Like everyone else, I sometimes order products by mail, be it hardware, clothing, cds, books, etc. This system imposs of course to the seller to send and deliver the product sold until to its recipient, in a sufficiently protective packaging to avoid damaging the product during transport. Well, nothing new in there… However, there is a behavior that shocks me often : an overpackaging almost systematic.
Two examples:
- Last month, I ordered a RAM module for my computer, on a website that specializes in the sale of computer hardware. As a reminder, a RAM module is a small computer component that measures no more than a dozen centimeters long, a few centimeters wide and a few millimeters thick… all of this packaged in a blister barely larger. Well you appear that I have received my order in a huge cardboard envelope of nearly 50cm wide and 80cm long! So they cut a tree for me to pack my ram! Worse, a few months ago it was a graphics card that I had ordered (15cm long, 5 to 6 centimeters high, and less than 2cm thick radiator included): Well I received this card in a huge cardboard moving box, which in addition was not even used to protect the card, as this one was simply in a plastic film attached to a wall of cardboard, and the rest are full of empty… (= volume cardboard unused to 98%).
- Some other websites, maybe for fear of breaking their product they practice too a massive overpack. Recently my wife received a Swiss brand watch, that also came in a huge cardboard removal, which would have been far more appropriate for packaging a big clock (Swiss too!).
It is clear that some whole forests pass through these unnecessary and expensive packaging. A believing that the logistics have not yet heard of the current environmental problems, yet their profession is at the heart of this problem… But whether it is due to negligence or incompetence, it can no longer be accepted! An ecotax on packagings, commensurate with their environmental impact is desirable to reverse the trend… But in the meantime, we should not hesitate to complain, all courtesy of course, but systematically and firmly, with customer services of these companies…
note : this post is partially an automatic translation of the news originally published on my french blog.
