Or, you could just not buy so much crap. The greatest lie ever told is that Americans can consume their way to conservation.

Who says these people didn't just take small, unopened objects and put them in large, empty boxes?

@OMG! Ponies!: You make a good point.

I recycle all my boxes... into fire.

@Marty_MacFly: lol that's the first thing I thought. While I have no real reason to assume that any of the submitters are lying, I could just take a big box at work, put some packing stuff around it and slap a box of pens in there and no one's the wiser.

But that doesn't really matter, since this still happens. We got a box of tea among the many things we stock the office kitchen with, and it ALWAYS comes in this box that's like 4-5 times larger than the actual packaging.

check yourself, you are on posting on gizmodo, a site dedicated to consumption.

That not withstanding, I would offer that doing most of your shopping online instead of driving to the store possibly/probably constitutes less of a carbon footprint that all that cardboard and plastic air pillow cushioning.

Now if only all towns would accept all of those plastic products instead of merely the usual bottles and cans.. i.e. plastic wrappings, blister packaging, styrofoam, and other plastic shipping products.

I know that this much cardboard is wasteful, and I understand the argument, but there's a reason some things are packaged that way. Not that these are any of them, but some things are packed in a larger box with stuffing to protect the item. They prob do this so the item remains in perfect condition. I know that delivery people aren't always careful. There must be a way to protect an item without using so much space.

Having been in charge of a shipping department for an online store, I can say that it's true this type of thing isn't that uncommon. Heck, I think I've seen *hundreds* of small objects ship out like that.

There just really aren't any boxes made for packages like that. Maybe USPS priority boxes, but not many generic ones. Try going to any site that sells boxes, and usually the smallest you can find is 6x6x6 which is still a bit big for even stuff shown on here. I'm sure over at those places, the superiors in charge just stressed getting the damn things out instead of size. At first I had my employees just cut their own smaller boxes but I was chewed out for that.

Put it this way, if you hadn't received your order, and you called and asked, you would probably laugh your ass off if they said "We're waiting on getting more smaller boxes" . That being said, I think you'd rather have it sent in an oversized box than have to wait the extra few days.

Not to say the companies are not at fault. Some of this could very well have been caused by shippers just doing a half ass job.

Okay, seriously, a couple fo these are ridiculous, but I do have to give info in their defense:

I worked at UPS in a specialized department where I could open anything (one of a handful of people - don't be alarmed) and packaging and re-packaging was a big part of my job. If these companies don't meet a certain box strength requirement (crush test, single/double/triple-walled, etc.) when packaging their merchandise, regardless to how small the merchandise is, and it gets damaged, they will not get paid for a damage claim b/c it was improperly packaged and thus their fault.

So - in many instances, it makes sense to use a slightly (yes, slightly, not ginormous) larger box and stuff it with craft paper/peanuts/foam/bubble wrap/air bags than to use a box or package that doesn't meet requirements and risk the customer's item being damaged or delayed due to damage and having to straighten out a replacement.

I do have to say though, that when it comes to book packaging, Amazon has everybody beat w/ their zip-tear packaging. It's usually double-walled and very tough.

@Kamdori: thank you for schooling these people. It gets old watching people repeatedly make assumptions about how business works and how they could easily solve the problem. If it was so simple it'd have already been taken care of.

I've received large boxes containing a single 9v battery or fuses before. Our boxes come from a warehouse with people actually packing the boxes (not automated at all), so it's probably out of boredom and meant to be funny.

And I was at UPS for 5 years and saw just about everything you can imagine. Both live and dead, legal and illegal...and all things questionable.

Please use extra tape so they don't have to be opened. :)

They do this because it costs the same amount of money for them to ship that box than a smaller one.
Also the odds of your package being lost or stolen go down considerably when the package is too large to hide in a nook or cranny, or under a shirt.

@meesterbrian: I'm just saying that the Green movement is the best thing that's happened to industry in a while. "Your old things are inefficient; buy new things instead. The green sticker proves it's better."

