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Components and Circuits For discussions about component types, alternatives and availability, circuit configurations and modifications etc. Discussions here should be of a general nature and not about specific sets. |
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27th Jan 2018, 12:03 pm | #21 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
Posts: 5,337
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Re: Too much Packaging!
I save that brown scrunched-up paper. Smoothed out, it can be rolled up for storage and used for things like wrapping parcels.
About a year ago, "Private Eye" mentioned a Council whose recycling rate had fallen from over 80% to just 50%. They had entered into a contract to generate eccentricity by burning the residual waste, but the problem was that the residual waste had so little calorific value it couldn't produce enough energy. To avoid having to pay swinging financial penalties for failing to generate enough electricity, they were obliged to burn some of the recycled plastic. Last edited by emeritus; 27th Jan 2018 at 12:09 pm. |
27th Jan 2018, 2:45 pm | #22 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.
Posts: 5,553
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Re: Too much Packaging!
There in a rubbish power station in Newhaven that in certain weather conditions can put out a plume of toxic fumes that rebounds off banks of sea fog and comes back in land.
Seaford has had the fumes come in a couple of times now. |
27th Jan 2018, 3:00 pm | #23 | |
Nonode
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Cambridge, Cambs. UK.
Posts: 2,198
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Re: Too much Packaging!
Quote:
Martin
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27th Jan 2018, 3:12 pm | #24 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.
Posts: 5,553
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Re: Too much Packaging!
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27th Jan 2018, 4:58 pm | #25 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
Posts: 5,337
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Re: Too much Packaging!
Curses on autocorrection! I really must get some reading glasses for computer screen distance!
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27th Jan 2018, 5:11 pm | #26 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 13,996
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Re: Too much Packaging!
A while back I did some IT consultancy for one of the UK online retailers of clothes/shoes etc and got talking to one of their 'fulfilment' people.
Apparently they have a number of contracts with different couriers (to avoid issues if one goes on strike or goes bust). Typically the contract allows them - for a fixed price per day/month - to ship a certain number of packages up to a certain weight/volume. More than that agreed limit and they pay extra, same goes for packages of a higher weight/volume than the basic contract. This can cause some things which seem strange to the consumer - like two pairs of shoes ordered at the same time to be sent in two different consignments because if sent in one package they would be over-weight or over-volume for the basic bulk contract and so incur an extra charge. The dispatch software works all this out - equally it keeps a log of how many consignments each courier has been sent and how close this is coming to the basic contract limit - if it sees that limit being approached for a particular courier it will switch consignments to another courier. So your two pairs of shoes ordered at the same time may be delivered by different couriers, sometimes even on different days [if holding-over one pair to the next day keeps within the daily-contract]. All rather fun, and made possible by the ubiquity of barcodes/QR-codes and some serious software. |
27th Jan 2018, 8:16 pm | #27 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
Posts: 5,337
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Re: Too much Packaging!
Reminds me that when I sent a Singer sewing machine motor and foot control to a forum member a couple of year ago, it was much cheaper to send them by Royal Mail as two small parcels rather than one large one.
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27th Jan 2018, 9:59 pm | #28 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Rugeley, Staffordshire, UK.
Posts: 8,830
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Re: Too much Packaging!
Quote:
And yes even though the boxes can sometimes be considered oversize, and sometimes for a variety of reasons, wrong/unsuitable, in general its better to have your goods shipped in a larger box and arrive safely, than one too small with insufficient packing and it arrive crushed. Only last week I received a can of spray paint jammed into a box actually slightly shorter than it. The top cap was split, the now bent over nozzle had been depressed and paint had been discharged into the box. Had the can been in box a couple of inches longer it would not have happened. No, I don't have a problem with oversize boxes.
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28th Jan 2018, 9:18 am | #29 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,980
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Re: Too much Packaging!
I had problems with packing from RS some years ago. I was ordering four, very high price computer grade RIFA electrolytics (47,000 uF, 100V massive ripple current). They had three attempts before a set arrived without dents in them by banging together in the too-small box and inadequate individual component padding.
But although I find massive boxes with tiny things in them irritating, it is all recyclable. Or retain for anything else you need to send. |
28th Jan 2018, 9:44 am | #30 |
Banned
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Middlewich, Cheshire, UK. & Winter in the Philippines.
Posts: 3,897
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Re: Too much Packaging!
I ship radios abroad in recycled boxes, the bigger the better.
