I ordered Colin a very unusual item for his birthday from a seller on eBay and it has just arrived. The item comes in a sturdy wooden box which measures 75cm x 15cm x 12cm. A few layers of bubble wrap and some cardboard would have sufficed to protect it on it’s journey here but…
…what I got instead is an enormous amount of someone else’s rubbish. My hallway is now strewn with millions of plastic bags – the type you get when your clothes arrive from a catalogue, loads of scrunched up ‘shoe shaped’ balls of tissue paper, cardboard bits that look like they used to support pairs of boots and a load of strange small pipes – probably shoe related too. There are even bags containing a mixture of other rubbish as well. It’s as if someone put the item I ordered into a large box and then proceeded to empty the contents of their waste bin into the box as well – obviously someone in the clothing/shoe industry.
I’m really angry as I now have to dispose of this rubbish – it’s not packaging – it is someone else’s rubbish. How have these pipe things on the left below helped to protect the item during posting? And on the right – bags of crap:
I can’t recycle this and it makes me angry! OK so the card and tissue paper can go into the paper recycling bin, but what do I do with all the plastic?
I have a burning desire to package up all this rubbish and send it back to the seller!
We proudly use recycled packing materials. But I agree, your packaging was ridiculous!
I do too!
I think you hit the nail on the head literally when you said you’ve ended up with someone else’s rubbish. If this has come from a commercial or retail business they have to pay either the council or an independent company to come and remove their waste. This is known as ‘trade waste’. This can cost businesses a lot of money each year. As you say it does look like they have sent you their rubbish to dispose of. This could be a win/win for them. You’ve paid them for some goods and they’ve saved money on their waste.
‘Trade Waste’ – I think this is exactly what I’ve recieved! And they’ve certainly sent me enough of it too. I really want to send it back to them!