At the end of the day, half the things are coming from China - which has done an excellent job of destroying the Yangtze River - and will wind up in a landfill in India, or Vietnam, or the Phillipines, or Indonesia, or some other developing nation, destined to destroy their water table.

Here's some things I'd like to know: How many unsold issues of Time's Earth Day issue are going to end up in landfills? How many extra pages were used for ads to buy things?

I'm going to end my little rant here. It just irks me because it's thinking like "consume your way to conservation" - along with its idiot cousins "spend your way out of a recession" and "give tax breaks to the rich so that they can buy things that they could already afford" - that spike my outrage.

@Kamdori: I carry a small boxcutter with me to this day b/c I got so used to cutting and makeshifting boxes. I had an employee who could MAKE a box for any damn item you put in front of him - and it would like like that box was specifically MADE for that item. Sheer genius, I tell you.

At one point we had 4x4x4s, but then that stopped. :(

We should start a thing, where everyone snaps pictures of items that were shipped wastefully of all the future shipments only in hopes of bringing change to these retailers?

-mainly because I am receiving my RAM that i bought the other day from frys =P

Oh - and re-use your boxes as long as they're not too beat up or wet. Pull the old tape off and TAKE THE OLD LABELS OFF - ALL OF THEM. And be sure to thoroughly secure all new labels.

I could go on and on...but I shant.

I worked at a Wolf Camera, we'd always be amazed when our new shipment came in, and there would be a giant package with one or two SD cards, or a tiny compact camera box. It was pretty amusing, but we always did wonder if the people at the warehouse were high and forgot to put some of our stuff in...

Yet another large box story? This is becoming an epidemic. I'm quite certain using an inappropriate sized box for shipping needs is a mortal sin. Someone should make a popup book to explain the plight of the properly sized box to children.

for a good example, look at the last picture...seriously? you ordered ONE sharpie online?!?!

some of you guys need to get your lazy ass's up and goto the store...not drive, try walking...Really did you really buy a single sharpy from office depot!? then have it fucking shipped to you? what did you pay like 4$ for the shipping?
Idiot

@shorty63136: That's pretty awesome. I worked for a store that sold model trains and so when people would order these long, single cars - there was no proper box size. We cut our own really good ones. When my boss saw that I was screamed at because we could have saved time tossing it in a bigger box (which was true, but leads to the Idiotic Shipping Hall of Shame). I ended up walking out on that job later.

@Rabid Penguin: And that book should have huge pages, with only a tiny pop up structure in the middle.

@tellahoohooo:

I'm sure my 23 mile round trip walk to the store for a sharpie would be energizing, but imagine the horror upon returning realizing I forgot something and needed to go back.

$4 to have a sharpie shipped to me is less than it would cost in gas to go get my own.

Say hi to all of the rats and cockroaches in your urban living for me.

@OMG! Ponies!: Well, in my case (I submitted two items) one was necessary for research work, and the other was to fix something that was up with my car. Not unnecessary items. Just really bad shipping on the part of the sellers.

Don't think of it as waste. Think of it as a shipment of extra air. Dammit, they're keeping you alive!

@OMG! Ponies!: I couldn't agree more.

It's not like this crowd has a lot of room to talk. See this post.

@OMG! Ponies!:
High taxes on the rich always confused me...

Why should the rich have to pay a higher percentage of tax than you? Because they're successful and work hard they should punished for it?

"give tax breaks to the rich so that they can buy things that they could already afford"

That's a silly comment. So what if you can only afford one car and they can afford five. That doesn't give anyone the right to take that money from them. We're not communists.

Of course, I'm of the opinion there should be no Federal income tax.

But I digress... Large, inappropriately sized boxes, is the issue at hand.

Hey! has anybody pondered the thought of: The boxes you are seeing as empty are just recycled from other shipments? So they could have been filled with lots of flash drives but now are being reused to the customer instead of the original order to the warehouse?
Another thought is if that theory is true, would you rather have somebody use an empty box to ship a flash drive or make a completely new box to ship it at the same size and ditch the rest of the larger ones to trash?

