When the Environment is the Enemy: Sears
The other day the mail carrier dropped off a 19″ x 16″ padded plastic envelope. The return address said “Sears”, but I couldn’t think of anything I’d recently ordered from them.
I opened it up and discovered that it contained four, 14″ x 12″ padded plastic envelopes.
After opening the first envelope, I remembered that weeks earlier I’d ordered the service and install manuals for the stove that was already in the house when we moved in.
One of the envelopes contained only a single sheet of paper: a schematic for the stove.
At this point I’m pretty peeved. I’ve got five envelopes made of plastic that I can’t recycle or reuse.
Then I got to noticing that the stack of paper I had was pretty light, possibly lighter than the weight of the packaging itself. I don’t know what the postage charge was, but the thought of paying to have stuff shipped to me that I can’t use or recycle really makes me cranky.
So I broke out the postal scale.
Stove documentation, 6.5oz:
Packaging, 7.5oz:
That’s 7.5 oz of plastic mailers to protect 6.5 oz of paper. I paid twice the postage for unnecessary packaging that will end up in some landfill.
Thanks, Sears!
Technorati Tags: overpackaging, Sears, sustainable design, waste
OMG. We have truly gone mad as a species.
Comment by Ann — 2006/09/02 @ 19:12
You should complain to sears about it… back when I worked there their motto was “the customer is always right” even when the customer used the whole bottle except a thimbleful and wants to return it for a full refund, and that the particular customer does it repeatedly.
So they’ll probably listen, or at least give you a refund. But that is fucked up. Perhaps it’s time to start a campaign of overpacking offenders. I remember when jamie ordered a new license for irix, which he downloaded the software, but they mailed him a single piece of paper in a box full of bubble wrap. Not a small box either.
Comment by raven — 2006/09/09 @ 18:44