I recently ordered a single DAT7 tape for a server. TechDepot had the best price at the time, so I went with them. When the tape arrived, it was packaged in the huge box pictured below. That box could easily fit 80 tapes, maybe more.
What the hell is going on with these companies sending out tiny, near-weightless items in these massive boxes? The carbon footprint on stupidity like this is just sickening.
I wish someone at TechDepot (and plenty of other companies… Newegg, *cough* Dell *cough*) would take a little responsibility and stop the madness. Items like this could go out in little bubble-wrap envelopes. Big savings (and more profits) to the retailers, major relief to the shipping companies, less gasoline used for transit, less waste in landfills (or recycling depots) and fewer pissed-off consumers.
If you read the Consumerist you will see this is quite an epidemic among online retailers.