Amazon Shipping

 

Thanks very much to my friend who decided to buy me a 64GB MicroSD card a few days ago, after they saw me moaning about the fact that I almost got in another collision, but didn't have my dashcam recording, because the SD card was still in my laptop from the last collision a couple of weeks ago. (See Insurance Company, parts I, II, III, IV..), and I hadn't put it back in the car yet.

No thanks very much to Amazon for shipping a tiny MicroSD card in a giant plastic envelope:

Dishbrush for scale. I didn't have any bananas.

It's not like they could have got away with a smaller envelope. It would just be too tight.

This seems like a little excessive, no? Surely this plasticised cardboard with the hard plastic container surrounding the SD card sealed inside it, which I'm pretty sure I could stand on without damaging, could have just gone in a small, paper, envelope?

I mean, the packaging of the SD card is already sufficiently ridiculous:

For something the size of my thumbnail:

Check out my cool scar!

Sure, I can understand that there needs to be a minimum size to the packaging for something like this, for product handling and theft prevention etc (because it would be too difficult to just rip a piece of cardboard and take the tiny SD card out and put it in your pocket), and at least the packaging is mostly "friendly", even if it is plasticised cardboard that probably takes 100 years to break down.

But this envelope! It's totally ridiculous. And I'm not sure that whatever extra protection the plastic and bubble wrap provides would really make any difference to the safety of the content whatsoever.

At least I can re-use it I guess, since I do have some stuff to go up on eBay shortly, which will be able to be shipped out again using this size of envelope.

But this envelope! It is big enough that my fat head even fits in it:

Not a small head

And sure, OK, I guess that maybe these are the smallest envelopes that Amazon has. It's not like they'd have any convenient place to source smaller envelopes for their products or anything.

Update: As has been pointed out, these envelopes are (apparently) recyclable. They also have information printed directly on the envelope:

Link: https://how2recycle.info/

Store Drop-off indicates that there are retailers that will accept these, allowing them to be put into the recycling system, regardless of the local programs and/or services. https://how2recycle.info/sdo

I would still prefer to see these re-used, rather than just shredded and reprocessed, which probably requires as much, or more, energy and resources than it did to produce it in the first place.

Bonus content:

My thumb scar.. don't use shitty folding screwdrivers, like this:

when you're attempting to unscrew a PC power supply. If the screw won't turn, you'll have to push down really hard. And then the screwdriver will fold up. And then your thumb will go directly down the very sharp corner of the power supply:

The screw I was trying to undo

And then you'll swear. When you look at your thumb, you'll notice that the injury is both red, but also peculiarly white in the middle.. Oh. That's bone.

I did this when I still lived in Australia, so some time before 2008.