Yahoo News What a waste! Amazon uses 45ft of wrapping paper to package just one calendar
Amazon has landed itself in trouble for using a needless 45ft of wrapping paper to package just one calendar.
The online shopping giant was accused of ‘chopping down the rainforest’ by a number of customers who ordered the item.
Annie Gelly purchased the Collins A2 calendar online, but it arrived in a cardboard box so large that she believes it ’could have held ten of them’.
The grandmother-of-one from Herne Hill, south London, said she had been expecting the £8.99 calendar to arrive in a Jiffy bag or envelope and was shocked to see ‘such a waste’ of paper.
Ms Gelly, who is in her 70s, said: ‘The calendar arrived last Thursday and it has masses of paper in the box – there were nine lengths of screwed-up brown paper which measured about 45 feet in total.
‘Amazon always package stuff this way – I’ve had things like this in the past and they’re particularly prone to it – but this really took the biscuit.
‘They could have fitted at least ten calendars in that box and I’d expected it to turn up in a cardboard envelope or a Jiffy bag.’
Most popular on Yahoo News UK
‘Don’t block my drive’: Patient whose neighbour left angry note on ambulance has died
Britain’s most married man Ron Sheppard is heartbroken after wife number NINE leaves him
WW1 in colour: Stunning images bring historic conflict to life ahead of Armistice Day
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in ‘nervous breakdown’ in Iranian jail over breast cancer fears
11 tweets that have come back to haunt Donald Trump
Ann and husband Dave, also in his 70s, say they have kept the box to store books but could not find a use for the huge length of paper.
She added: ‘It’s such a waste, I couldn’t use the paper for anything else because it was all scrunched up and it completely filled the recycling bin.’
In another order, the length of paper was twice the length of a great white shark at 26ft long.
That customer, who asked not to be named, said: ‘I know that the paper they use is recycled, but I can’t help but think Amazon are still chopping down the rainforest.
‘It was so excessive – but on the plus side, I won’t need to buy any wrapping paper this Christmas.’
A spokesperson for Amazon said: ‘We continue to pursue multi-year waste reduction initiatives to promote easy-to-open, 100 per cent recyclable packaging and to ship products in their own packages without additional shipping boxes.
‘These initiatives have grown to include more than 1.2 million products over time and have eliminated more than 36,000 tonnes of excess packaging just in 2015.’
