Dell has promised to stop shipping individual CDs in 10x19x10 boxes after Christian over at Technologist for Hire posted a rant about Dell’s growing love for wasteful packaging.

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.

Sean, one of Dell’s blog-watching ninjas, initially responded with the usual PR prattle: Dell is a green company, killing trees is wrong, the planet is nice, big packages are bad, etc, etc. Surprisingly, he sent a followup email that contained a meaningful commitment:

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

We look forward to Dell renouncing its membership in the stupid shipping gang by June.

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

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