Editorials

Step 1: Put a box in a box, Step 2: Put that box in a box

For reasons, I have five recycling bins at the moment and get pickups once a month. That’s two more cans than I’m allowed supposedly, but due to a Metro Nashville mistake they’re here and they’re just here for a month, going to a new home. I filled them entirely with cardboard this month, which yeah, it’s my fault, but I’m increasingly getting ridiculously packaged items.

TL;DR – thoughts on how I’m inadvertently destroying the planet

I ordered some CR2025 batteries hoping that’s what’s wrong with my remote control for the Yaber Pico T1 projector. If you’re not familiar with those batteries, they’re the size of a US quarter, and if they were stacked 10 high would be about 1-1.5 inches high. Things that could ship in an envelope. They showed in a 8.75×6.25×3.5″ box.

Thankfully most of the box was filled with packing paper because man, those batteries if they moved… phew… basically I had about 150 square inches of paper/cardboard to recycle for 2 square inches of product.

That’s the excess I’m used to, but recently things have started arriving that are… strange…

I received a shipment in a 3 foot by two foot by 18 inch box… or thereabouts. It was about 3/4ths the size of one of my kids. I was not expecting anything this size and my kids were asking what it was and I said it was nothing but boxes inside of boxes… they didn’t believe me and I didn’t either… so I opened a box… and in it was a smaller box. In that box, another box, we worked our way down through four large cardboard boxes until finally we reached the product.

It was something a company had sent for review, I’m not shaming them because they sent it from an Amazon warehouse and they have no idea why this was done. Nor why the interior most box was opened and used. I know this because I wrote asking if I was supposed to have this due to reasons of what was inside and there’s now an investigation going on. I had to send it back, but man, you provide enough boxes to completely fill up my living room they’re getting guinea pig visitors…. so I had to wait for another box.

That or ship rodent urine back…

December makes me notice these excesses… mostly most visible because it’s on display in front of everyone’s houses on recycling day…. for the past three years recycling day has turned into a week or more of waiting… this year we had a snowstorm which iced the roads, last year we had a company go bankrupt and recycling was suspended so the recycling crews could do trash, the year before was either a covid-related issue or they just skipped our street for a week. I don’t recall.

That I had 5×90 gallon bins completely filled with cardboard and cans and such was astounding. There were some exceptional circumstances here… had a child’s bed I assembled, Christmas kid toys are 90% packaging 10% petrochemicals, had leftovers from the previous month, but dang.

Things like box in a box in a box in a box in a box need to stop…

I considered myself an environmentalist at one point. I never suspected the sheer amount of trash generated by some of the smallest purchases. This time of year really makes me think there’s gotta be some way for shipping and recycling to not have to play such a role in each other’s lives. Like why can’t these boxes just be picked back up and reused. Sort of like milk bottles in ye olden days.

Eh, just thoughts on things as I’m not feeling like playing with product or covering what app managed to get a new version number.

Pocketables does not accept targeted advertising, phony guest posts, paid reviews, etc. Help us keep this way with support on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!

Paul E King

Paul King started with GoodAndEVO in 2011, which merged with Pocketables, and as of 2018 he's evidently the owner. He lives in Nashville, works at a film production company, is married with two kids. Facebook | Twitter | Donate | More posts by Paul | Subscribe to Paul's posts

Avatar of Paul E King