Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends, Bad Apple
Apple recycling information mailer not so green
An Apple Premium reseller in the UK sent us these photos of an Apple recycling information mailer they received: but the mailer itself was sent in a decidedly non-green way.
From photos the reseller sent, it appears the mailer consisted of two sheets of standard A4-sized paper. Those sheets of paper were placed inside a large, yellow clasp envelope. That envelope was then placed inside a corrugated cardboard box. The box was then mailed to the UK from Switzerland.
While all of these materials are recyclable, it seems like a little bit of a waste to send what could have fit in an everyday DL-sized envelope (that's about the size of a number 10 envelope for us Americans) in ridiculously oversized packaging. Plus, it probably would have saved them a bundle on postage.
Apple has been making a concerted effort to reduce its environmental footprint: not only with the program mentioned in this mailer, but for everything from iPhone packaging to how it makes its displays. Surely this isolated incident isn't representative of the company as a whole, but still. Sheesh.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Richard said 1:04PM on 8-20-2008
It COULD have been sent by e-mail...
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G said 1:09PM on 8-20-2008
Indeed.
Do we know how many of these went out? Because you can compare the cost of the postage, printing and packing, multiply by zero, and that's how much email would have cost. Let alone the eco-cost. Someone over there needs a call from Steve. I hear those don't go so well.
Jash Sayani said 1:10PM on 8-20-2008
Yeah, that more eco-friendly !
Brendan said 1:29PM on 8-20-2008
It looks like this is an informational flyer to be posted in the reseller's shop. If this is the case, a package may have been necessary to prevent it from being folded or bent.
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Ian said 4:59PM on 8-20-2008
I agree. It looks like a sign that you would want to prevent from being bent in an international shipment.
KarlW said 7:49AM on 8-21-2008
Email it. Let them print it and display it. Wouldn't get bent, would cost nothing, and be more environmentally friendly.
Ironic, though.
doyouflip said 1:35PM on 8-20-2008
Originally I was going to defend it and say that the box was for return shipment of an item to be recycled. However, the flyer says to bring the item into the store so a box shouldn't be necessary. Hmm...
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Tyler Mackechnie said 1:55PM on 8-20-2008
very confusing
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Matt M said 2:24PM on 8-20-2008
Oh, the humanity!
Jesus H. Christ! What's wasteful is the amount of mental energy devoted to covering this story and the thousands of readers who wasted a few seconds reading it. They could have been dealing with REAL environmental problems.
The company goes out of its way to reduce the amount of packaging for things they ship millions of. A few hundred of these won't destroy the planet.
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Robert Palmer said 2:27PM on 8-20-2008
Lighten up, Francis: it's in the humor category for a reason.
SpinThis! said 2:56PM on 8-20-2008
Maybe the retailer is misunderstanding the purpose of the box? To me, it looks like the mailer is used for sending something back to Apple inside, eg for recycling. Are you sure the retailer didn't request the box for, say, defective, or customer returns?
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Shane said 3:23PM on 8-20-2008
I recently bought a Macbook, and part of the purchase online was the option to recycle my old laptop. I selected yes, and they shipped me something that looks exactly like this. A recycle info page and a box to send my old laptop to Apple for recycling.
Are we sure that's not the case here? It's very coincidental that I received almost the exact same package.
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lokipo said 5:16PM on 8-20-2008
Working at an Apple premium reseller in Germany I can confirm that this is neither a return shipment box nor an one-off incident.
We did get our recycling posters in exactly the same packaging. In every single store.
Weird, even by Apple's standards... Normally these things are sent in some (recycled) brown envelope.
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apruk said 5:28PM on 8-20-2008
Trust me, thats all we got in the box.
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jc said 5:50PM on 8-20-2008
When are people going to realize all this "green" stuff by corporations is a farce and simply for public relations?
If you really want to be "green" don't buy products with semiconductors, its a messy dirty process. Mailing cardboard around the world is nothing.
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Luigi193 said 6:15PM on 8-20-2008
ALL the green crap (not from tuaw, but in general) drives me CRAZY!!!!!
It makes me want to burn the Rain Forest MORE
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dan said 7:33PM on 8-20-2008
it's US Americans, not WE Americans.
and no one said that this person can't reuse the box for something else, or recycle it themselves!
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Robert Palmer said 7:34PM on 8-20-2008
I was all ready to get all grammar Nazi on you, but you're right! It's "us" Americans because it's the object of a preposition. I am duly shamed.
Thanks for the catch!
duro said 8:28PM on 8-20-2008
Couldnt find anything else to bitch about today huh?
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kURTaz said 9:41PM on 8-20-2008
Oh, I'm so angry! I couldn't see the picture very well, so I printed it 11 x17. Once I could see the thing, I got so mad at Apple and TUAW that I copied it 20 times and posted it around work so people would never go to those websites.
People, we have to be serious about going green!
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