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HP Shatters Excessive Packaging World Record
An anonymous reader writes "HP customers will be familiar with their bizarre packaging practices (5 pounds of packaging for 8 license keys!); lets just say this story is not an isolated incident ... " I've seen some excessive packaging, but perhaps nothing to top this.
And I thought the MSDN CDs ya get posted were bad.
They come in a box about the size of an Eee PC (but taller), and contain just a CD in a sleeve cover.
Cost of shipping 150$?
Often times when you ask the shipping department to take care of a package containing hardware, let's say in a 12 x 12 x 4 cube, they are nice enough to protect by putting it in a box with extra padding. Sometimes, when you note it's out of IT and don't notice it's already reboxed, they'll do it again.
This is not that unusual. Clearly they ship out their licenses in a box. I'd just use an envelope like those free ones from the shipping companies. But why ask why, put it in a box. Got many boxes? Put the boxes in a box.
Why not be thoughtful and put 32 pages in one box? This presumes the shipping department knows what's in the box, and even they know, why would they want to deal with all these extra boxes when they can ship them off to the customer.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I feel like being forced to download HP's 600MB installer just to get one printer driver is the software equivalent of this packaging phenomenon.
At first I thought this was just a prank pulled by someone who didn't like HP, but after reading the comments I seem to have to believe it's true. It makes you see this in a whole new light.
-- Cheers!
The shipping department at HP probably get monitored on how many cubic ft of parcels they handle, with a bonus for the supervisors if they ship more than 300cuft of parcels per day.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
There's actually a good reason behind why the power cord(s) is/are packaged separately, and hence in their own boxes - international differences in electrical sockets.
It would suck for inventory and man power if you constantly had to manage how many of each of your servers have continental europe, british, north american and so on power cords with them in the box.
...or perhaps Greenpeace takes into account more than packaging? I mean really, you're declaring their whole environmental study invalid based on a few anecdotes about excessive use of cardboard?
[Disclaimer: In general, I don't trust Greenpeace numbers, but even then, the parent's argument is off.]
And yet, with all that thought going into your post, you don't seem to address the "why the hell would you use a foam-lined cardboard box for two sheets of paper in the first place" question.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Paper recycling is pointless. It biodegrades...
Theoretically. Practically, no, not once it goes into a landfill. That's why you can still find readable newspapers from half a century ago.
As a rule, stuff doesn't really biodegrade once it goes to the dump.
From the strength of your opinions I'm guessing you've never seen a paper mill or know that making pulp from trees for use in cardboard creates sulfur dioxide.
'Here is a list of things recycled paper is environmentally better for than virgin paper: less bleaching, less energy, less pollutants, more benign pollutants, less impact on natural resources, less water, less waste to dispose of. The only waste product that is more of a problem with recycled paper is the sludge produced by removing ink and additives. However, this sludge is material that would otherwise be in landfills and it has repeatedly been proven to be non-toxic.'
- From The Society for Natural Resources Conservation, Cornell University
Yeah, I know you're going to come back at me with a quote from Rush Limbaugh or some advertisement you saw on tv... Or dismiss Cornell University as a hippy haven of intellectuals... Whatever.
No its the fact that Ron Paul is a nutbar is the reason that people don't like Ron Paul.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.