- Joined
- Jul 29, 2017
- Messages
- 3,933
- Reason
- PALS
- Diagnosis
- 07/2017
- Country
- US
- State
- OR
- City
- Southern Oregon
This is a rant.
Ever wonder about excessive and wasteful packaging? Think about Costco where a small item might be encased in a plastic package many times its size. All that plastic eventually ends up in a landfill, or even worse, in our waterways.
Then there are items we purchase online, shipped to us in packaging many times larger than the item itself.
And so it was today. A mystery email was sent to me yesterday by UPS. It promised a package would be forthcoming the following day. But I didn’t remember ordering anything recently. My curiosity was piqued. What could it be? A second email arrived today, “Your package will be delivered today.”
I had no clue.
And so this afternoon, the UPS truck pulls up my driveway, the driver comes out and rings the doorbell. My spouse is handed a large styrofoam container at least 1 cubic foot in size. The mystery deepens. Did someone send me food as a gift? I certainly wasn’t expecting anything of that nature.
We open the container. It is packed with multiple layers of plastic bubble wrap. Working through the bubble wrap and three ice packs (!), we find a tiny bottle of prescription hormone replacement tablets which I know to be stable at room temperature.
I recall that last week I ordered a refill of one of my prescriptions from my mail order pharmacy.
I’m half laughing and half livid. Am I going to receive a similar package each time I renew this medication? I think about where the styrofoam and plastic will eventually end up. This same little bottle of pills could just have easily been sent in a much smaller padded mailing envelope. Ok, so maybe this particular medication should not be subjected to extreme heat. I get it. But still..... gotta wonder.
Ever wonder about excessive and wasteful packaging? Think about Costco where a small item might be encased in a plastic package many times its size. All that plastic eventually ends up in a landfill, or even worse, in our waterways.
Then there are items we purchase online, shipped to us in packaging many times larger than the item itself.
And so it was today. A mystery email was sent to me yesterday by UPS. It promised a package would be forthcoming the following day. But I didn’t remember ordering anything recently. My curiosity was piqued. What could it be? A second email arrived today, “Your package will be delivered today.”
I had no clue.
And so this afternoon, the UPS truck pulls up my driveway, the driver comes out and rings the doorbell. My spouse is handed a large styrofoam container at least 1 cubic foot in size. The mystery deepens. Did someone send me food as a gift? I certainly wasn’t expecting anything of that nature.
We open the container. It is packed with multiple layers of plastic bubble wrap. Working through the bubble wrap and three ice packs (!), we find a tiny bottle of prescription hormone replacement tablets which I know to be stable at room temperature.
I recall that last week I ordered a refill of one of my prescriptions from my mail order pharmacy.
I’m half laughing and half livid. Am I going to receive a similar package each time I renew this medication? I think about where the styrofoam and plastic will eventually end up. This same little bottle of pills could just have easily been sent in a much smaller padded mailing envelope. Ok, so maybe this particular medication should not be subjected to extreme heat. I get it. But still..... gotta wonder.