Crazy that a THUMB drive package is literally the size of a grown man's TORSO. Wow.

I'm sure it has something to do with deterring theft.

All they need is about 500 plastic twist ties and zip strips to unwind and/or cut off to get them off the paperboard backing, too.

@techstar25: I think it's a costco thing. We have SanDisk drives at my work (FedEx Office) that have that label and they actually use less plastic. It looks exactaly like what you're holding except for the plastic wraparound. It's just a cardboard sleeve with a piece of plastic covering the drive itself. I think that bulky plastic is a Costco theft prevention thing.

@hypnotik_jello:

All a theif would need to do is show up with an exacto-knife..

As a consumer, my hatred for these Plastic cases runs so deep that on several occasions I decided that the effort involved in prying out the gadget was not worth making the purchase.

The plastic is 1/10000 of an inch thinner.

So...how much plastic was there before? It must have been the size of a car door.

@Mike Zuniga: So why so much cardboard, and why does the cardboard appear to be perfectly designed for the big-ass plastic shell?

@Mike Zuniga: What this guy said. All SanDisk drives used to be packaged similar to what is shown in the photo above. Now, they're honestly packaged using less plastic (small plastic bubble around the drive/memory card, sealed between the cardboard).

This clamshell package (with the "Less plastic" logo) is something I've never seen before - so I'm assuming it's a Costco thing. If this is the case, between the clamshell and the inner plastic bubble - this actually uses MORE PLASTIC.

Yay Costco!

I bought some printer cartridges at Costco a few months back that trumpeted less packaging, as well.

Inside the giant plastic clamshell, similar to the one in this story, each of the cartridges was in its own box. Inside each box was a foil bag and a plastic bag. Inside each foil bag was the actual printer cartridge, and inside each plastic bag was the instructions for installing it, along with a couple of sheets of marketing material for HP.

I couldn't quite fathom how that much packaging could possibly have been *less*.

This has got to be a Costco thing where they add things like this to the product for their own stores. That same label is on all of the new Sandisk packages, and it really is less plastic (before Costco adds their extra stuff). Case in point - I just purchased two Sandisk SDHC cards from a local retailer (Micro Center), and they had the same green "less plastic" logo on the packages. The only plastic was directly around the memory card. The rest of the package was paper. I haven't been to Costco in a while, but I seem to remember them doing this with a lot of stuff they sell - especially for small electronics. At one point, didn't they (or Sam's Club) put DVDs in those huge plastic containers too?

I like how the husband was so outraged by the waste of plastic in the packaging he bought the thumb drives anyways. I guess the price was too good to pass up.

@HungryTuna: Whoever invented those things is a terrorist and should be treated as such.

@BartleyR7:

Sounds like a simple miscommunication. Sandisk decides to reduce the plastic packaging for all of their products, so they have their graphic department add that graphic to all of the cardboard bits. Costco gets special packaging though, and their packaging wasn't reduced. Graphics department adds the graphic anyway, because no one told them not to add it to the Costco packaging. They never even see the packaging, so they're none the wiser.

You all do know that the reason they make the packaging so big is that because they'd be so easy to steal otherwise, right? Its the same logic that's behind the key to the gas station bathroom being attached to a cinder block.

@B: He wasn't outraged...more baffled. And he needed them for work the next day and costco was the only place close enough before closing where he knew he could get them. And it was the label that hurt our brains more than anything.

For the record, the plastic is in the recycle bin.

@Canino: We spent that evening periodically naming bigger and bigger things it could have been, like maybe it used to be delivered in a plastic truck or sold in a plastic store.

@John Henschen:

I'm secretly amassing a collection of gas station keys that are attached to cinder block. I soon will have enough blocks to build an extension to my home

@BartleyR7: Costco doesn't add packaging to things on their own -- though they do dictate pretty heavily what kind of packaging they want, including their own product numbers on boxes, and have the buying power to do it. I suspect BartleyR7's explanation is the most likely.

@John Henschen: Honestly, was anyone confused by that? Did anyone think there would be another reason Costco would have packaging like that?

@HungryTuna:
I have cut myself on the clamshells on several occasions trying to get the thing out. Maybe we could get a recall on all clamshell packaging due to laceration dangers. (and they are flammable too!)

@techstar25: I know that Costco likes these big sleeves for packaging and display for electronic stuff. The gift cards are in a similar size package too. It allows them to stack easily all over the store. But yeah, it makes no sense why it isn't the cardboard wrap with thin plastic bubble as opposed to this. Because most of what I see packaged that way at Costco is cardboard with the plastic bubble glued inside.

I know it's Costco but why do you need to buy three thumb drives? Won't one satisfy the sneakernet requirements?

If I had to guess, it's less plastic because that's the same package that they use for 1 drive. By putting 3 drives in the same size package, they reduced their plastic by 2/3.

Not that the new packaging is appropriate, mind you...

I would image it is just a printing mistake. They are probably using the less plastic logo on their normal packaging. Someone just accidentally left the less plastic logo in the design when they scaled it up for warehouse clubs.

as a costco member, i've just sent them a very polite nastygram detailing changes i feel would deal with this type of packaging: the simplest is a proxy that is filled at the checkout counter after payment. i'd suggest that any costco members reading this do the same (offer suggestions)...

