Drowning In Packaging

As the fortunate recipient of a huge number of gifts recently, much of my after-work time has been spent opening boxes and disposing of packaging. I truly appreciate thoughtful and careful packaging. After all, it is so much nicer when a gift arrives in one piece and un-broken. However, in order to ensure that it arrives this way, different retailers tend to rely on various methods of cushioning to achieve the same goal. This can range from Styrofoam “peanuts”, to air pillows, to wads of paper.

As a rather devoted opponent of clutter, the process of opening gifts has been to open, admire, and then remove all packaging immediately for trash and recycling. It is incredible how much “trash” just a few packages can produce. I began to wonder what to do with all of this packaging. Clearly, throwing it in the trash is not the right answer. At the same time, storing what would have been 35 full-size garbage bags full of peanuts and air pillows for future re-use was not something that I was necessarily interested in. I was sure that there was a probably a very simple and convenient solution….and there was. Just a quick internet search and phone call provided two solutions. The quick internet search resulted in finding the Plastic Loose Fill Council (http://www.loosefillpackaging.com/). A very easy-to-navigate website that provides many convenient locations close to you that are thrilled to get your “packing peanuts”. The easiest location for me ended up being any one of the four UPS stores between my home and office.

As for the unbelievable amount of “air pillows”….Williams-Sonoma loves getting them and they re-use them when packaging other peoples gifts. Also….it’s a great excuse to go check out all of the kitchen stuff that you really “need”.