Hewlett-Packard's head of product packaging was unable to explain the odd shipping choice, as he is currently en route to St. Ives.

HP shatters excessive packaging world record [The Register]

1. Make A List! Shopping lists top every saving strategy we offer, and for good reason. Lists make for routinized, disciplined shopping.
2. Don't Fear An Empty Fridge: Food grows mold, not interest. An empty fridge is a strong sign that your buying matches your consumption.
3. Approach Deals Skeptically: Just because an item screams "Two for One!" doesn't mean that you need two. Make sure the item is something that you'll use, and something that won't expire quickly.
4. Avoid Supermarkets For Perishables: Buy your vegetables, meats, and fish at local establishments. You'll spend less per visit, while honing your comparison shopping skills. In our neighborhood, the Korean vegetable stand is usually 30% cheaper than the supermarket around the corner.
5. Buy Non-Perishables In Bulk: If you can store them, buy your pasta and rice in bulk. Just don't try to buy more than one bag at a time.
6. Buy Quality Products: Somewhat counterintuitive for those who focus exclusively on the bottom line, but if you pay more for a high-quality ingredient, you're less likely to let it go to waste.
7. Grow Your Own Herbs And Salad: Herbs and salad expire quickly in the fridge. If you have the space, grow your own and save.
8. Buy Whole Vegetables: Bagged lettuce? Washed carrots? Like any vegetable, they start to decompose as soon as they're processed.
9. Be Storage Savvy: Keep your food fresh with proper storage. If you're a fresh fruit lover, invest in an ethylene gas guardian to stave off spoilage.
10. Plan Your Meals: Planning is a key part of list building, and one of the best ways to prevent abandoned foodstuffs from clogging up your fridge.
11. Cook! Don't just follow recipes. Real cooks now how to whip that extra bit of coconut milk or leftover celery into a tasty meal.
12. Cook In Bulk: Since you're already at the stove, double the recipe and save the leftovers.
13. Use Your Freezer: Freezers are more efficient when they're full, so fill 'em up.
14. Learn To Love Leftovers: Mmm, leftovers! But seriously, don't throw away perfectly good food.
15. Watch Your Portions: The less you eat, the less you spend. If you have trouble eyeballing portions, consider buying a scale.
16. Learn From Your Parents: Your pappy's pappy would smack you silly for your wasteful ways. Says Sheila Tremaine, 81, "We never threw anything away, because if you didn't use everything up you had nothing to eat. People just seem to have lost that skill."
17. Rediscover Packed Lunches: Dust off that old He-Man lunch box and take your meals to work. Why waste $5.95 on a lunch special when you can eat from your own fridge?
18. Equip Yourself: "Make your own bread. It's quick, easy and so much better tasting than shop-bought. It's also much cheaper. Make your own ice cream, it's a doddle. Invest in a mincing machine as an attachment to a food processor, and turn the leftover roast lamb into a base for shepherd's pie. While you're at it, invest in a sausage stuffer and ask your butcher for some sausage skins when you buy the pork."
19. Don't Trust Use-By Dates: If it isn't soft cheese, pate, seafood or processed meat, then it will last for a while. "Chicken, raw meats and fish will all look and smell unpleasant long before they're actively unsafe (as long as you cook it thoroughly, chicken, for example, is good for at least a week past its sell-by date). Apples last for months; potatoes are fine as long as you chop the green shoots off before cooking; tins and jars will last decades if not centuries; hard cheese is indestructible; and dry foods will last for years too."
20. Become A Freegan: If all else fails, ditch your wasteful ways and become one with your urban landscape.

Nathan says:

I wanted to add another example to your files of stupid shipping. I just got the microfiber clothes I ordered for cleaning my SLR's lenses. I thought it was kind of silly they used a big box and put all the cushioning on top (none below of course). But even when I took it all out I couldn't find the clothes, which had slid under on of the cardboard flaps. I'm pretty sure that alone is proof that a standard, letter sized envelope would have more than sufficed.

Thanks for letting me share.

Check out the delicious unboxing gallery below.

