About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages • Hacker News Board

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#71

Post by gumby » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:52 AM UTC

anexprogrammer wrote: post #36

greglindahl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPS wants 2 inches of space between the product and the outer box... keeps real damage from happening if the outer box is slightly punctured by something. https://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/ship/packaging/g...

That's sensible. What isn't is the often vast oversize of Amazon packaging. Like sending one hard drive in a 2cu ft box with lots of packaging. There's now lots of scope for the item to move around so the single item inevitably ends up in a corner against the outer box. Amazon never seem to actually bubble wrap anything any more - which has led to damage more than once. Neither the string of air pockets, as in the ar…

> Here in the UK Amazon seems to have switched solely to paper inner packaging. Environmentally I prefer this.

It's not clear to me you should (perhaps you should, the balance simply isn't clear to me).

A plastic air cushion weighs almost nothing, so shipping it to the merchant and then to you uses almost no fuel.

It is rarely recycled but instead become sequestered carbon in a landfill. For me, they are convenient to recycle in Palo Alto but this article says, to my surprise, that that's uncommon. I'm not sure of the carbon impact of recycling PE.

While paper uses a lot of water and chemicals to make, and involves cutting down trees. It's also very heavy so costly in terms of fuel to transport and recycle.

Aesthetically, I agree that paper is much nicer.

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#72

Post by gumby » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:53 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #66

mikestew wrote: post #58

My dog loves the air packs, to the point that I can barely get a package in door without him grabbing at it. He'll open the package, pull the air packs out, pop them and walk away. The novelty must be wearing off, as he's been leaving unpopped ones lately. So, unlike packing peanuts, we get some secondary use out of air packs.

Aren't you afraid he'll try to eat them?

Polyethylene is inert so I wouldn't worry much.

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#73

Post by ekzy » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:54 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #68

I think there are two opportunities for the environmental effects of the air cushions. 1) Re-use rather than recycle: What if you could let the air out at home, open up the bag, stuff it with other bags, and the outside of the bag had a postage paid stamp. It goes back to the company that made the bag so it can be re-used. 2) Make them out of compostable plastic. Much simpler than above, probably the better way. The…

They should just ship with reusable boxes. Better boxes with inner protections, where you would get some kind of credit if you post/bring it back empty, or reuse for personal mail. Maybe we should only be allowed to send packages with these boxes

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#74

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:56 AM UTC

We have a really innovative solution to this problem.

There exists places that take bulk case packages of products, place them on shelves and make them available to the public. You give them money, put the items in a paper/plastic/reusable bag and take them home.

They are called stores. Many are located near common places, like intersections or near commercial office areas.

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#75

Post by mikestew » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:59 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #66

mikestew wrote: post #58

My dog loves the air packs, to the point that I can barely get a package in door without him grabbing at it. He'll open the package, pull the air packs out, pop them and walk away. The novelty must be wearing off, as he's been leaving unpopped ones lately. So, unlike packing peanuts, we get some secondary use out of air packs.

Aren't you afraid he'll try to eat them?

He was heavily supervised the first few times, and I keep an eye out still. I'm as worried that he'd eat them as I am that you would, because he pops them for apparently the same reason you do. :-)

(But, yes, of course your dog may vary, and I don't recommend this.)

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#76

Post by discreditable » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 3:01 AM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #58

My dog loves the air packs, to the point that I can barely get a package in door without him grabbing at it. He'll open the package, pull the air packs out, pop them and walk away. The novelty must be wearing off, as he's been leaving unpopped ones lately. So, unlike packing peanuts, we get some secondary use out of air packs.

Lucky, my dog loves them so much he gets excited when I receive packages.

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#77

Post by niyazpk » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 3:02 AM UTC

Air cushions work well for me. I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old. When any amazon shipment arrives, I distract them with the air-cushions and put away the items delivered. Meanwhile kids jump on and burst the air-cushions, and I am left to deal with the remaining plastic.

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#78

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 3:02 AM UTC

justinator wrote: post #9

vinhboy wrote: post #6

These little air bags makes a lot of sense to me, I wonder why it took them so long to become popular. How did everyone live through the packing peanuts phase and not realize this is a much simpler solution?

the last package peanuts I seem to remember finding in a package were disposable by putting them in compost, which seems like an advantage over plastic bags.

Except you need to have a compost pile and become adept at identifying variants of packing peanuts.

We actually do compost, but our pile is inactive in the winter, and dumping some mysterious product into it isn't something that I'd want to do.

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#79

Post by jpatokal » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 3:04 AM UTC

drcode wrote: post #33

How 'bout those little things they put in the middle of pizzas to stop them from getting crushed? Too bad I'm not a journalist, because that would make for an awesome story. /s

There actually is a reasonably interesting story about them: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2011/4/a-round-p...

And the word you're looking for is "pizza saver".

Re: About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages

#80

Post by djrogers » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 3:05 AM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #7

bwang29 wrote: post #2

My apartment complex has a large delivery bin area and I always wish I can leave the packaging boxes and padding/cushions in that area and only bring back the content of the box (provided that nothing is sensitive and nobody is watching). Would it be great if the delivery person can unbox the item at the delivery location with a fee and then bring the box back for recycling?

I struggle with a similar problem - I use a weekly food delivery service that delivers in a rather large polystyrene box and two ice packs. They offer to take last weeks when they deliver to recycle them, but leaving it out is rather difficult to do in my large apartment complex so I have to resort to always leaving them in the garbage room and I feel terrible for not recycling.

We started using Amazon Fresh a few months ago, and they deliver in reusable totes. You collapse 3-4 of them and stick them in an in-collapsed one and leave it out for pickup the next time you have an order. Really wish the rest of my amazon stuff would come this way.