and as such should consider the generation that it is targeted at and what their future is going to be like. This sleep sack was encased in a plastic bag, had a huge cardboard wraparound, a plastic hanger unusable for anything in a home (must be for hanging these in a store), and tissue paper inside the sleep sack. This is way too much packaging. My child and the other children of that generation are going to be really annoyed when they see how we have squandered all of these resources. With the amount of packaging used on so many different products and in shipping, it seems like all that will be left in a few decades is a big garbage dump/ recycling heap.

Lots of packaging on this sleep sack for babies.

After the bag is removed there's more packaging . . .

A big cardboard surround.

And a little plastic hanger.

And tissue paper.

 Even the packaging on the Safety 1st plug protectors leaves something to be desired. The package is hard plastic and is not even full all the way up, there’s a significant gap of empty space. Then there’s a cardboard back. Why couldn’t they just go in a thin little plastic bag? They probably don’t get damaged that easily. They look pretty robust. No one can reuse the partial plastic box after and while a little plastic bag couldn’t be reused either, it would take up less plastic and resources to make than a partial plastic box.

The plug protectors are encased in a semi-rigid plastic.

It's like a box without a back (cardboard at the back). It wasn't even full.

There's also a paper insert at the front.

While it’s good that all of this packaging is recyclable, it’s not good that we’re using so many resources and sending them straight back for processing again on recycling day. It’s not like I can reuse any of this waste, so it’s going straight out with the recycling. A truck has to come around and pick it up, it has to be stored and processed, then it has to be made into something else. That takes resources to do too. Why not just prevent this waste by using less packaging? Overpackaging is senseless and future generations will not thank us for it.

More stuff for the recycling pile.

Ddrops: Wasteful Packaging of Vitamin D that Today’s Children Won’t Appreciate in the Future

Who cares what's on the front. This was the only type of Vitamin D drops for children at our pharmacy.

While in the hospital, after having my baby, the nurses told us that we should give Vitamin D supplements to our baby every day. We purchased a little bottle of Vitamin D drops at our little pharmacy. The type that they happened to have for children and babies was Ddrops with Dora the Explorer on the front of a loud hot pink box. Not caring what was on the front, we bought the Vitamin D drops and left.

The box was quite large, but when I opened it, it was almost all completely empty space.

When I opened the almost 4 inch high box and found this I was disgusted!

There was a tiny glass bottle with a plastic lid and a large folded paper insert. The rest of the box was completely empty, wasted space.

A tiny glass and plastic bottle and a paper insert housed in a giant box.

Seriously, why is this box so big?

There was so much extra cardboard and all of the dye required to decorate the box. This is an incredible amount of waste. I doubt that future generations and the current generation who are taking these Vitamin D drops will appreciate it when we run out of resources or are living in a world of garbage or both.

Great, more stuff for my overflowing recycling box.

I find it astounding how children’s products, of all products, seem to use so much packaging when we should be trying to conserve so that there is something left for these children in the future when they are our age. Can’t this bottle be sold with just a safety seal on it and no box or if a box is needed, just a very small box to fit this tiny bottle? Ddrops are another example of overpackaging.

So much wasted cardboard and paper.