Unless you're willing to risk being stranded with 14 other passengers several stories underground in a cattle car elevator on a hot summer day, or plunging at extreme speeds down an escalator with a broken chain, you might want to steer clear of NYC's subway system lifts. The New York Times has published the results of an extensive investigation that includes tales of daily breakdowns, comically undertrained mechanics, and about $1 billion spent over the past decade.

Probably the most disturbing finding is that the subway's mechanics are released into the system with 4 weeks of training, compared to 4 years for elevator repairmen in the private sector. By contrast, mechanics hired by Washington, D.C. metro system now receive 4 years of training, and those hired by the San Francisco metro system receive 2 years of training.

The worst offender is the 181st St station for the 1, 9 trains. As passengers familiar with the station know, you have to take giant elevators several stories underground to reach the subway lines, and they suffered over 100 breakdowns last year. The article highlights one breakdown where 15 people, including two women who began to suffer from asthma attacks, were trapped for 40 minutes last summer. The same elevator "had broken down five times in the eight days leading up to the event. Each time, mechanics came, made minor adjustments and put the machine back in service — only to have it break down again." After the 15 people were let out, the elevator was put back in service, only to break down again later that afternoon.

But it sounds like it's the plunging escalators you really have to watch out for—or at least have strong ankles and the ability to leap and roll when you reach the bottom:

On June 6th, during the evening rush, the chain snapped with a bang and the escalator stopped moving. People began walking down the escalator. The last person on was Magaly Diaz, a pregnant woman on her way home from work.

Suddenly, the escalator sprang back to life. Freed from the hold of the drive chain, the steps began freewheeling downhill, quickly picking up speed. It all went so fast that Ms. Diaz cannot even remember if she screamed.

“It felt like a roller coaster,” said Ms. Diaz, 40. “You know how it feels when you’re at the top of a roller coaster going down? That’s the kind of momentum it had.”

Most people jumped or stumbled off at the bottom. But a friend standing in front of Ms. Diaz fell at the bottom and Ms. Diaz landed on top of her. Both women were taken to the hospital. Ms. Diaz had two badly twisted ankles, though she was grateful that a sonogram showed no injury to her fetus.

Coming soon: the MTA will use this as a reason to call for fare increases.

"$1 Billion Later, Subway Elevators Still Fail " [New York Times]
(Photo: Pro-Zak)

Earlier this week I ordered a part from Canon USA Service for one of my Canon cameras and it arrived today. I am impressed for the fast shipping but not so much by the efficiency of the packaging.

Canon USA is headquartered in a place called "Lake Success" in New York. Out of curiosity, we checked what UPS would charge to ship a one-pound package, roughly 12"x8"x6" from Lake Success to Los Angeles. Our reader said he was pleased with the fast shipping, so let's say Canon used UPS 3 Day shipping: that would be nearly $20. We then checked how much it would cost to throw the part in an envelope and drop it in the mailbox: that would be 41¢. Well done, Canon.
(Thanks to Dale!)

David writes:

Recently, my son Justin and I both ordered Kingston 2GB USB "thumb" drives from Dell after seeing it mentioned on slickdeals.net. My son's arrived a few days before mine, and he told me that when the delivery guy handed him the box, he asked if there was anything actually in the box because it was so light. I didn't see the packaging myself until my drive arrived the other day. I asked my other son Brett, a budding photographer, to document the "unboxing" this time.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

PREVIOUSLY: Dell: Let's Ship Tiny CDs In Massive Boxes!

American claims they had no alternative:

"With such a small passenger load we did consider whether we could cancel the flight and re-accommodate the five remaining passengers on other flights.

"However, this would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded in London Heathrow who were due to fly back to the US on the same aircraft.

"We sought alternative flights for the west-bound passengers but heavy loads out of London that day meant that this was not possible."

Plane flies five passengers from US to London [Telegrah]
(Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas)

Nope: it's two replacement trackpoint nubs, smaller than a lapdog's nipples.

We know some of you don't like these "big box-tiny product" posts, but they highlight the waste and incompetence of current shipping methods, and remind us of how messed up the supply chain remains, despite years of fine-tuning. As long as companies increase profits by passing costs on to the consumer instead of seeking out and addressing these inefficiencies, we're going to see higher and higher levels of government-style red tape and bureaucracy. And big boxes with big shipping fees with tiny products inside.

