Our (huge) office has a contract with staples, and I think they're limited to putting three items in a box. With our previous vendor we'd order some things and get two or three boxes, with staples it's like NINE at least and they refuse to send envelopes, so you'll get a shoebox box with five pencils in it. I opened a box with one bottle of window cleaner in it the other day. To make things more confusing, they don't send you a printout of your order, they just send you a packing list.

This is so wasteful and disgusting. It has to stop.

I'm having a difficult time thinking this is anything but intentional...

Unfortunately, Office Depot isn't much better -- even with from-government orders! One state government department ordered 40 printer cartridges. Did Office Depot pack them in one or two boxes? NOOOO. 40 big individual boxes! Took the poor delivery guy a few trips up 20 floors.

Amazon is almost as bad. I ordered a lot of stuff from them for Christmas, and the amount of wasted packaging was unbelievable. Amazon, if I order a video game, it's okay with me if you just ship it in a padded envelope. It doesn't require a huge box filled with inflated bags.

"Didn't YOU see An Inconvenient Truth like the rest of America?"

Didn't YOU do any actual research and figure out that whole movie is a load of crap?

That said, it's still no excuse to waste that many boxes and that much time.

Here's my theory - some bean counter looked what was costing them more, damaged/lost packages or shipping costs, found out that it was both. By shipping more items in fewer boxes, they made it heavier and incurred more delivery fees, and risked having an entire order damaged or lost because it was all in one box. By putting fewer items in more boxes spreads out the percentage of lost and damaged orders. The difference in shipping fees is negligible compared to the cost of having to refill orders that were totally lost or damaged as opposed to one box of your 9 box order was damaged or lost.
Now I'm not saying their system might need tweaking, but I'm sure it makes sense on paper somewhere.

@Toof_75_75: Really, you did the research and contradicted years of scientific studies? Link to peer-reviewed paper plz!

If the waste gets any bigger to where larger boxes are involved, I'll make a note to use them for moving boxes instead of the liquor store.

I actually was pretty happy, but amazed, by Amazon the most recent time I ordered from them. I received 4 DVDs and 2 USB Tivo WiFi devices in the same relatively small box. I could fit 2 medium sized hard back books in this box, but according to what I'm hearing - my box was personally packed by the best packer in the warehouse! :)

Well, where i live, Fed-Ex people (dunno about UPS) get paid by "PACKAGES" delivered, so......maybe there's a "inside" reason to have more boxes/packages to be delivered......?
This would probably be one of those "coporate decisions" that we would not understand...right?

My last Amazon order was perfect, 2 DVD's in a specially made box that would not hold anything else, no extra space.

@tmccartney: The problem with Amazon is they ship out of several warehouses, and then they partner with a million other retailers to sell stuff through Amazon (not the marketplace, but some of the main listing items are sold by someone else). So you might order 5 things that come from 5 different parts of the country.

I like it, I prefer this than under packing. Especially electronics, I rather have one tree wasted than the silicon and metal wasted due to returning. Yes, it is selfish, but I rather scold companies that gimp out on packaging than those that give to much. This is as bad as the free plastic bag issue, yes its bad for the environment, but the convenience is most of the time warranted

@DallasDMD: Thank you. I just love how people go around quoting books written by laypeople as gospel. Gee, if those people are so good, why aren't they PH.D.-wielding researchers with lots of peer-reviewed research to their names?

@chutch:
I've always had a good experience with amazon shipping me loads of items in appropriately-sized boxes as well. Maybe we have the same packing person?

A number of years ago a company I was working for ordered a bunch of servers from Sun. The servers showed up without any power cords so our rep apologetically rushed an order of 30 or so power cords for us. A couple days later a huge box, probably 4 feet square, showed up from Sun. Inside this box were 30 smaller boxes, roughly 8x8x2. Each of those boxes contained a single power cord.

Sounds like a great way to stock up on boxes and shipping supplies.

