Amazon Prime: Big Boxes for Little Products

I ordered a little hairbrush for my baby and a potato masher through Amazon Prime. It arrived the other day I was confused by the size of the box, wondering just how big the potato masher and baby hairbrush could be.

When I opened the box there was a bit of bubble wrap and tons of empty space.

Once the bubble wrap was removed, there was a little brush (maybe four inches long) in minimal packaging and a potato masher, (only in a plastic bag) that while substantial, was not big enough to warrant the size of the box used.

Look at all of that empty space.

Couldn't a smaller box or a bubble envelope be used to mail items like these?

Wasn’t there a smaller box available? Or how about a bubble mailing envelope? I know that cardboard is recyclable, but it takes a lot of resources to both produce cardboard and then to recycle it.

Another box for my recycling pile!

I love that Amazon Prime usually gets things to me in the time quoted (a couple of times they have failed to deliver in their Prime delivery guaranteed dates, but their customer service is excellent) and that it is quick- this is particularly useful when you discover you need something for your home or baby. But I wish that Amazon would review its packaging procedures to reduce the amount of and size of packaging it uses. This was definitely another incident of Amazon overpackaging.

Amazon Prime: Boxes in Boxes

When I found this box by my house I wondered what I had ordered. It couldn't possibly just be the box of diapers and the turner could it?

I have an Amazon Prime membership and in addition to being able to watch The Grand Tour, I use my membership to order various items and have them delivered to my house. This has come in handy since I recently had a baby.

This is the second time I’ve ordered diapers from Amazon and since they repeated their giant box method, I feel I need to post this. The diapers that I ordered come in a big sturdy cardboard box. Strangely, Amazon feels the need to put this box into a huge cardboard box in order to send it.

This is a seriously big box.

In this order from Amazon there was also a turner or flipper for cooking, but this was not very big. The box that they sent these two items in was huge and had lots of vacant space (partially occupied in transit by many many feet of brown paper).

Lots and lots of packing paper once removed shows how big this box really is and what a waste of packaging it is.

It’s strange they wouldn’t just wrap the diaper box in paper and send it as is and then put the flipper in a bubble envelope or something of the sort.

Look at all of this empty space.

While cardboard and brown paper are recyclable, it still takes a lot of resources to produce them and since I have no use for a box or packing paper, they’re just going straight out in the recycling. It seems like a waste. And since the diapers already come in a box and are not breakable or anything (the diapers are wrapped in a plastic wrap in the box too to protect from the elements) this is another example of overpackaging.

We need to rethink packaging as a society or there won't be any cardboard left to use in the future.