"Reason #2389 Why IBM is a Ridiculous Corporation and Why My Next Computer Will Be a Mac" [Optimus Crime Toronto]
(Thanks to Sofi!)

The company I work for orders all of their computers from Dell. About 4 months ago we started receiving random Adobe Acrobat Standard CDs & licenses for free with every single computer that we purchase. We did not request these CDs. At first, they came inside of the box with the computer. Soon, they started arriving in a padded envelope. After that, they began arriving in their own box, complete with paper padding, and a padded envelope. We have received well over 100 of these.

Christian, just wanted to circle back and let you know that we're working this now. As much as we would like this to be a very simple fix it isn't. But you do have our commitment that we will have this fixed in the next six months. Two things we are looking at:

1. Option to exclude all manuals and CDs from packaging at time of order. And, an option to have one set delivered for multiple systems.

2. A move to packaging alternatives

We'll be sure to keep you posted.

Best,
Sean

Dell and the environment: green is out, brown is in [Technologist For Hire]
Update on Dell's Environmental Impact [Technologist For Hire]

Hey Consumerist!

discounteggroll here, with another example of wasteful packaging. I ordered a headphone adapter for my iphone from PCConnection.com for $4 shipped, but the box and packaging it came in was ridiculous (see attached photo). Not only is the headphone adapter in its own packaging, but it was INSIDE a DHL bubble wrap bag, sitting ON TOP of a DHL bubble wrap bag and paper inserts, and padded with about 10 feet of paper packaging inside of its shipping box.

Shipping was free, but at what cost?

Stop wasting so much material and making the consumer complicit in your waste. Ever heard of envelopes? Use envelopes. Figure out the logistics. It's not as if Christmas season only passes by the Earth every 75 years—prepare your facilities and employees to handle the annual, predictable increase in fulfillment.

Despite Amazon's novel hard-drive-shipping technique, they've at least begun to address this. We ordered a single book from them last week and it arrived in a flat package, stiff enough to protect the book but malleable enough for our insane mail carrier to somehow fold it like an origami Cthulhu temple so that he could shove it into our mailbox. So we know you can do it, companies. Stop being lazy. And fire the shipping facility manager who let that card get shipped out like that. (What? It's not Christmas anymore.)

(Thanks to Ian!)

RELATED
"Crate & Barrel's Wooden Spoon Packaging Is Very Efficient"
"Amazon Is Unable To Ship A Hard Drive In Proper Packaging"

I recently ordered two wooden spoons, a wooden spatula and a silicone spoon rest from crateandbarrel.com - all in the same transaction. Today I received these two big boxes! One box (10x7x20) held ONE 13.5" spoon. The other box (13x13x7.5) held the other spoon, spatula and spoon rest.

It's obvious that all four items could have fit in the big box along with the big spoon. The amount of bubble pack, honeycomb paperpack and tissue paper was unbelievable.

Maybe they should help Amazon pack their hard drives. Tee-hee!

• Exciting Sweepstakes Offer: 4.5 inches
• Essential Purchase Details: 6.5 inches
• Gift Receipt Section: 7.75 inches

Complete Receipt Defeat [An Entirely Other Day]
Image via Aeropause

1) Clutter is confusing. You don't know what you have— so you don't know what to buy and what not to buy.
2) Clutter makes you inefficient. Waste costs money.
3) Clutter causes stress. Stress makes you do stupid stuff, like buy more crap (clutter) you don't need.

There are more, but that's enough. Zen Habits has some tips for removing clutter from your life. Here are a few that we liked:

• Donate stuff you're decluttering, so you don't feel bad about wasting it.
• Start at the corner by the door and move your way around the room, doing the superficial stuff first - surfaces, empty the bin etc. Repeat, but do more the 2nd time around - ie. open the cupboards.
• Use the "one in, two out" rule. The rule: whenever you bring in an item, you have to throw away two other items. First you cheat, by throwing out two pieces of paper, but soon you will have to move to big stuff.
• The One-Year Box. Take all your items that you unsure about getting rid of (e.g. "I might need this someday..."), put them in a box, seal it and date it for 1 year in the future. When the date comes, and you still didn't need to open it to get anything, donate the box WITHOUT OPENING IT. You probably won't even remember what there was in the box.

