Packaging

Just so you know at the outset, today’s blog has nothing to do with reading or publishing. Perhaps there’s a tenuous connection to writing, since the adventure began when I bought thumb drives to store creative work away from my computer. These little objects came in a set of three (cheaper than individuals). Each device is less than three inches by one inch by one-half inch; i.e., small. The package was one foot wide and about fourteen inches high, made from a combination of thick cardboard and extraordinarily strong plastic.

How much manufacturing cost, storage space, and transportation outlay could have been saved by using a bag approximately the same size as the items being sold? How much smog went into the air to create that industrial-strength plastic? And how many trees were made into unnecessary cardboard? Then there’s the effort it took to unwrap my purchase once I got home. Tools, time, frustration, fussing—you’ve been there, so I won’t belabor the point.

Maybe electronic items could be sold similarly to groceries. Could I take my own bag, avoid a surcharge, and also not have to tear up a fingernail or two? It could save a little time, some materials, a planet…


Carlene Havel, author of "A Hero's Homecoming"
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_nos...
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Carle... http://www.prismbookgroup.com/AHerosH...