In fact so big that most carriers won't take them, DPD will take larger than most. My usual box is 1100 X 600 X 900. Its what swivel reclining chairs are delivered in, kit form. I put a skid bottom of 4 pieces of slate lath wood nailed together in a rectangle and glued to the box with pva. Each side of the box has a cross of more slate lath inside so that the ends are in the corners. I use hard expanded polystyrene sheet in the bottom and all 4 sides next to the box. The radio sits in a complete 6 sided wrapping of first white paper, then layers of bubble wrap, then upholstery foam off-cuts. The top space is again filled with polystyrene slab. The box is then taped well and strung around with binder twine, 2 or 3 passes a side and the ends brought to the top and plaited into a substantial handle. Over kill? maybe but radios packed like this have gone around the world without damage, customers have praised the condition they arrive in. The only cost item in this pack is sticky tape, everything else is recycled waste and the time taken is not too much more than a bad packing job. |
28th Jan 2018, 10:08 am | #31 | |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Shropshire, UK.
Posts: 3,051
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Re: Too much Packaging!
Quote:
While disposal is certainly a legitimate concern, there seems to be little said about the finite oil resources used in manufacturing plastics. We've come to rely on both oil and plastic to such an extent that there will, I suspect, be deep regret when it all runs out and it's realised that life-critical items, rather than biscuit wrappers or whatever, could have been made instead. |
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28th Jan 2018, 10:47 am | #32 |
Nonode
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Gloucester, Glos. UK.
Posts: 2,150
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Re: Too much Packaging!
I buy lots from Amazon , so I tend to keep most of the boxes and packaging for reuse to send out at birthdays , Christmas and other forum members.
If opened carefully the first time its very easy to reuse as the quality of the boxes and bubblewrap/packaging is normally really good. |
28th Jan 2018, 12:08 pm | #33 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.
Posts: 5,553
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Re: Too much Packaging!
Quote:
The particles should be small enough for sunlight to break them down into carbon and individual atoms as tar particles do now. It would just reduce the amount of new tar being made from oil. |
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12th Oct 2021, 1:50 pm | #34 |
Heptode
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Bristol, UK.
Posts: 900
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CPC/Farnell packaging!
They seem to have run out of Jiffy bags!
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13th Oct 2021, 1:41 am | #35 |
Nonode
Join Date: May 2016
Location: Cornwall, UK.
Posts: 2,333
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Re: Too much Packaging!
I got a CPC order today as well. A similar sized box as above, part of which was ten 1W resistors...all individually packaged in plastic bags with tear-off strips, the spare room taken up with plastic air bags. The order would happily have gone in a C6 envelope.
I don't buy from Amazon ever for high-falutin' reasons, but the lack of a local shop I can go to on my bicycle for electrical components, using my own bags as I do for shopping, forcing online sales with the bonkers packaging shows up how little individuals can actually do in the face of this distressing plastic waste. |
13th Oct 2021, 12:36 pm | #36 |
Heptode
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Culcheth, Cheshire, UK.
Posts: 653
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Re: Too much Packaging!
I did a job in a book seller's warehouse a few years ago. They sent books out, like Amazon do. Most books were packed completely by machine.
The book was measured, then a strip was cut off a roll of cardboard. The strip was then folded and glued around the book, and the label attached. This machine packaged about forty books per minute. It's certain that Amazon, and most other online suppliers, have machines like this. The Amazon packages that have folded-in ends with no glue look like they have been done by machine. |
13th Oct 2021, 1:20 pm | #37 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Rugeley, Staffordshire, UK.
Posts: 8,830
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Re: Too much Packaging!
At the Rugeley Amazon, books are, or were until a few years ago, packaged by people, not machines. Of course there's a computerised aspect in that the size box etc is specified to the packer by way of a screen (based on the product code), then each component part of the package/box has to be scanned to prove that the stated packaging has been picked and used.
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13th Oct 2021, 3:29 pm | #38 |
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Re: Too much Packaging!
The best so far for want of packaging is when SHMBO bought 18 cans of beer from Amazon, they just put a label on the box, 10/10. They were left on the doorstep and no one nicked them despite "Stella" being prominent from the roadside.
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13th Oct 2021, 6:15 pm | #39 |
Nonode
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Coningsby, Lincolnshire, UK.
Posts: 2,819
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Re: Too much Packaging!
I recently had a Farnell order, came in 2 boxes, 1 box was small and had all the components and a couple of project boxes stuffed into it, the other box was quite large, and all that was in it was 2 cans of foam cleaner and a load of brown scrunched up paper stuff! If it was done to protect the ‘hazardous’ cans from damage during shipping, then they would have failed at that, as the cans were at one end of the box, and the packaging at the other…
Regards Lloyd |
13th Oct 2021, 6:24 pm | #40 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 13,996
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Re: Too much Packaging!
I don't fret about packaging: here, plastic packaging goes into the stove [it makes a good firelighter, as does old shoes, fat collected from the grill-pan, offcuts of plastic drainpipe, old roofing-felt etc] and cardboard/paper gets ripped-up for use as animal-bedding - then when it's been trampled/piddled/dunged-on it's relocated to the orchard and veg-patch where it adds moisture-retaining humus to my otherwise rather poor chalk-substrate soil.
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