15 Great Decluttering Tips [Zen Habits]
(Photo:sindesign)

It makes no sense. You'll get one package of butter in a huge cardboard box (seen above.)

Well, that's going to change because FreshDirect is "going green."

FreshDirect says:

1. CUTTING EMISSIONS FROM OUR DELIVERY TRUCKS.
We love that our trucks have become a mass transit system for food, each one replacing the many cars and cabs that would otherwise be used to bring families and food together. We're committed to making our trucks as clean-burning and low-impact as possible. FreshDirect has partnered with Tri-State Biodiesel, a NYC-based company dedicated to providing the region with clean, renewable biodiesel sources. Tri-State uses cooking oil donated from our kitchen for use in non-toxic diesel fuel. In the next year, we plan to initiate biodiesel use in 100% of our delivery fleet. This action will both reduce emissions and cut back our use of fossil fuel products. Additionally, we are working with the city to identify locations for electrical outlets so we can plug in our trucks and refrigerate using electric engines. We hope to have our first plug-in truck in mid-2008.

2. REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF WASTE WE PRODUCE.
We recently switched our delivery boxes in favor of boxes that use 100% recycled fiber content - no virgin fibers are needed in any FreshDirect box. We're proud to announce that within the next 3 years, we'll eliminate nearly all of our cardboard delivery boxes, replacing them with recyclable plastic totes and grocery bags. Since our facility was designed with cardboard boxes in mind, switching our systems will involve a complex re-engineering process.

3. FEEDING OUR NEEDIEST NEIGHBORS.
We work hard to make sure that surplus food doesn't go to waste. Accordingly, FreshDirect is one of City Harvest's largest food suppliers, helping them to feed New York's neediest.

4. INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF LOCAL PRODUCTS WE SELL.
Forging partnerships with good people doing good work has been a FreshDirect hallmark for years, and few companies sell more local products. Buying from farms, orchards, dairies and fisheries in the Tri-state area reduces the use of fossil fuels, supports artisanal craftsmanship and stimulates our local economy.

5. PROVIDING EVEN MORE INFORMATION TO HELP CUSTOMERS MAKE INFORMED CHOICES.
Environmental choices are often complicated, highly personal decisions. That's why FreshDirect believes in offering customers the opportunity to make informed choices for themselves and their families. We will continue to deliver on that commitment by looking for new ways to deliver quality food alongside thorough information. In the coming year, we'll work to increase our selection of fish certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Fresh Direct Responds to Environmental Critics [Streetsblog] (Thanks, kimdog!)
(Photo:Janina)

What we found most interesting was the comparison section at the end, where you can see how your score stacks up against other people according to a wide variety of criteria, including gender, age, location, income, political affiliation, and education.

We scored a 3.3, mainly because of the amount of take-out food we order every month. Funny, we've been testing Mint lately and it's pointed out the same wasteful behavior. Might be time to change habits?

Consumer Consequences game [PublicRadio.org via Consumerism Commentary]

We thought Coca-Cola glazed chicken wings sounded pretty good... The article has a few more recipes reprinted from the book, "Classic Cooking With Coca-Cola," although to be truly classic we suppose you'll have to wait for Passover Coke. (Hint: It's made with real sugar.) —MEGHANN MARCO

Coca-Cola in the mix [The State]
(Photo:Lisa Pisa)

Really, you have no idea how irritating it is to get one package of crackers in a huge box. It fills us with rage, and we know it doesn't have to be this way because Peapod (which we used in Chicago, and enjoyed) has no problem using plastic bags like any sane person. (Also, back in Chicago, Peapod was cheaper than our local grocery store, which was obviously run by people from some time in the distant future where milk costs $25.00 plus tax. We called that grocery store, "The Thirty," because no matter what you bought there, if it included more than one item, your bill was $30. ) But we digress.

