The company doesn't have to send a self-serving flyer but even a small sticker or slip of paper would be helpful.

That is good though, the Styrofoam ones are a pain in the ass

@lawnmowerdeth: Tell that to my dog - he'd eat a whole box if we let him.

My dog is very strange.

According to the flyer, the print job is Forest Stewardship Council certified and printed on stock with 30% known post-consumer recycled content.

www.fsc.org

With that seal we know that the trees are not being slashed acre-upon-acre and not replenished, losing habitat and CO2 filtering.

Why not print on the box? Because graphic designers need work, too, and it's cheaper to print inserts than on the box.

The downside? They disintegrate a bit during shipping, so sometimes you end up covered in packing snow.

You're right - I just wanted to show how, even in the worst-case scenario, online ordering is usually still more resource-friendly. In the best case...

Manufacturer -> Consumer

...it's exceptionally more efficient.

@suzapalooza:

Cast Iron FTL....what a pain. Season/don't use soap/blah blah blah...

I'll stick to my Eclipse coated anodized aluminum pans, thank you very much

@InfiniTrent:

No kidding! Heck, the routes of UPS are so carefully planned that they have people figure out how to reduce left turns

[multichannelmerchant.com]

The equation gets even better when you get items drop-shipped from the manufacturer, or in cases such as Amazon.com where the Distributor/Warehouse/Online Store are all the same.

Manufacturer -> Distributor -> Retail Store -> Customer

Manufacturer -> Distributor -> Online Store -> Customer

There are an equal number of steps in each equation, and each arrow represents a step in shipping.

Do you think one UPS Truck driving a carefully planned route around a geographical area to deliver 30 cast iron skillets would take more or less gas than 30 people making a special trip to drive their own cars across town and back to buy the same cast-iron skillet at the store?

Yes, everyone could possibly walk, but let's be realistic, since reality is where we live.

My wife and I registered at Macy's. I can't tell you how many humongous boxes we received that were 90% peanuts, 10% actual items. It was insane.

I mean, my cat loved it - reaching into boxes and hooking styrofoam peanuts is one of his favorite games, second only to tearing said peanuts apart and making each peanut cover like 20 square feet - but it was obnoxious.

I think it was irresponsible of her to order a cast iron pot from an online source. How much gas did it take to ship that puppy? First from the manufacturer to the warehouse, then to her door. Get off your butt and go to the store! Walk there and back and get some great exercise toting that cast iron pot! (tho she gets props for buying cast iron - one of the few cooking devices that's good for the environment)

That being said: any of you who contemplate keeping a stash of these in plastic bags for future packing, be aware that they will grow mold and stick together if exposed to dampness. I learned this the hard way. Ewww!

@TWSS: That's what I was thinking, too. If biodiesel is dicey as an alternative to oil, it seems like using food-based packing materials as an alternative to oil-based is pretty much the same thing!

My thoughts exactly, minus the profanity :)

I hope the flyer is biodegradable.

The styrofoam peanuts aren't edible? Oops...

While they are a great improvement, I know that vermin find them yummy. I lived in a loft in an industrial area and a nearby building was torn down. The displaced rats came to our building.
I had a big garbage bag full of those biodegradable packing peanuts and one night I heard something in it crunching.
The landlord brought over some traps that the rats totally ignored. So I put those some of those peanuts in the traps and wham, wham, wham, the rats were gone. Well, after the LL hauled them away, they were gone.

I don't keep them in the house.

They used to market something similar as children's building-block toys, I think they were called "Zog Logs" or something similar. You wet the ends of them and they stick to each other (becuase they start to partially dissolve). You can use these 'peanuts' to build things if you so desire... a packing-peanut mansion for your pet, and it's edible!

If i dissolve enough will i have instant potatoes? Be pretty sweet to kill two birds with one stone! On a serious note, good move!

I can imagine that roaches and small vermin will serve as "added features" with Macy's shipments.

In all seriousness, have there been any reports of infestation?

Just don't get them wet, because the peanuts start sticking together quite readily (I presume the wet bits start to dissolve) once they get damp.

And they offset it by killing a tree to tell you how they are saving the earth on a flyer. Why not just print it on the box? Why create a whole fucking flyer?

Global food crisis? What global food crisis?

Just like the government that spent $40million to tell me I had a check coming.

These are nothing new. In college, when I worked in the school IT department, we always used to gross people out by eating these packing peanuts. One guy I know, who admittedly was a bit off, actually liked the things as snack food with a little ketchup.

The other thing you can do with these is leave them over the drain of a drinking fountain. When the water hits it, it will turn into a translucent gelatinous mass quite resembling a number of bodily fluids.

Man, finally a realist republican around to really keep it real. I'm so amazed at your capacity for cutting right to the bone. We need more people like you, Bolton & Wolfowitz.

Are you kidding? These things have been around for 10 years or so. I remember my parents getting them in packages years ago.

Macy's is just behind the times.

There is a hidden charge. It is called "tax-payer subsidies for agriculture."

These have been used for shipping at Barnes & Noble stores for the last decade.

But still not edible. Come on, peeps.

Awesome! Our ferrets love digging in boxes full of these things and it's a pain to find them these days!