@John Henschen: It's bigger packaging because a.) it might get lost or hidden in the cart with other, presumably large boxes of bulk items, thus it's b.) harder to steal.

Propel Water ... a drink with a small amount of flavor and sugar (partly sucrose and partly sucralose) in a container with a nice wide opening (very convenient for drinking) ... has switched to a bottle with less plastic. Yes, it really does have less plastic. But all the advantages of that product over the competition are now gone. In addition to all the complex ripples in the bottle (that used more plastic) being gone, the opening is now the narrow kind all the other bottled waters (flavored or not) use.

In addition, they changed the formula. It's now loaded with high-fructose corn syrup instead of sucrose. That makes it taste worse. And they dropped the one flavor that, at least in the 3 stores I bought them at, was the biggest seller (or the least distributed) ... they were always having troubling keeping that one flavor in stock. They also dropped the 24 ounce size (the most convenient).

So I don't buy their product anymore. I make my own at home, now.

@H3ion: Sneakernet is not the only use I make of drives like these. I use them in lieu of CD/DVD drives to boot system installers on various PCs. I use them to send data to friends via snailmail (16GB at a time, sometimes). That's why I have about a dozen of them (now all larger than 4GB).

@HungryTuna: Those are hard to open with an Exacto knife. This is thick plastic. Even my garden shears have trouble getting through it. I have to use the bandsaw in my shop.

Wow, I've bought the single thumbdrive packet from Sandisk and it was nowhere near that excessive with the plastic packaging. Maybe the mold used to be for packages that held bigger or more drives and got repurposed???

I find it likely that they just switched to a lower gread, thinner walled plastic package. Any time an advertiser mentions using less plastic in their packagin, that is generally where the savings come from.

@hypnotik_jello: Theft? Thumb drives are dirt cheap now. I think I have a dozen sitting in my laptop bag. Vendors hand them out like candy.

Amazon really cuts out the plastic with their new packaging. I don't know if they keep the clamshells there, or if they get them direct from manufacturers in some other format, but you don't even get a clamshell. Just a memory card, the cardboard proof of purchase bezel, and no plastic at all, all stuffed into a cardboard envelope mailer, which they urge you to reuse (although I'm not sure how, since its a 'tear open' style envelope).

@kduhtoe: I thought they just loved to rape the environment and slaughter kittens?

@wardawg: Like.

@Skaperen:

I noticed the same thing with propel. I purchased a six pack of Lemon and noticed they changed the formula after one sip. I don't think it's just the HFCS, but it's no longer drinkable imo. One of the main reasons I even bothered trying it was that is was HFCS free. The large opening was a bonus.

I hope the saved enough money to make up for the lost customers as I've stopped buying it as well.

@John Henschen: Except more people carry around pocket knives(In addition to Costco selling cutting tools) than carry around bolt/chain cutters for bathroom keys.

@HungryTuna: As a consumer, my hatred for these Plastic cases runs so deep that on several occasions I decided that the effort involved in prying out the gadget was not worth making the purchase.

after a recent trip to a department store, i've discovered the ONE AND ONLY product that these impossible-to-open "blister packs" should come standard on (& yet they don't): underwear.

when you see a pile of rummaged thru undies, there's really only one sane response..."GNOMES! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! AAAAYYYYYEEEEEEE!"

@Skaperen: that's strange that Propel would switch to HFCS when others like snapple, lipton and temporarily pepsi were switching from HFCS to cane sugar

@John Henschen: LOL I think I used the bathroom at that gas station!

@Cant_stop_the_rock:

Yeah, that's definitely what I think happened. I've also seen those three-pack USB drives in other stores, and the regular packaging (minus the large plastic encapsulation extra package) wasn't that large. This also leads me to believe that what you said is what happened. At the very least, it's probably not MORE plastic...

@John Henschen: Sure. But then they shouldn't bother making ridiculous statements about their green-friendly packaging.

Either admit that you design packaging primarily to deter theft, or stop claiming that "less plastic" is your priority.

@Smooooth: I must be in the wrong line of work, seeing as I never got a free flash drive from anyone...

@mac-phisto: Phase Two was "Fondle Retail Supply of Undies"? I still don't know how that got them to Phase Three: Profit.

@H3ion: I asked hubby...he said he had the course material for the training class he was teaching on them, and buy having three drives instead of one, all of the participants could download them to their laptops that much faster.

I know in the past he's used multiple drives for swapping with research colleagues at work as well. He has referred to the boss at a previous company having a "dice bag full of thumb drives". I gather that it's an efficient way to swap files amongst researchers.

@VarneyCoeurl: Good idea. We've bought other highly-thievable things from them by taking a card to the window. I wasn't there when he made the purchase but maybe I should go send a note as well.

Lol, its so funny how he 'models' it just to show it self evident ridiculousness. This one made me laugh pretty good.

@drjayphd: My most recent one was a 2GB one from NetApp. It was at a lunch & learn event.

What line of work are you in and do you ever go to your industry's trade shows?