It turns our we're not alone in this feeling about Fresh Direct, as one of our readers (Janine) has sent in a link to her blog. On said blog she has photos of this strange wasteful behavior, complete with complaint letter to Fresh Direct.

Janine got a box with one package of butter in it. This is not the exception to the rule, people. This is how they package things. It's nuts.

Janine writes to Fresh Direct:

"I just received my order and was really disturbed by the fact that one large box contained only one 1/2 gallon of milk, and another small box only contained a bag of rice. This is really wasteful packaging and hardly see a need for it. I know I'm not obligated to tip, but i do. so as a way of saying "thank you" to your workers for politely carrying my boxes up three flights of stairs...but now it really just seems ridiculous to have two guys carry four boxes up three flights of stairs when two of the boxes are practically empty. i'd really appreciate some better planning on the packing end of your process.thanks for your consideration,"

And Fresh Direct writes back:

"Thank you for contacting FreshDirect. I appreciate your feedback regarding our packaging. I'm sorry about the inefficient packaging of your order. This issue occurs from time to time because items repackaged according to the department they originate from. Due to the volume and variety of the products and orders we handle each day, it is difficult to set up a system that eliminates all waste and allows for the most efficient and economical packaging possible without some experimentation to reach that state. Going forward, we will continue to try to minimize packaging and find more efficient ways to package orders that are also economical for our customers.If you have any other questions or concerns, kindly respond to this e-mail. To reach us via phone, please review the 'Get Help' section of our website. Sincerely,"

Seriously, Fresh Direct...WTF [Wastes of Space]
(Photo: Janine)

Sources told 9NEWS the Red Team was able to sneak about 90 percent of simulated weapons past checkpoint screeners in Denver. In the baggage area, screeners caught one explosive device that was packed in a suitcase. However later, screeners in the baggage area missed a book bomb, according to sources.

"There's very little substance to security," said former Red Team leader Bogdan Dzakovic. "It literally is all window dressing that we're doing. It's big theater on TV and when you go to the airport. It's just security theater."

Undercover agents slip bombs past DIA screeners [9News via BoingBoing]
(Photo: agahran)

That's OK, because taxpayers can get a good deal on a trailer if they need one, right? Nah. FEMA is selling the trailers 300 at a time to RV Dealers so they can be resold to consumers for profit. From the Washington Post:

"As you can imagine, a public auction of so many vehicles could devastate the market for travel trailers," Michael A. Molino, president of the 2,700-member Recreational Vehicle Dealers Association, said in a letter Friday to FEMA Director R. David Paulison.

Molino's group and the National Association of RV Parks & Campgrounds asked last week that the trailers be sold in lots of five or more so dealers can buy and resell them. Both groups said that selling directly to consumers could pose safety hazards if adequate training is not provided.

FEMA is working with the General Services Administration, the federal government's real estate arm, to auction trailers in batches of about 300 at a time "so we do not flood the market or harm business," FEMA spokeswoman Deborah Wing said.

FEMA Taking Hit on Sale of Surplus Trailers [Washington Post]

UPDATE: Verizon spokesperson John Bonomo just contacted us to say the delicious Whole Foods benzene is definitely not their fault.

Looks appetizing, doesn't it? We hope photoblogger The Food Of The Future washed his shoes after taking this! —MEGHANN MARCO

Whole Foods Site From Inside [Gowanus Lounge]
(Photo:f.trainer)

PREVIOUSLY: Verizon Employees: You Probably Should Have Told Us About The Toxic Levels Of Benzene

Proceeds of up to $1.75 million (that's a whole lot of bags) from the bag campaign will go to American Forests, the nation's oldest non-profit citizens conservation organization, to plant trees to restore forests and offset CO2 emissions,..IKEA projects that the number of plastic bags used by their U.S. customers will be reduced by at least 50% from 70 million to 35 million in the first year. This program was launched in IKEA stores in the UK in late Spring 2006, and reduction has been an impressive 95 percent.