The short answer as to how this happens is that packaging configurations for Staples are determined by a computer system. It does not know any better. It just designates how many and what size boxes to use and what goes in those boxes entirely based upon data (size and weight dimensions) stored in the system. Sometimes it messes up, especially if one of those fields are off. It has also been known to stuff 300+ pounds of pink erasers into a single box. As to how this sort of thing makes it out the door, it's because so many different people handle any given box that is shipped. Everyone is one step in a process and they more or less only know what's going on in their specific area and may not necessarily have the time or inclination to think outside of that immediate responsibility. The best way to have something like this fixed is to attempt to find the phone number for the warehouse that the boxes shipped from and get a hold of someone from inventory control as they will be able to correct the dimensions if they're off (which appears likely in this case.) And you can't really blame shipping for this because shipping only moves the boxes out the door; in this case they don't stuff or package them.

Who orders 5 notepads? How about you get off your ass and go to the local store. Much better for the environment.

@velvetjones: 99% of the time at any moderately large or larger warehouse you will not find items shipping in envelopes because putting envelopes on their conveyor system is a very bad idea. An envelope would never make it through because it lacks an adequate height dimension.

what probably happened was this stupid customer complained about a previous order not being shipped properly so they made sure this time.

God forbid that this nitwit have to deal with a few freaking boxes! I know it was excessive, but 'very, very angry?' that's not necessary. Chill out.

@Aesteval: I'm curious to know your background experience...

@PatrickIs2Smart: Former employee

I have had the same experience with Office Max. Even when I made specific packing requests in my order, they do this every time. A whole box, stuffed with bubble wrap, for one three-pack pen refill that would comfortably fit in my back pocket. It's crazy-making. They claim it's because things are being shipped from different centers.
But I have a hard time dealing with so much waste. At least when it comes to my house it gets recycled. I hate to thing about all the packaging that ends up in the landfill.

I had an order from Office Depot or Office Max for a single bottle of white out (actually, it was yellow; that's why I had to order it on-line). I got a promotion for free overnight shipping, and sure enough they overnighted me a tiny bottle in a box like those in the pictures.

I thought it was pretty odd, but I didn't get upset about it... I try to reuse the boxes and packing supplies I get anyway.

There are lots of reasons.....

Goods are shipped from different warehouses, or different parts of the same warehouse.

Limiting liability for damages and missing boxes. Most large shippers self insure and as such do not utilize standard insurance from UPS/FedEX.

Self insurance will cause shippers to use oversized boxes just to minimize damage claims.

Large box theory of shipping. Yes, there is such a theory. Large boxes are harder to loose by the shiping company and if crushed allow more movement of the outer box before the goods are reached. The theory also requires minimal packaging material so the goods can readily shift within the box.

Computer predetermination using correct or faulty data.

Standardization of packing boxes. (it costs less to stock a few boxes than stocking 97 different box configurations)

Employee errors. Yes, those really happen.

Employee performance motivators, aka "You can go on break when you fill this bin with customer's orders".

Warehouse/ conveyor considerations. Those small dinky boxes and enevelops are actually hard to handle.

The one way to figure out what is really happening is to order the identical goods several times. I suspect you will receive the same oversized boxes on each and every order.

@Buran: Because, by definition, the "PH.D.-wielding researchers with lots of peer-reviewed research to their names" HAD already published. To no avail. So they needed someone with some pizzazz, some recognition, for our miserably inept national media to attach a hook to it.

Nobel laureate Al Gore, Esq., served that purpose quite admirably.

Blaming the PhD-wielding scientists for not getting a Brittney-obsessed media, while a multi-trillion dollar polluting industry runs interference, to focus on technical - yet Earth-periling - material seems... Misdirected.

And here I thought Amazon's bizarre shipping of same order items in different bloated packages was bad....

@meneye: Or maybe they're packaged this way to protect the items from flying pig attacks. Because...you know. It could happen. The more I think about it, the more I'm certain that's the reasoning. The inconsiderate customer should be glad his notepads made it without damage!

I recently ordered a stapler and staples from well... Staples. Came in two different boxes.

