I Hate Packing Peanuts

Packing peanuts have got to be on my top ten most annoying things ever list. Not only are they bad for the environment, they have malicious little minds of their own. They fly all over the place, stick my hands and my clothes, and take forever to scoop out of a box. There is no easy way to get a box full of packing peanuts emptied. And the entire time I'm trying to empty a box, my cat is jumping inside the box trying play.

Why this rant today? I just spent about 45 minutes gathering up all of the shipping boxes and packing materials that I had thrown in my downstairs shower (which no one ever uses) while getting ready for Christmas. I do a lot of shopping online. I'm always amazed at the huge box that one little CD can arrive in.

In the past, I've always recycled as much of the packing materials that I could, but this year I decided to go one step further. I've neatly put all the boxes, packing peanuts, air pillows, balled up paper, and anything else that can be used for packing/shipping together in the biggest shipping box and offered it all up on Freecycle. There has to be someone out there who sells on ebay or has other shipping needs who can use it all. This way, it can all get reused at least one more time before it is recycled.

Today is glass/plastic/paper pick up day in my town, and as I look down the block, I see tons of useful boxes put out at the curb. I'm not judging - it's being recycled and that 's a good thing. In the past, my curb would have looked just like the rest. But it feels good to know that I'm doing just a little bit to curb the waste instead of putting the waste out at the curb.