Wesa ordered a cast iron pot from Macy’s and it got packed in these special packing peanuts which Macy’s says are 100% biodegradable. They’re made from corn and potato starch. Macy’s says you can dissolve them in water and pour in the garden, yard, sink, or toilet, or put them in the compost, put them in the ground, or simply throw them away where they will “dissolve in the landfill.” Pretty neat! The accompanying flyer is inside.
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@InfiniTrent:
No kidding! Heck, the routes of UPS are so carefully planned that they have people figure out how to reduce left turns
[multichannelmerchant.com]
The equation gets even better when you get items drop-shipped from the manufacturer, or in cases such as Amazon.com where the Distributor/Warehouse/Online Store are all the same.
@suzapalooza:
Cast Iron FTL….what a pain. Season/don’t use soap/blah blah blah…
I’ll stick to my Eclipse coated anodized aluminum pans, thank you very much
@suzapalooza: I don’t drive and I normally walk/bus/bike everywhere. That being said, I had a combination of online deals that reduced the price of the pot from $100 to $11, including the shipping charge and as a full-time college student, couldn’t pass that up.
@LUV2CattleCall: “The equation gets even better when you get items drop-shipped from the manufacturer, or in cases such as Amazon.com where the Distributor/Warehouse/Online Store are all the same.”
You’re right – I just wanted to show how, even in the worst-case scenario, online ordering is usually still more resource-friendly. In the best case…
Manufacturer -> Consumer
…it’s exceptionally more efficient.
Just use unbuttered/unsalted popcorn. It’s cheaper and just as bio-degradable.
@lawnmowerdeth: haha. Glad to know I’m not the only one who eats packing peanuts.
@InfiniTrent: even greater benefit to the environment, get one on freecycle or at the thrift store. Except in the case of cast iron where use is what makes it good, I don’t know that I’d want someone else’s ‘use”.
@LUV2CattleCall: Yes, there is an improvement in this case if everyone in your area is buying from the same store. Otherwise UPS is pretty neat. A signle truck picks up a lot of stuff from different manufacturers, and a single one delivers the same stuff to your location.
Good on Macy’s, but these are like, really old. They’ve been around for years. I’m sort of surprised anyone uses the other kind.
These things have spawned an entire sub-category of child-art (Google ‘packing peanut art’ [www.google.com])
You can wet them & stick them together for building fun, too: [www.mommypoppins.com]
This is great until you get a package with a mixture of both…
I worked at eToys.com back around the turn of the millenium and we were using these biodegradable popcorn in our packaging. In our case, it was more an issue of non-toxic packaging for toys rather than biodegradable, kids could eat them and it wouldn’t hurt ‘em.
The downside? They disintegrate a bit during shipping, so sometimes you end up covered in packing snow.
@diddy0071:
According to the flyer, the print job is Forest Stewardship Council certified and printed on stock with 30% known post-consumer recycled content.
http://www.fsc.org
With that seal we know that the trees are not being slashed acre-upon-acre and not replenished, losing habitat and CO2 filtering.
Why not print on the box? Because graphic designers need work, too, and it’s cheaper to print inserts than on the box.
@lawnmowerdeth: Tell that to my dog – he’d eat a whole box if we let him.
My dog is very strange.
I work in a bio lab, and we got tons of these one day and we spent a fun afternoon watching it shrink and dissolve in the sink
Sweet, they switch to earth friendly packing materials and then waste more paper telling you about it.
Naturally, they had to kill several trees to print the flyers to tell people about their biodegradable packing peanuts….
That is good though, the Styrofoam ones are a pain in the ass
if i can flush the packaging down the toilet then i will be impressed.
@Streyeder: Ya, this crap is old. I remember at LEAST 10 years ago finding out about this at school.
Then sometimes I do get them in packages from different places and I’d show my friends by making them disappear in the sink.
Yep. These have been around for a long time. Problem is – unless they are identified as such, you don’t know which ones dissolve and which don’t. Point being: who wants to get them all wet only to discover that they are the old style?
The company doesn’t have to send a self-serving flyer but even a small sticker or slip of paper would be helpful.
These peanuts are close to 100%Bio but not.They contain plastic made from petroleum and other specialty chemicals.They do break down in water I would get the m.s.d.s. sheet and read it before eating. I have a price increase letter from the manufacture of the resin they are made of stating the price of petroleum products and the demand for specialty chemicals is the reason for the latest price increase. The off white peanuts that have a pop corn smell are made of sorghum grain only. They are eatable by nature but are not manufactured under inspected food process
Jim Hogan