I also deal with a food distributor twice a week at work. I get 'repacked' items, that is small quantities of product that are packed together. In these, everything is hand wrapped in brown paper, and then packed 1-4 items to a huge box. I have ordered 10 items and got 11 boxes. Yes, I once got a box with just the packing slips for the other boxes in it.

Somehow, this is the same company that once mixed several completely unaffiliated stores' orders together... then wrapped the whole thing in black plastic, hoping I wouldn't notice.

A few years ago when purchasing for a small retail store, I ordered six copies of Trend Micro PC-cillin which, at the time, came in a glorified CD sleeve. Two days later, we received six identical 9x12x4 boxes, with $7 shipping on each packing slip.

I just assumed that they'd hired a few new packagers at the warehouse and were using my order for training.

@trai_dep: If you want to be taken seriously, you start as a grad student and you get your name attached to peer-reviewed, published-in-real-journals research very early on, establish yourself in your field, get cited, and work with already-established scientists, and eventually maybe get your own lab or write your own papers and so on.

You don't do it by publishing big shiny books with simplified text that doesn't really have any peer review or the sort of sources that real scientific papers have.

@logie-al: Then there's Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is the most likely one. AKA, human stupidity.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Pick two.

@SexCpotatoes: Heck, picking *one* would be an improvement here!

Do you guys still do that thing where you go around and ban commenters who make poor comments? its long overdue! comments are seriously lacking lately. and often downright useless.

i'm sure if they're bubblewrap, complainer wouldn't mind. hey it's therapeutic!

@Buran: you seem to be consciously missing my point: the scientific community already went that route, found themselves ignored. So they worked with someone that could spread the word. Everyone wins.

Err, except the Hummer guys and Exxon. Whoops!

And, the nice thing about finding an interesting book on a topic that isn't weighty enough for you? Find ANOTHER book, that's weightier. That's why libraries and bookstores have General Interest and Scientific sections.

Books: can't stop after reading just one!

I received a single SD card packaged identically to the notebooks here. I'm glad I didn't order 5 of them.

Hopefully this is the exception rather than the rule. At least most packaging is reusable/recyclable.

So, I guess it boils down to, which way do you want to kill the planet? Get off your lazy butt and actually GO to Office Depot in your ozone depleting SUV or order online and kill a bunch of trees for packaging. But then, the shipper will be burning fuel in vans and planes too so the "get off your lazy butt" method is actually better.

@dafountain: Or, you know, drive a car that handles better (and weighs less) than, I donno, a street-sweeper, to pick up misc. supplies. :)

Since you swallowed Al Gore's pill without even reading the label, here's a few links for you.

[www.hyscience.com]
[www.billstclair.com]

Perhaps even give a few books a read. Here's one:
[www.multi-science.co.uk]

*I've* never seen 'An Inconvenient Truth' and *I* live in America! -gasp- -stagger- -thud-
Staples Corporate isn't going to be nearly as concerned with 'eco-concerns' as they are with possibly spending 6x more on shipping than necessary. I think the letter would have been better served towards that point.

@trai_dep: Thanks for assuming I'm a library-hating type ... I'm not.

The problem is that the ignorant layperson is being credited unfairly with it all and people are assuming as a result that it's OK to accept opinions of laypeople as scientific fact. It is not. This kind of misguided idiocy is giving credence to the rants of truly uninformed morons who don't really have a clue.

And scientists have been spreading the word for years through public forums, such as articles in newspapers, television, books of their own, you name it. You can't claim that the information has not been available to the public.

I'll trust PBS' NOVA series, which gets its info directly from people with actual credentials, publications, and peer review to their names, or books written by those same people (and SCIENTISTS DO WRITE BOOKS), over some book with some random guy's name on it, no matter whether or not I've heard of said guy before (where's his degree in science? does he have one? I don't think so, but if I'm wrong please do let me know).

Oh, by the way, to the original poster in this thread ... we're still waiting for that link to that peer-reviewed paper.