I am back in the swing of things after the wedding and am now writing the first Red Shirt blog posting as married man! To say our wedding day was perfect was an understatement. It just all came together. Then again, it could have been down pouring rain, but it still would have been perfect somehow. (And no, that is not our son Becca is holding, that is our nephew.)
We returned home from a mini-honeymoon in Eastport, ME and were greeted with a pile of gifts. We didn’t really register for a lot of stuff. Since we are both in our 30s we already had plenty of it, including some family heirlooms, hand-me downs from former roommates, and acquisitions we’ve made ourselves. In fact, being the treehuggers that we are, we encouraged re-gifting and experiential gifts.
Nevertheless, we did have items on registries at Amazon, Target, and William Sonoma (the first two will donate a percentage of sales to one of our favorite charities). Since our return, gifts or cards have arrived almost daily. I have been putting more than our fair share of cardboard out on recycling day. Even though we are recycling (or holding for later reuse) all the packaging material, I still have been feeling bad about all the excess packaging that comes with physical gifts.
The other day, we received a couple more packages. One item came in a decent sized box but was very light. I was curious what was inside, so I opened it immediately and was surprised to find one rather small item, a grill cleaning brush.
I was not surprised that we received the brush. We had registered for it (and it went along with a grill that we had already received). Yet, I was surprised that such a small item was shipped in such a large box. Let’s do a little math:
- If you measure the brush at its widest points for length, width, and height, the total volume is 90 cubic inches (18” x 2.5” X 2”).
- It was shipped in a box designed to hold over 1,437 cubic inches (18.25” x 9” x 8.75”).
- Our new grill cleaning brush used up about 6% of the box’s volume. But instead of Amazon filling the rest of the space with 15 more brushes, they shipped us something else: 1,347 cubic inches of air (contained in plastic bubbles).
Someone might argue that it is not that big of a deal since air does not weigh anything. It likely does not cause any extra emissions — no extra weight is shipped. I would partially agree with that argument. But here is the real issue.
The empty space in the box took up unnecessary space in the shipping vehicle (most likely a truck). This space could have been filled by several other packages, but instead those packages had to go on another truck. All the empty space adds up to more trucks on the road. To understand how big this impact could be, I am going to do a little more (albeit rough) math:
- In 2009, Amazon sold over $24.5 billion of merchandise
- If we assume the average order size is $200, they received 122.5 million orders in 2009
- If we assume 25% of the orders were digital/downloadable goods (music, ebooks, software, etc.), Amazon shipped almost 91.9 million packages (75% of 122.5 million).
- Assuming only 5% of their shipments are wastefully packaged like mine, Amazon shipped almost 6.2 billion cubic inches of air in 2009 (91.9 million packages x 5% x 1,347 cubic inches of wasted space). This 6.2 billion cubic inches is equal to 3.5 million cubic feet.
- To transport this 3.5 million cubic feet of air required 894 trucks with 53’ trailers (each can hold 4,005 cubic feet)
- Assuming each truck was driven only one day and covered 400 miles (truckers can only drive 11 hours per day), this required over 2.5 million gallons of gas (assuming 7 mpg, average for tractor trailers is 5 to 9).
So what might appear to be just some extra space in a package could actually be 2.5 million gallons of wasted petroleum. And don’t get me started on the trees cut down for the unnecessarily large boxes…
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Congratulations!
Thanks!
I’ve seen that very issue addressed by other companies, for similar reasons – Tropicana, for example, redesigning their bottles so they could get more orange juice on one truck. Apple reduced the package volume of their Mac Minis for similar reasons. For those companies, the environmental motive (lower transportation emissions, less wasted packaging) overlapped with the economic motive (lower transportation costs from more units-per-container, lower packaging costs). I wonder what the economic motive would be for Amazon to use more better-fitting boxes?
First off: Congrats! Congrats! Congrats!!
Second off: Amazon makes me crazy… as much as I love them, their packaging practices are AWFUL! I’ve gotten tiny little things in boxes 4+ times the size of the item and it just kills me to see all the plastic filler inside. I had never thought of the space issue on the truck and now it’s making me crazier… ARGH! I guess the lessons here are to either buy more local and/or contact Amazon and ask them to green up!
It is amazing how much of an impact excess packaging can have on the environment and the bottom line. Wal Mart was pretty early to recognize this and is forcing major companies like P & G to change their packaging.
Woohoo, Litchfields!!!!!!
I have a very similar thought process when I receive something that has been shipped, though not nearly as thorough as yours with all the calculations. These e-commerce companies need someone in charge of asking, “is this too much?” I wonder if your packaging display ever raised a question in the mind of the person who did it….
Thanks for the eye-opener. I have also witnessed this with Amazon. Fortunately, we keep the boxes we receive and re-purpose them (if they’re large enough), so at least that helps a little.
I’m new so don’t shoot me for inserting a different thought. I live in the country (what’s left of it) in the south and hate to see the slaughter of anything living for no reason. Yes I’m a tree hugger… lol. But I was wondering how many jobs those empty trucks provided. Because jobs are truly hard to come by here – right now… which is why I just posted this site on FB…because its American Made from Recycled Products… Still those drivers could have been hired for redesigning shipping cartons and salaries paid from the fuel savings.
Thanks for joining the conversation Myra. I always love to see different point of views. There is no doubt we need jobs. But I would argue we should focus on jobs that help to save energy and resources, not use more of it. For example, expanding rail infrastructure, weatherizing houses to be more energy efficient, or as you said above redesigning packaging to be more environmentally friendly.
Interesting article from yesterday’s (September 7) NY Times. Amazon Tries to Cut Frustration over Packaging – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/technology/08packaging.html?_r=2&th&emc=th. Before pointing the finger at their suppliers, maybe they should clean up their packaging act as well.
I work in Marketing and we often work with our Purchaing Department to determine what type of packaging should be used for our products. As noted in the comments above, there is an overlap between making environmentally friendly choices and making economically sound ones – so, when we cut down on packaging with the main thought being that we want to save money, it does benefit the environment by producing less waste.
However, we also try to reduce the number of SKUs we have for our packaging (so, less variability or number of different, custom-sized boxes). The reason for this is that when we have had a large variability in boxes so the product fits inside them better and there is less waste per boxed product, we end up wasting more as a wider range of boxes have to be produced. For example: If we have 3 different boxes for 3 separate products, each has to be produced separately and a separate inventory has to be maintained. However, if those products are close enough in size that we can get away wtih using one box for all 3, we only need to produce1 box and carry inventory on one box SKU.
So, that’s why a company would be interested in using boxes that might not be the optimal size… but I agree there is a line where it gets to be ridiculous, and you end up paying for it in ineffiecent trucking/shipping.
– but it’s just the experience I have had at my company.
I don’t know if I explained that very well – I’m in Marketing, not Purchasing
Thanks for joining the conversation Tiffany. Those are definitely valid points. It is amazing how complicated it can be to choose packaging and shipping materials…