I am only 16 but sometimes you have to think "outside the box" when it comes to real issues.

I have ordered many things in my day and have never seen a box that takes up more than double the space than the product. Even with my ipod I had received it in a padded mailer after repair.

@tellahoohooo:
yeah I agree, just go out once in a while and go to the store. ride your bike, walk, jog and save on the cardboard shipping. I know for a fact my mother is guitly of internet shopping but she also goes out from time to time as well.
ps. when you go to the store, get paper if you can.

if UPS of Fed ex would be careful
then you would not have to ship it in an over sized box.

i was picking a package up from UPS one day and witnessed the driver using a box on the truck to stand on to sock other boxes on top rack.
then watched him put it up right next to it.

Seriously, what's the big deal? If a vendor has 1 million products, do you expect them to have 1 million different sized boxes? It's not only not practical, but they really don't make boxes in that many sizes. Bottom line, if you care about the environment, do your part and recycle those boxes!

@Rabid Penguin: More often than not, the highly paid people are simply delegating all the work to those making $7.50 - $10 and hour. It's the guys at the bottom that have to do all the work, while the man on top gets paid the big bucks. There's an old saying (paraphrasing here) that the higher up the ladder you go, the thinner your briefcase gets.

I don't think there should be a federal tax either, mind you.

Boxes are conveyable- envelopes may not be. Being in the CPG biz, warehouses demand that certain guidelines are upheld.

Not sure how Amazon does it, but I'm sure they are on the cutting edge that will be followed by many other retailers.

OK... I'll oblige your argument now about the trucks, Adam. Since you went through the trouble of making another entry about this ""tragedy"".

The few inches that will be gained by using smaller boxes will do absolutely NOTHING to the shipping route of the delivery trucks.

Trucks get a certain amount of deliveries everyday and that's what they serve.

SMALLER BOXES IN NO WAY WILL CHANGE THE DELIVERY ROUTES OF THESE TRUCKS.

They will make the same amount of trips whether they are delivering small boxes or big ones. They still have to make the same amount of trips.

So if you want to criticize something, it shouldn't be the size of the boxes, it should be the delivery strategy these companies have. The route is what determines how many trips these trucks have to make, and the distance.

Again... one more time...
The size of the boxes, in no way, determine the trips these trucks have to make.

Seriously, does it really matter how big the box is? If you're worried about being "green", just reuse the box for some shipping of your own........or send it back to whomever sent it to you so they can reuse it.

@GOKOR:
Your statement makes sense, but generally speaking the people at the bottom wouldn't even have a job if it weren't for the people at the top making it possible.

Most of the time those people at the top had to start at the bottom too.

The country is still ruled by the almighty dollar. You can be pretty sure that the Ops depeartment of these places did the number crunching and found that they could save millions a year if they only bought one size of box for all products, as shipping is done by weight... not size. Unless there is really motivation for them financially I don't expect much change... maybe a few will do it for the good press to be eco-friendly (which is a hot trend for companies these days, even though it's mostly PR moves to look better to consumers), but I doubt many will change.

Maybe we should petition UPS and FedEx and DHL to start charging based on size... then you'll see a change.

@xint: You're only thinking of the end result from the sorting facility to your home. from the plant to the sorting facility it would absolutely make a difference. 50 trucks that can only fit 10 items each? or 10 trucks that can fit 50 items? That makes a huge difference right there.

@areyoubeefin: That's 100% true. When a warehouse ships to another warehouse, the box has been reused so many times before. Not because the shippers were environmentally conscience, but because its way damn easier to use a box that's already made.

someone should send in a picture of a a paper clip shipped in a refrigerator box, that would be cool...

@gamehendge2000: so you don't have rodents or bugs where your from? Where is this mystical place that puts you 12 miles from civilization, rats & bugs?