IKEA US to 'Bag The Plastic Bag' [Treehugger]
(Photo: pdxsurreal)

" Financial help for firms located far from downtown Chicago adds to some workers' commutes while it also creates jobs beyond the reach of others without cars, the study said.

Out of 782 subsidies reviewed by the watchdog group, only 141 were given to firms located within a half-mile of a Chicago Transit Authority station or bus line, the report found." Oh, Illinois. —MEGHANN MARCO

State subsidy study: `Reverse Robin Hood' [Chicago Tribune]

"I did a little math. If every customer purchases exactly two items (an underestimation, I'm sure), then K-Mart goes through approximately one mile of paper every 3,017 customers. Only the top 6 inches of the receipt contains information relevant to the purchase: the date, items purchased, price, store number, etc. The remaining 15 inches contains ads for things I could have purchased if I'd known about them before I went to the register, and also a list of store hours. I don't know about you, but when I want to know a store's hours or what they sell, I never dig out old receipts to find the answer. "

This, of course, begs the question: Do any of you even read those receipt ads? This seems like an incredible waste of paper, and it's getting worse and worse. David calculates that these add-ons waste a mile of paper every 4,224 customers, which means Kmart is wasting 507 miles of paper every single day! Not to mention printer ink! Yikes! —MEGHANN MARCO

Receipts of Unusual Size [Ironic Sans]

See David's 21 Inches of receipt inside.

How much time do these items actually save?

According to Catheryn over at The Dollar Stretcher, not much.

On prewashed potatoes and prepeeled onions: "In both cases, I'm paying 70 cents to $1 to save myself 30 seconds. Put another way, I'm buying time at the cost of $84 to $120 an hour!"

Microwave popcorn clocks in at a time savings of 10 seconds, and only costs 3.5 times as much. And wait until you hear about the chicken.

"A friend of mine, for example, bought pre-marinated, individually vacuum-packed chicken breasts for $1.67 per four-ounce portion. It never occurred to her this is $6.68 a pound! Boneless chicken breasts were selling for $3.29 a pound. If it takes 5-cents worth of seasoning and one minute to season a pound's worth (do it in the morning and leave it in the fridge to marinate), you pay $3.34 per minute for this "convenience" or $200 per hour!"

Moral: Lazy people have to work more hours at a job to pay for their laziness. Oh, butter-flavored irony.

For most file sharers, this is really no duh research. Anecdotally, I first became serious about music at the point when I began to seriously file share. Years back, a large collection of friends started a WASTE network. This was a private file sharing network of about thirty guys, most of whom had vastly different musical tastes. We each posted a text file in our root directory that pointed out the albums in our collection about which we felt most strongly and the software also allowed to chat with one another, recommending songs or albums to one another in real-time.

It was like a huge dorm room, where everyone got together, talked about music they loved and kept on changing the CDs on the stereo.

More after the jump...

People who are against file sharing would think this sort of set-up would just lead to massive, indiscriminate copyright infringement. And yes, it did. But as we were exposed to more and more music that simply wasn't played or promoted on the radio, to music from different countries and genres that we'd never listened to before, we all became a lot more passionate about music as well. We wanted to support artists who'd moved us or entertained us or made an impression. Within a year, I was spending ten times, on average, the amount I'd spent on music before I started file sharing, and this figure seemed to be accurate for the rest of the members of our WASTE network. Similarly, when we downloaded music that we didn't like, we quickly deleted it — we didn't want to clutter up our collections with music that had failed to make an impact.

Ultimately, file sharing led me to be a more responsible, savvy and sophisticated customer of music. I downloaded and listened to lots of music and therefore I was better capable of supporting the artists I wanted to support and denying sales to musicians who I found to be mediocre. I was no longer forced to buy albums blind.

Of course, while I know many people who have approached file sharing as a method to better educate themselves as customers, it implies a certain degree of customer responsibility that some people don't have, and which the record companies don't want us to have. But it's more prevalent than organizations like the RIAA want you to think, and it's heartening to see their Canadian analogue confirm it: file sharers are the real music lovers of the 21st century.

CRIA's Own Study Counters P2P Claims [Michael Geist] (Thanks, Boing Boing!)